Urbanization and Reform in the Gilded Age

Ch. 8, Sec 3-4

Urbanization

• Movement of people to cities.– Moved from farms to cities.– Immigrants tended to settle in cities.

• Public transportation developed.– Trolleys, cable cars, subways, later buses.

• Suburbs developed.• First skyscrapers built.– Led to first elevators.

1st skyscraper – Home Insurance Building

Living Conditions• Some lived in factory towns, most lived in

tenements.– Low-cost apartments, usually overcrowded.

• Slum areas: overcrowded, dirty, open sewers, rats, stray animals, air pollution, disease, fires a huge danger.– Led to creation of dumbell tenements.• Narrower in middle to allow light & air to inside rooms.

– Led to better health care, clean water.

Politics in Cities• Fierce competition for control of city gov’ts.– Led to creation of Political Machines.• Unofficial organization designed to keep a political

party in power.

• Machine would hand out jobs and favors to citizens.– Citizens were expected to vote for machine

bosses.– Could also bribe machine for favors.

Reform Movements

• Many and with varied goals.– Motivated by religion, conscience, desire to help

others.• Some helped poor and needy.• Some tried to alter behavior.• Some tried to halt immigration.

• New York Charity Organization Society.– Kept records on who received what help.• Could determine “worthy” and “unworthy” needy.

– Expected immigrants to assimilate.• Social Gospel Movement– Based out of churches.– Applied Gospel of Christ to charity.– Tried to fix root causes of alcoholism, poverty,

gambling.– Social Gospel Movement led to Settlement

Houses.

Josephine Lowell-Founder of COS

• Settlement Houses.– Started in USA by Jane Addams in Hull House.– People in neighborhood could come.– Attend cultural events, take classes.– Had child-care centers, playgrounds, clubs,

summer camps for kids.– Very helpful to poor and immigrants.– Settlement houses sprang up around the country.

Jane Addams

Hull House

• Nativism Movement.– Favoring native-born Americans over immigrants.– Anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic.– Led to Chinese Exclusion Act of 1884, repeal of

Contract Labor Act (allowed employers to recruit foreign labor).

• Temperance Movement.– Campaign to eliminate alcohol consumption.– Supported Prohibition.– Led by Prohibition Party, Women’s Christian

Temperance Union, Anti-Saloon League.• Kansan Carrie Nation used hatchet.

Carrie Nation

• Purity Crusaders.– Against vice – immoral or corrupt behavior.– Fought against alcohol, gambling, pornography,

abortion, birth control, political corruption.– Achieved passage of Comstock Law-prevented

sending of obscene material through mail.• Including info on birth control.