Chapter 19

1. Chapter 19 Immigration, Urbanization, and Everyday Life 1860-1900

2. Introduction 1.) How did immigrants help shape the cities? 2.) What were political bosses, and why did they gain power in post-Civil War cities? 3.) Why did tensions develop between civic reformers and the urban poor? 4.) How did new consumer products and greater leisure time reinforce awareness of class and ethnic differences?

3. Introduction (cont.) 5.) What was “Victorian morality”, and why was it under attack by the late 19th century? 6.) How did economic and educational transformations affect the social roles of women?

4. The New American City • Introduction • In the post-Civil War years, the U.S. experienced rapid urbanization • By 1900, 40% of all Americans lived in cities • NY, Chicago, and Philly each had more than 1 million inhabitants • Cities attracted thousands from the surrounding rural districts and most of the 11 million immigrants who arrived between 1870 and 1900 • Offered work and other opportunities

5. Introduction (cont.) • The population growth: • swamped municipal services • caused terrible housing and sanitary conditions • aggravated class differences and conflicts • The physical deterioration, ethnic diversity, and social instability alarmed native-born reforms who tried to clean up cities and quickly “American” immigrants

6. Migrants and Immigrants • In the post-Civil War years, thousands of young people, especially women, moved from farms to cities to find employment • Between 1860 and 1890 about 10 million Northern European immigrants settled in East Coast and Midwestern cities • Germany • English • Irish

7. Migrants and Immigrants (cont.) • In the late 19th century, “new immigrants” from southern and eastern Europe arrived • Italians • Slavs • Greeks • Jews • Armenians (from the Middle East) • By 1890, the foreign-born and their children accounted for 4/5’s of the population of Great New York

8. Migrants and Immigrants (cont.) • Most who disembarked on the East Coast came through the immigration reception centers at Castle Garden (1855-1890) or Ellis Island (1892 on) • Ellis Island photo albums

9. Migrants and Immigrants (cont.) • After 1910, Angel Island in SF served as the main West Coast reception center • Angel Island photo gallery

10. Migrants and Immigrants (cont.) • German and Scandinavian newcomers tended to migrate to Midwestern cities and to farms on the prairie beyond • Italians and Irish took the first jobs they found in eastern cities

11. Adjusting to an Urban Society • To ease their adjustment, immigrants clustered together in ethnic neighborhoods • They could speak their native language • Buy their traditional foods • Celebrate traditional holidays

12. Adjusting to an Urban Society (cont.) • The various immigrant groups improved their social and economic status at different rates • Those who came with a skilled trade or spoke some English generally did well • The Irish came in such great numbers, that they were able to dominate the Democratic Party and Catholic Church leadership in NY and Boston • They accounted for 16-17% of the population in each city

13. Adjusting to an Urban Society (cont.) • Nationality groups that had high rates of return to their homelands experienced slower upward mobility and assimilation • Italians • Chinese • By the end of the 19th century, resentment of the newcomers (from whatever country) was growing

14. Slums and Ghettos • Neighborhoods deteriorated into slums • landlords packed more and more people into their buildings • The poorer the residents, the greater the crowding and the faster the area declined

15. Slums and Ghettos (cont.) • Ethnic slum neighborhoods became ghettos when discrimination and law kept members of the minority group from obtaining housing elsewhere • Black ghettos in Chicago and Philadelphia • Mexican in Los Angeles • Chinese in San Francisco

16. Five Points, New York City

17. Slums and Ghettos (cont.) • Slums and ghettos were usually adjacent to industrial cities • were filled with soot, coal dust, noise, and foul oders • Pollution and crowding were especially hard on the young • Had very high infant mortality rates

19. Fashionable Avenues and Suburbs • In contrast to slums, grand millionaires’ mansions lined Fifth Avenue in New York, Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, and fashionable boulevards in other cities

20. Fashionable Avenues and Suburbs (cont.) • The wealthy and the middle class also moved to newer, more desirable suburbs on the edges of the old, compact cities • American cities became increasingly segregated along class as well as ethnic and racial lines

21. Middle-and Upper-Class Society and Culture • Manners and Morals • The 19th century Victorian worldviews preached to make personal and national progress an individual must: • work hard • exercise self-discipline • display good manners • cultivate an appreciation of literature and the arts

22. Manners and Morals (cont.) • To the highly moralistic Victorians, status was conferred by possessing abundant amounts of the right material goods • The Victorian code served to heighten the visible gap between classes

23. The Cult of Domesticity • Victorian morality assigned a special place to women • Used the domestic sphere to provide the genteel, sensitive, and spiritual influences that moved society toward higher civilization • They decorated their homes as richly and artistically as their means permitted • Fostered the family’s sense of cultural appreciation

24. The Cult of Domesticity (cont.) • At not time, however, were all middle-class women satisfied with devoting their whole life to this cult of domesticity?

