City Growth and Innovation in Early 1900s America

1. Chapter 19 The Rise of the City

2. Mulberry Street, New York City, c. 1900 (p. 543) • The influx of southern and Eastern Europeans created teeming ghettos in the heart of New York City and other major American cities. The view is of Mulberry Street, with its pushcarts, street peddlers, and bustling traffic. The inhabitants are mostly Italians and some of them, noticing the photographer preparing his camera, have gathered to be in the picture.

3. Industrial Sources of City Growth • Until the Civil War: • Cities were centers of commerce • Factories were largely rural. • Factories relocated to places most convenient to suppliers & markets. • With the invention of the steam engine & • The use of coal as a fuel • Growth of factories contributed to urban growth; • Large factories employing many workers created small cities within their vicinities.

4. Map 19.1 America’s Cities, 1900 (p. 545) • The number of Americans living in urban places more than doubled between 1880 & 1900, with the most dramatic increases in the largest metropolitan centers, New York grew from 1.2 million to 3.4 million, Chicago from 500,000 to 1.7 million

5. Industrial Sources of City Growth • Many firms set up their plants near a large city • Could use city’s labor supply & transportation systems. • Sometimes a metropolis spread & absorbed nearby factory towns; • Sometimes the lines between industrial towns blurred & an extended urban-industrial area emerged. • Older commercial cities became more industrial because warehouse districts could readily be converted to small-scale manufacturing

6. City Innovation • The commercial cities of the early 19C = densely settled around harbors or riverfronts. • A downtown area emerged • Industrial development followed the arteries of transportation to the outskirts of the city • Concentrations of industry were formed there (outskirts)

7. City Innovation • American cities had lower population densities than did European cities • It was urgent that they develop efficient transportation systems. • 1887: Frank J. Sprague’s electric trolley car: • Became the main mode of transportation in the cities • Replaced the horsecar, which had in turn replaced the omnibus

8. City Innovation • Congestion in the cities led to the development of: • Elevated & underground transportation • Manhattan’s subway = mass transit = rapid transit

9. Map 19.2 The Expansion of Chicago, 1865–1902 (p. 547) • In 1865 Chicagoans depended on horsecar lines to get around town. By 1900 the city limits had expanded enormously, accompanied by an equally dramatic expansion of streetcar service, which was by the electrified. Elevated trains also helped to ease congestion in the urban core. New streetcar lines, some extending beyond the city limits, were important to suburban development in the coming years.

10. City Innovation • With steel girders & passenger elevators available by the 1880s: • Chicago soon pioneered skyscraper construction • New York took the lead after the mid-1890s. • Electricity: • First use of electricity = better city lighting • Thomas Edison’s invention of a serviceable incandescent bulb (1879) put electric lighting in American homes.

11. Thomas Edison’s Laboratories in Menlo Park, New Jersey, c. 1880 • Thomas Edison’s dream of illuminating the world is illustrated by this fanciful drawing of his laboratories in Menlo, New Jersey. For the time being, however, it was the American home that was the primary beneficiary of Edison’s wonderful light bulb, since electricity was slow to arrive in many parts of the world.

12. City Innovation • By 1900: • Alexander Graham Bell’s newly invented telephone linked urban people in a network of instant communication.

13. In a contest for a design that met an 1879 requirement that every room have a window, the dumbbell tenement won. The interior indentation, which created an airshaft between adjoining buildings, gave the tenement its “dumbbell” shape. Figure 19.1 Floor Plan of a Dumbbell Tenement (p. 549) • What was touted as a “model” tenement demonstrated instead the futility of trying to reconcile maximum land usage with decent housing. Each floor contained four apartments of three or 4 rooms. The largest only 10 by 11 ft. The 2 toilets in the hall became filthy or broke down under daily use by forty or more people.

14. “Dumbbell “ Tenement, NYC

15. Tenement Slum Living

16. Tenement Slum Living

17. Private City, Public City • Municipal government = • More centralized • Better administered • More expansive in the functions it undertook. • City streets = • Filthy • Poorly maintained • Smog was a problem • Families lived in crowded tenement housing.

