The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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FIGURE 19.1 For the millions of immigrants arriving by ship in New York City’s harbor, the sight of the Statue of

Liberty, as in

Unveiling the Statue of Liberty

(1886) by Edward Moran, stood as a physical representation of the new

freedoms and economic opportunities they hoped to [nd.

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER OUTLINE

19.1 Urbanization and Its Challenges

19.2 The African American “Great Migration” and New European Immigration

19.3 Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life

19.4 Change Reflected in Thought and Writing

“We saw the big woman with spikes on her head.” So begins Sadie Frowne’s _rst memory of

arriving in the United States. Many Americans experienced in their new home what the thirteen-year-old

Polish girl had seen in the silhouette of the Statue of Liberty (Figure 19.1): a wondrous world of new

opportunities fraught with dangers. Sadie and her mother, for instance, had left Poland after her father’s death.

Her mother died shortly thereafter, and Sadie had to _nd her own way in New York, working in factories and

slowly assimilating to life in a vast multinational metropolis. Her story is similar to millions of others, as

people came to the United States seeking a better future than the one they had at home.

The future they found, however, was often grim. While many believed in the land of opportunity, the reality of

urban life in the United States was more chaotic and dif_cult than people expected. In addition to the

challenges of language, class, race, and ethnicity, these new arrivals dealt with low wages, overcrowded

buildings, poor sanitation, and widespread disease. The land of opportunity, it seemed, did not always deliver

19

The Growing Pains of Urbanization,

1870-1900

on its promises.

19.1 Urbanization and Its Challenges

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the growth of American cities in the late nineteenth century

• Identify the key challenges that Americans faced due to urbanization, as well as some of the possible solutions

to those challenges

FIGURE 19.2

Urbanization occurred rapidly in the second half of the nineteenth century in the United States for a number of

reasons. The new technologies of the time led to a massive leap in industrialization, requiring large numbers

of workers. New electric lights and powerful machinery allowed factories to run twenty-four hours a day, seven

days a week. Workers were forced into grueling twelve-hour shifts, requiring them to live close to the factories.

While the work was dangerous and dif_cult, many Americans were willing to leave behind the declining

prospects of preindustrial agriculture in the hope of better wages in industrial labor. Furthermore, problems

ranging from famine to religious persecution led a new wave of immigrants to arrive from central, eastern, and

southern Europe, many of whom settled and found work near the cities where they _rst arrived. Immigrants

sought solace and comfort among others who shared the same language and customs, and the nation’s cities

became an invaluable economic and cultural resource.

Although cities such as Philadelphia, Boston, and New York sprang up from the initial days of colonial

settlement, the explosion in urban population growth did not occur until the mid-nineteenth century (Figure

19.3). At this time, the attractions of city life, and in particular, employment opportunities, grew exponentially

due to rapid changes in industrialization. Before the mid-1800s, factories, such as the early textile mills, had to

be located near rivers and seaports, both for the transport of goods and the necessary water power. Production

became dependent upon seasonal water `ow, with cold, icy winters all but stopping river transportation

entirely. The development of the steam engine transformed this need, allowing businesses to locate their

factories near urban centers. These factories encouraged more and more people to move to urban areas where

jobs were plentiful, but hourly wages were often low and the work was routine and grindingly monotonous.

492 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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FIGURE 19.3 As these panels illustrate, the population of the United States grew rapidly in the late 1800s (a). Much

of this new growth took place in urban areas (de[ned by the census as twenty-[ve hundred people or more), and

this urban population, particularly that of major cities (b), dealt with challenges and opportunities that were

unknown in previous generations.

Eventually, cities developed their own unique characters based on the core industry that spurred their growth.

In Pittsburgh, it was steel; in Chicago, it was meat packing; in New York, the garment and _nancial industries

dominated; and Detroit, by the mid-twentieth century, was de_ned by the automobiles it built. But all cities at

this time, regardless of their industry, suffered from the universal problems that rapid expansion brought with

it, including concerns over housing and living conditions, transportation, and communication. These issues

were almost always rooted in deep class inequalities, shaped by racial divisions, religious differences, and

ethnic strife, and distorted by corrupt local politics.

CLICK AND EXPLORE

This 1884 Bureau of Labor Statistics report for Massachusetts (http://openstax.org/l/clothingfact) from Boston

looks in detail at the wages, living conditions, and moral code of the girls who worked in the clothing factories

there.

THE KEYS TO SUCCESSFUL URBANIZATION

As the country grew, certain elements led some towns to morph into large urban centers, while others did not.