25. Department Stores • Innovative entrepreneurs developed urban department stores that appealed particularly to the Victorian outlook of the upper and middle echelons • Rowland H. Macy • John Wanamaker • Marshall Field

26. Department Stores (cont.) • These giant emporiums advertised: • high-quality goods at low cost • encouraged buyers to believe that owning the right material possessions contributed to civilized living • The department stores were designed to look like palaces: • Marble staircases • Sparkling chandeliers • Thick carpet

27. The Transformation of Higher Education • Higher education was still restricted to the upper and upper-middle class • By 1900, only 4% of youths between 18-21 were enrolled in colleges and universities • These institutions were seen as the training schools for the future business and professional elites • Wealthy capitalists made large donations to already existing universities or started new ones • John D. Rockefeller and Leland Stanford

28. Department Stores (cont.) • For the middle-and upper-classes shopping “became an adventure, a form of entertainment, and a way to affirm their place in society.”

29. The Transformation of Higher Education (cont.) • With private contributions and state support, more than 150 additional colleges and universities were founded between 1880 and 1900

30. The Transformation of Higher Education (cont.) • Higher education for upper-and upper-middle-class women as grew impressively • Some eastern elite universities established affiliated schools for women • Columbia=Barnard (1889) • Harvard=Radcliffe (1894) • More all-female colleges were founded • Wellesley • Smith

31. The Transformation of Higher Education (cont.) • By 1900, women made up 1/3 of the nation’s college students • In this period, the research university was developed and major reforms were instituted in medical and other professional training

32. Working-Class Politics and Reform • Political Bosses and Machine Politics • Urban political machines emerged to govern the unwieldy cities and their many competing interests • Headed by powerful political bosses • The machines gave tax breaks and awarded contracts to favored businessmen • In return received a payoff • Machines also gathered the votes of poor immigrants • Provided them with relief, legal help, and city jobs

33. Political Bosses and Machine Politics (cont.) • Most famous is Tammany Hall • Led by William Tweed • Between 1869 and 1871, Tweed gave $50,000 to the city’s poor and built new school, hospitals,and other facilities • Tammany Hall cost taxpayers about $70 million through graft and padded contracts

35. Political Bosses and Machine Politics (cont.) • Tweed was finally toppled from power with the help of Thomas Nast’s political cartoons in Harper’s Weekly

36. Political Bosses and Machine Politics (cont.) • By the late 19th century, middle-and upper-class good-govt. reformers had begun their drives against the bosses • The bosses and machines attempted to hold on to power by providing more public services and improved urban facilities • Better sewer systems • More parks

37. Battling Poverty • Middle-class reformers also set out to relieve poverty • They often tended to blame: • the problem on character flaws of the poor • “self-destructive” cultural practices of the immigrants • Reformers concentrated on moral uplift and Americanization campaigns among the needy

38. Battling Poverty (cont.) • New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor • AICP • Robert M. Hartley • New York Children’s Aid Society • Charles Loring Brace • Founded dormitories, reading rooms, and workshops for indigent boys • Sent thousands of them to live with and work for families in the Midwest

39. Battling Poverty (cont.) • Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Associations offered rural young people arriving in the cities temporary housing, recreation, and moral strictures against alcohol and other vices

40. New Approaches to Social Reform • By the 1880’s, the Salvation Army and Charity Organization Society (COS) joined the fight against poverty • COS preached a tough-minded approach to charity • Insisted that the needy must meet the standards of responsibility and morality set by the COS’s “friendly visitors” to receive aid • Critics charged that the COS was more interested in “controlling the poor than in alleviating their suffering”

41. The Moral-Purity Campaign • Middle-and upper-class reformers attacked what they considered urban vice • Crusaders demanded that city officials close down gambling dens, saloons, and brothels and censor obscene publications • Anthony Comstock and Charles Parkhurst

42. The Moral-Purity Campaign (cont.) • In 1894, the nonpartisan Committee of Seventy elected a NYC mayor committed to moral purification • But within 3 years the effort failed • The more tolerant political machine was back in power

43. The Social Gospel • The Social Gospel movement developed in the 1870’s and 1880’s among a small group of Protestant clergymen • Founded by Washington Gladden • Congregational minister

44. The Social Gospel (cont.) • The movement preached that urban poverty was caused in part by actions of the rich and well-born • “that true Christianity commits men and women to fight social injustice head on, wherever it exists”

45. The Social Gospel (cont.) • Walter Rauschenbusch • Baptist pastor in NY’s “Hell’s Kitchen”slums • Made the clearest statement on the movement’s philosophy (Christian unity) • Led to the founding of the Federal Council of Churches

46. The Settlement-House Movement • Settlement-House founders blamed poverty not on the poor but on social and environmental causes • Leaders believed that middle-class relief workers must reside among the immigrant masses and learn what services they needed • Firsthand experience

47. The Settlement-House Movement (cont.) • Jane Addams • Hull House in Chicago • Day-care nursery • Legal aid • Health aid • Help find jobs • Offered classes in English and other subjects for immigrants

48. Hull House in 1890’s

49. Hull House today

50. The Settlement-House Movement (cont.) • Settlement-house workers also published studies of the terrible housing and corrective laws • By 1895, more than 50 settlement houses in various cities were training a young generation of students • Many would become state and local govt. officials • Applying the lessons they had learned • Florence Kelly became a factory inspector for IL in 1893