18. Private City, Public City • New York’s Tenement House Law of 1901: • Did little to ease the problems of existing housing • Why? • Only high-density, cheaply built housing earned a profit for landlords of the poor.

19. Private City, Public City • America was the birthplace of the “private city,” • Meaning it was shaped primarily by the actions of many individuals • Each pursued his own goals & bent on making money • Private v. Public enterprise: • People believed that city functions handled through private enterprise -= better than what the community could accomplish through public effort.

20. Private City, Public City • “City Beautiful” movement; • Frederick Law Olmsted’s projects that resulted in larger park systems, broad boulevards, & zoning laws & planned suburbs. • Cities usually thought that urban planners = • Too little & too late • The American city placed its faith in: • The dynamics of the marketplace • Not the restraints of a planned future.

21. The Urban Elite • In cities: • Marks of class began to lose their force • People began to rely on external signs, such as choice of neighborhood, to confer status • Commercial development engulfed downtown residential areas…SO? • Many well-to-do people began an exodus out of the city. • Some of the richest people preferred to stay in the heart of the city • Example: New York’s Fifth Avenue.

22. The Urban Elite • Great wealth did not automatically confer social standing; • In some cities, an established elite, or “old” money, dominated the social heights • New York attracted the wealthy because • It was an important financial center • The opportunities it offered for display & social recognition

23. The Urban Elite • Ward McAllister’s Social Register: • List of all persons deemed eligible for New York society. • Americans were adept at making money • They lacked the aristocratic taste of Europeans for spending it.

24. The Suburban World • American industrialism meant a new salaried middle class • More than 1/4 of all employed Americans were white-collar workers in 1910 • Some of the middle class lived in row houses or apartments • Most preferred to escape to the suburbs • Unlike Americans, Europeans (middle class) were not attracted to the rural ideal & valued urban life for its own sake

25. The Suburban World • The geography of the suburbs = a map of class structure • Farther from the city = finer house & larger lot • Suburban boundaries were ever-shifting • Each family’s move usually = an advance in living standard • In the suburbs, unlike the cities, home ownership = norm • The need for community lost some of its urgency for middle-class Americans • Work & family had become more important

26. Middle-Class Families • 1900: a “family” typically = of a husband, wife, & three children • Family relationship was usually intense & affectionate • Sharp contrast to the impersonal business world

27. Middle-Class Families • The duties of domesticity fell on the wife • Nearly unheard of for her to seek outside employment • The American Woman’s Home, Ladies’ Home Journal, & Good Housekeeping told wives that they were responsible for bringing sensibility, love, & beauty to the household • Custom dictated a wife’s submission to her husband • Some women rebelled against marriage

28. Middle-Class Families • Middle-class bachelors • Didn’t have families to exert patriarchal hold • Didn’t have control over their jobs • Anxiety arose that the American male was becoming weak & effeminate • Men began engaging in competitive sports to combat this image

29. Middle-Class Families • From the 1870s onward • Contraceptive devices & birth control information were legally classified as obscene • Abortion became illegal except to save the mother’s life • During the 1890s the image of a “new woman” began to emerge • Proud of her female form & sexuality • Independent from her father or husband for financial support

30. Middle-Class Families • Parents no longer expected their children to work; • Instead, families were responsible for providing a nurturing environment • Preparation for adulthood became linked to formal education • As a youth culture began to take shape, adolescence shifted much of the socializing role from parents to peer groups

31. Bandit’s Roost • To what extent does the photo support the message in the document? (excerpt from How the Other Half Lives) • What reforms would you have suggested to improve living conditions in city slums in 1890? Photo is an excerpt from The Battle with the Slum, a book that Riis published in 1902

32. Newcomers • 1900: 30% + of the residents of New York, Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis, & San Francisco were foreign-born • Later arrivals from southern & Eastern Europe had little choice about where they lived • Needed inexpensive housing near their jobs

