5.2 Challenges of the Cities Cities Expand and Change By Angela Brown 1.

5.2 Challenges of the CitiesCities Expand and Change

By Angela Brown

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Learning Targets:I CAN…

• Explain why people left farms for cities in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

• Describe some of the new developments that helped cities grow.

• Describe urban living conditions and the results of city growth.

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Bellringer:

• Consider the expression “bright lights, big city” and list some of the advantages and disadvantages of life in a large city during the late 1800s and today.

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Farms to Cities

• Between 1880-1910, nation’s farm population fell from 72 to 54 percent.

• African Americans migrated to the city due to racial violence, destroyed crops and floods

http://www.edge.org/documents/farm/farm.html

http://www.terragalleria.com/theravada/thailand/bangkok/bangkok.html 4

How Cities Grew

• 1832 New York City public horse drawn carriages traveled on rails – people were able to move to the suburbs

• Suburbs – residential communities surrounding cities

• 1853 saftey device that made passenger elevators possible – Elisha Graves Otis

• 1868 elevated trains allowed commuters to bypass congested streets (NY)

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http://web.presby.edu/~jtbell/transit/SanFrancisco/CableCar/

• 1873 cable cars in San Francisco – quick access to the cities steep hills

• 1885 first skyscraper – Chicago’s Home Insurance Company Building – ten stories

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• 1888 electric trolley’s – Richmond, Virginia

• 1897 subway trains in Boston

• 1893 automobile – mass produced in 1910

http://users.snowcrest.net/marnells/trolleys.htm 7

Urban Living Conditions

• tenements – low-cost apartment buildings designed to house as many families as the owner could pack in = SLUMS

• fire was a constant danger in cities

• most large cities had major fires

http://www1.union.edu/~micklasc/Brazil/Slums%20and%20Riches.htm 8

• 1871 Great Chicago Fire=

• 18,000 buildings destroyed

• 250 dead• 100,000 homeless• $200 million damage

= $2 billion today

http://www.picturehistory.com/find/p/1484/mcms.html9

• Epidemics: cholera, malaria, tuberculosis, diphtheria, typhoid, yellow fever

• NY – one district 6 out of 10 babies died before 1st birthday

http://acclaimimages.com/_gallery/_pages/0015-0312-1706-5729.html10

Ghettos

• Ghettos – areas in which one ethnic or racial group dominates

• Comfort of language, tradition, and culture

• Restrictive covenants – agreement between homeowners not to sell real-estate to certain groups of people

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Jacob Riis

• 1873 police reporter• 1877-1888 New York Tribune• 1888-1899 New York Evening Sun• 1890 published How the Other Half Lives

– to expose horrors of tenement living• He used new technology flash photography

to document = 1st meaningful laws to improve tenements

http://www.picturehistory.com/find/p/1026/mcms.html12

Jacob Riis Collection

• “At 59 Baxter Street . . . is an alley leading in from the sidewalk with tenements on either side crowding so close as to almost shut out the light of day. On one side they are brick and on the other wood, but there is little difference in their ricketiness and squalor."

http://www.mcny.org/Exhibitions/riis/riisa.htm 13

• Bandits' Roost, c. 1890Jacob A. RiisHand-colored glass lantern slideThe Jacob A. Riis Collection, 90.13.5.59

http://www.mcny.org/Exhibitions/riis/riispict.htm 14

How the Other Half Lives 1890

• The doors are opened unwillingly enough . . . . It was photographed by flashlight . . . . In a room not thirteen feet either way slept twelve men and women. . . . The 'apartment' was one of three in two adjoining buildings we had found . . . similarly crowded. Most of the men were lodgers, who slept there for five cents a spot."

http://www.mcny.org/Exhibitions/riis/riisc.htm15

Results of City Growth

• middle/upper class moved to suburbs widening the gap between classes

• growth pressured city officials to improve services so they raised taxes and set up offices

http://www.acclaimimages.com/_gallery/_pages/0038-0407-2215-1026.html16

• increased revenue and responsibilities gave city government more power

• political machine – unofficial city organization designed to keep a particular party or group in power – headed by a “boss” usually picked people to run/helped them get elected

http://www.edhelper.com/ReadingComprehension_35_139.html17

• Graft – use of one’s job to gain profit, was a major source of income for the machines

• Immigrants often supported political machines – immigrants needed their help

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/dec04.html18

• George Cox 1879 – fairly honest political boss

• Republican Cincinnati’s City Council

• improved police officers/city services

http://www.wackyplanet.com/cincinnati.html19

• William Marcy Tweed – “Boss” Tweed – controlled Tammany Hall – NY Democratic party

• 1870 gained access to city treasury

http://encarta.msn.com/media_461515795_761557157_-1_1/William_Marcy_Tweed.html20

• Various illegal methods to plunder treasury (false receipts/pay for non-existent services)

• Political cartoons of Thomas Nast helped bring Tweed down

http://cartoons.osu.edu/nast/21

Santa Claus

http://www.billcasselman.com/santa_claus_2.jpg

http://www.stnicholascenter.org/media/images/n/nast-works.jpg

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