America Moves to the City 1865-1900

AMERICA MOVES TO THE CITY1865-1900

The Urban Frontier

40% of people lived in cities

Louis Sullivan - perfecting skyscrapers

Commuting by electric trolleys.

Why? Electricity Indoor plumbing Telephones Sullivan’s skyscraper

City Life – The AllureDEPARTMENT STORES SISTER CARRIE Macy’s (in New York) Marshall Field’s (in

Chicago) working-class jobs attracted urban

middle-class shoppers.

Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie told of a woman’s escapades in the big city and made cities dazzling and attractive.

City Life - Problems Criminals flourished Sanitary facilities couldn’t keep up Impure water Uncollected garbage Unwashed bodies Animal waste

City Life - Problems “Dumbbell tenements”

Gave a bit offresh air down their airshaft

worst since they were dark, cramped, and had little sanitation or ventilation.

Flophouses - half-starved and unemployed could sleep for a few cents

To escape, the wealthy of the city-dwellers fled to suburbs. “Dumbbell Tenement”

Old v. New Immigration Old Immigrants

British Isles and Western Europe (Germany and Scandinavia)

quite literate and accustomed to some type of representative government.

New Immigrants 1880s and 1890s Baltic and Slavic people of

southeastern Europe Illiterate and not

accustomed to having a representative government

Stay in cities (Little Italy, Little Poland)

Southern Europe Uprooted Why did they come?

No room in Europe Unemployment People boasted of

eating everyday and having freedom and much opportunity

Profit-seeking Americans exaggerated the benefits of America to Europeans cheap labor and more

money.

“Birds of Passage” – returned home quickly

Those that remained (including persecuted Jews, who propagated in New York) tried very hard to retain their own culture and customs. However, the

children of the immigrants sometimes rejected this Old World culture and plunged completely into American life.

Immigration to America from 1890-1916

Reactions to the New Immigration Federal government did

little to help immigrants assimilate

Immigrants were often controlled by powerful“bosses” (New York’s Boss Tweed)

Provided jobs and shelter in return for political support at the polls.

Walter Rauschenbusch and Washington Gladden began preaching the “Social Gospel,” insisting that churches tackle the burning social issues of the day.

Settlement Houses Jane Addams Founded Hull

House in 1889 English classes Counseling – help

newcomers cope with big city life

Child-care services for working mothers

Cultural activities

Settlement Houses Florence Kelley

fought for protection of women workers and against child labor.

Cities also gave women opportunities to earn money and support themselves mostly single

women

A young Florence Kelley

Narrowing the welcome mat

“Nativism” Feared being out-bred

and out-voted Blamed immigrants for

the degradation of the urban government

IRONIC!!!!!!!!! Unionists hated -

willingness to work forsuper-low wages

Narrowing the Welcome Mat

American Protective Association(APA) - against immigrants

1882 - Congress passed the first restrictive law againstimmigration, banned paupers,

criminals, and convicts 1885 - another law was

passed banning the importation of foreign workers under usually substandard contracts.

Literacy tests were proposed, but were resisted

Statute of Liberty Ironically in this

anti-immigrant climate, the Statue of Liberty arrived from France—a gift from the French to America in 1886.

Churches Confront the Urban Challenge

Protestant churches irrelevant in big cities

Urban revivalists - Dwight Lyman Moody, a man who proclaimed the gospel of kindness and forgiveness and adapted the old-time religion to the facts of city life.

Dwight Lyman Moody

Churches Confront the Urban Challenge

Roman Catholics New Immigration Largest denomination

By 1890, America - 150 religions, Salvation Army, which

tried to help the poor and unfortunate.

The Church of Christ, Scientist (Christian Science), founded by Mary Baker Eddy, preached a perversion of Christianity that she claimed healed sickness.

YMCA’s and YWCA’s

Darwinism Disrupts the churches

Charles Darwin On the Origin of

Species

Doctrine of evolution and attracted the ire and fury of fundamentalists.

