Growth of Cities and American Culture

1. Growth of Cities and American Culture Excerpt from C. Richmond’s “Industrialization” PPT – posted to her website

2. “New” Immigrants Italian Immigrant • Eastern and Southern Europe • Italians, Slavs, Greeks, Poles and Russians • Pull Factors • Political and religious freedom • Economic opportunities • Push Factors • Joblessness, religious persecution Russian Jewish Family

3. Urbanization Manhattan • Urbanization and Industrialization developed simultaneously • Cities provided a labor force and a market place of goods • City population – immigrants and ex-farmers Chicago

4. Changes in the City • Ethnic neighborhoods • Chinatown, Little Italy • Maintain language, culture and religion • Skyscrapers – expansion upward • Replaced the church spirals as dominant feature of skylines • Streetcars-exodus of higher income workers • Effect – segregation by income

5. Private vs. Public City • At first residents of cities did not expect public services as a result cities did not deal with build up waste, pollution, disease, and crime • Advocates pushed for services: water purification, sewage systems, street lighting, police departments, and waste disposal

6. Factors Promoting Suburban Growth • Abundant land at low cost • Inexpensive transportation • Low cost construction homes • Ethnic and racial prejudice • American fondness for privacy and detached individual houses

7. Boss and Machine Politics • Political parties in major cities came under control of organized groups of politicians, known as political machines • Each machine had a “boss”- top politician who gave orders to the rank and file and doled out government jobs to supporters • Political Machines could be greedy as well generous – stole millions from the taxpayers Boss Tweed portrayed as a vulture

8. Settlement Houses Jane Addams • Concerned about the lives of the poor well education men and women opened settlement houses • They were also political activists who fought for child labor laws and housing reforms • Most famous – Hull House opened by Jane Addams Hull House

9. Social Gospel • Importance of applying Christian principles to social principles • individuals could not live sin free unless the social and economic situations that had driven them into sin in the first place was removed • Encouraged middle-class Protestants to attack urban problems

10. Realism • Realist Author- Mark Twain The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- revealed greed,violence and racial prejudice • James McNeill Whistler – “Whistler’s Mother” influenced the development of modern art

11. Architecture and Music • Frederick Law Olmsted specialized in landscape architecture – designed Central Park and the grounds of the U.S. capitol • Jazz – Jelly Roll Morton introduced Jazz to the American public – combined African rhythms with western instruments

12. Amusements • Circus, Theaters, Wild West Show • Factors promoting the growth of leisure time activities • Reduction in hours worked • Improved transportation • Advertising • Decline of Victorian values that discouraged” wasting” time on play

13. Spectator Sports • Baseball, football, basketball, and boxing • Played and attended by men John Sullivan, heavy weight boxer, most famous athlete of the era – drew large crowds from all social classes to cheer and wager