33. Around 1900 Americans began to speak of the “new” immigration. They meant the large numbers of immigrants arriving from eastern & southern Europe—Poles, Slovaks, and other Slavic groups, Yiddish-speaking Jews, Italians—& overwhelming the still substantial & more familiar immigrants from the British Isles & northern Europe. Map 19.3 Sources of European Immigration to the U.S., 1870–1910 (p. 558)

34. Newcomers • Ethnic groups • Capitalized on fellow feeling amongst each other • Built a rich & functional institutional life in urban America

35. Map 19.4 The Lower East Side, New York City, 1900 (p. 559) • As this map shows, the Jewish immigrants dominating Manhattan's Lower East Side preferred living in neighborhoods populated by those from their home regions of eastern Europe. Their sense of a common identity made for a remarkable flowering of educational, cultural, and social institutions on the Jewish East Side.

36. Newcomers • Great African American migration from the rural South to northern cities • Began at the turn of the century • Urban blacks could not escape discrimination • Job opportunities were few • Retreated into ghettos to live • Urban blacks built their own communities • With middle-class businesses • Black churches • Preacher = most important local citizen

37. Ward Politics • Politics integrated newcomers into urban society • Each migrant to a city became a ward resident • Alderman: a spokesman at city hall for local ward residents • Urban political machines • Depended on a loyal grassroots constituency • Each ward was divided into election districts of a few blocks.

38. Ward Politics • The machine = • Social service agency for city dwellers • Provided jobs • Lending help • Interceded against the city bureaucracy • George Washington Plunkitt: New York ward boss who integrated private business & political services

39. Ward Politics • The machine: tenement dwellers gave a vote, businesses wrote a check • For the young & ambitious (white, black, or foreign-born) machine politics = • Most democratic of American institutions • Served an integrating function that cut across ethnic lines.

40. Religion in the City • For many city dwellers the church = central institution of urban life • All the great faiths of the time found it difficult to reconcile religious belief with urban secular demands • Orthodox Judaism survived…HOW? • By reducing its claim on the lives of its faithful

41. Hester Street – Jewish Section

42. Religion in the City • The Catholic Church: • Managed to satisfy the immigrant faithful • Made itself a central institution for the expression of ethnic identity in urban America • Urban Protestant churches • To counter a decline in the number of its members they turned to evangelizing • Became instruments of social uplift

43. St. Patrick’s Cathedral

44. Religion in the City • Young Men’s & Women’s Christian Associations • For single people new to the city • No other association so effectively combined activities with evangelizing appeal through nondenominational worship & a religious atmosphere • Beginning in the mid-1870s, revival meetings swept through the cities, pioneered by figures such as Dwight L. Moody & Billy Sunday

45. City Amusements • Why? • City people needed amusement as a reward for working • Needed to prove that life was better in the New World • Amusement parks & theaters were built to entertain families • Working-class youth forged a culture of sexual interaction & pleasure seeking

46. City Amusements • Prostitution • Became less closeted • Became more intermingled with other forms of public entertainment • Gay subculture • Could be found in certain parts of the city • Had a full array of saloons & clubs supported by gay patrons

47. City Amusements • Baseball: • Grew into more than just an afternoon of fun • By rooting for the home team, fans found identified w/ cities where they lived • Newspapers • Sensitive to the public they served • Catered to city people’s hunger for information & sensational news

48. The National Pastime (p. 568) • In 1897, as today, the end-of-season games filled the bleachers. Here the Boston Beaneaters are playing the Baltimore Orioles. Boston won. The Baltimore stadium would soon be replaced by a bigger concrete and steel structure, but what is happening on the fields need no updating. The scene is virtually identical to today’s game.

49. The Higher Culture • Art: • The Corcoran Gallery of Art opened in 1869 • Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1871 • The Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1876 • Chicago’s Art Institute in 1879 • Symphony orchestras • Appeared first in New York in the 1870s & in Boston & Chicago during the next decade

50. The Higher Culture • Public libraries • Many established by Andrew Carnegie • Grew into major urban institutions • New millionaires patronized the arts • Generous with their wealth • To establish themselves in society • Out of a sense of civic duty • Out of a sense of national pride