A Lust for Learning Tax supported

elementary schools Grade school and high

school education = birthright

Free textbooks “Normal schools” –

teacher training schools Catholic schools grew in

popularity and in number. Chautauqua movement –

help working adults Americans began to

develop a faith in formal education as a solution to poverty.

Booker T. Washington v. W.E.B Du Bois

Booker T. Washington - ex-slave

Tuskegee Institute black normal (teacher)

and industrial school useful skills and trades.

Avoided the issue of social equality

Believed in Blacks helping themselves first before gaining more rights.

One of Washington’s students was George Washington Carver,who later discovered hundreds of new uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes,and soybeans.

Du Bois - the first Black to get a Ph.D. from Harvard University

Demanded complete equality for Blacks

Founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1910

Ivy Leagues Colleges and universities

sprouted after the Civil War

Morrill Act of 1862 - grant of the public lands to the states for support of education

Hatch Act of 1887 - provided federal funds for the establishment of agricultural experiment stations in connection with the land-grant colleges.

Newspaper growth Libraries such as the

Library of Congress also opened across America, bringing literature into people’s homes.

“Yellow journalism,” – newspapers reported on wild and fantastic stories that often were false or quiteexaggerated: sex, scandal, and other human-interest stories.

Journalistic tycoons emerged Joseph Pulitzer (New York

World) William Randolph Hearst

(San Francisco Examiner)

Postwar Writing “Dime-novels” -

depicted the Wild West and other romantic and adventurous settings.

Harland F. Halsey – king of Dime Novels (650)

General Lewis Wallace wrote Ben Hur: reaffirmed thetraditional Christian faith

Horatio Alger - rags-to-riches books

Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass.

Emily Dickinson -poet whose poems were published after her death.

Literary Landmarks Mark Twain (Samuel

Clemens) The Adventures of

Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn, The Gilded Age

Stephen Crane The Red Badge of

Courage Theodore Dreiser

Sister Carrie

The New Morality Victoria Woodhull

proclaimed free love, and with her sister, Tennessee

Claflin, wrote Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly

Comstock Law - made it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, and/or lascivious" materials through the mail, including contraceptive devices and information.

The “new morality” reflected sexual freedom in theincrease of birth control, divorces, and frank discussion of sexualtopics.

Ms. Woodhull

Families and Women in the City Urban life stressful

on families Fathers, mothers,

and children worked

Charlotte Perkins Gilman Women and

Economics called for women

tobecome independent

She also advocated day-care centers and centralized nurseries and kitchens.

Feminist Activism National

American Woman Suffrage Association led by

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Ms. Stanton

Feminist Activism Carrie Chapman Catt

Woman’s suffrage The Wyoming Territory

was the first to offer women unrestricted suffrage in 1869.

Ida B. Wells rallied toward better

treatment for Blacks a formed the National

Association of Colored Women in 1896.

Ms. Wells

Temperance and Prohibition

National Prohibition Party in 1869.

Women’s Christian Temperance Union Called for a

national prohibition of the beverage.

Leaders included Frances E. Willard and Carrie A. Nation who literally wielded a hatchet and hacked up bars.

Social Progress The American Red

Cross, formed by Clara Barton, a Civil War nurse, wasformed in 1881.

Artistic Triumphs Art was largely

suppressed James Whistler and John

Singer Sargent to go to Europe to study art.

Mary Cassatt - painted sensitive portraits of women and children

George Inness - America’s leading landscapist.

Thomas Eakins - great realist painter

Winslow Homer - most famous and the greatest of all. painted scenes of

typical New England Augustus Saint-Gaudens

- sculptor

Artistic Triumphs Music reached new

heights Erection of opera

houses and the emergence of jazz.

Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, which allowed the reproduction of sounds that could be heard by listeners.

Amusements Phineas T. Barnum

and James A. Bailey “There’s a sucker

born every minute,” and “People love to be humbugged.”

“Greatest Show on Earth”

“Wild West” shows, like those of “Buffalo Bill” Cody

baseball and football

National Pastime Baseball emerged

as America’s national pastime.

Wrestling gained popularity and respectability.

In 1891, James Naismith invented basketball.