The following four innovations proved critical in shaping urbanization at the turn of the century: electric

lighting, communication improvements, intracity transportation, and the rise of skyscrapers. As people

migrated for the new jobs, they often struggled with the absence of basic urban infrastructures, such as better

transportation, adequate housing, means of communication, and ef_cient sources of light and energy. Even

the basic necessities, such as fresh water and proper sanitation—often taken for granted in the

countryside—presented a greater challenge in urban life.

Electric Lighting

Thomas Edison patented the incandescent light bulb in 1879. This development quickly became common in

homes as well as factories, transforming how even lower- and middle-class Americans lived. Although slow to

arrive in rural areas of the country, electric power became readily available in cities when the _rst commercial

power plants began to open in 1882. When Nikola Tesla subsequently developed the AC (alternating current)

system for the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company, power supplies for lights and other factory

equipment could extend for miles from the power source. AC power transformed the use of electricity, allowing

urban centers to physically cover greater areas. In the factories, electric lights permitted operations to run

twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. This increase in production required additional workers, and this

demand brought more people to cities.

Gradually, cities began to illuminate the streets with electric lamps to allow the city to remain alight

19.1 • Urbanization and Its Challenges 493

throughout the night. No longer did the pace of life and economic activity slow substantially at sunset, the way

it had in smaller towns. The cities, following the factories that drew people there, stayed open all the time.

Communications Improvements

The telephone, patented in 1876, greatly transformed communication both regionally and nationally. The

telephone rapidly supplanted the telegraph as the preferred form of communication; by 1900, over 1.5 million

telephones were in use around the nation, whether as private lines in the homes of some middle- and upper-

class Americans, or as jointly used “party lines” in many rural areas. By allowing instant communication over

larger distances at any given time, growing telephone networks made urban sprawl possible.

In the same way that electric lights spurred greater factory production and economic growth, the telephone

increased business through the more rapid pace of demand. Now, orders could come constantly via telephone,

rather than via mail-order. More orders generated greater production, which in turn required still more

workers. This demand for additional labor played a key role in urban growth, as expanding companies sought

workers to handle the increasing consumer demand for their products.

Intracity Transportation

As cities grew and sprawled outward, a major challenge was ef_cient travel within the city—from home to

factories or shops, and then back again. Most transportation infrastructure was used to connect cities to each

other, typically by rail or canal. Prior to the 1880s, two of the most common forms of transportation within

cities were the omnibus and the horse car. An omnibus was a large, horse-drawn carriage. A horse car was

similar to an omnibus, but it was placed on iron or steel tracks to provide a smoother ride. While these horse-

driven vehicles worked adequately in smaller, less-congested cities, they were not equipped to handle the

larger crowds that developed at the close of the century. The horses had to stop and rest, and horse manure

became an ongoing problem.

In 1887, Frank Sprague invented the electric trolley, which worked along the same concept as the horse car,

with a large wagon on tracks, but was powered by electricity rather than horses. The electric trolley could run

throughout the day and night, like the factories and the workers who fueled them. But it also modernized less

important industrial centers, such as the southern city of Richmond, Virginia. As early as 1873, San Francisco

engineers adopted pulley technology from the mining industry to introduce cable cars and turn the city’s steep

hills into elegant middle-class communities. However, as crowds continued to grow in the largest cities, such

as Chicago and New York, trolleys were unable to move ef_ciently through the crowds of pedestrians (Figure

19.4). To avoid this challenge, city planners elevated the trolley lines above the streets, creating elevated trains,

or L-trains, as early as 1868 in New York City, and quickly spreading to Boston in 1887 and Chicago in 1892.

Finally, as skyscrapers began to dominate the air, transportation evolved one step further to move

underground as subways. Boston’s subway system began operating in 1897, and was quickly followed by New

York and other cities.

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FIGURE 19.4 Although trolleys were far more ef[cient than horse-drawn carriages, populous cities such as New

York experienced frequent accidents, as depicted in this 1895 illustration from

Leslie’s Weekly

(a). To avoid

overcrowded streets, trolleys soon went underground, as at the Public Gardens Portal in Boston (b), where three

different lines met to enter the Tremont Street Subway, the oldest subway tunnel in the United States, opening on

September 1, 1897.

The Rise of Skyscrapers

The last limitation that large cities had to overcome was the ever-increasing need for space. Eastern cities,

unlike their midwestern counterparts, could not continue to grow outward, as the land surrounding them was

already settled. Geographic limitations such as rivers or the coast also hampered sprawl. And in all cities,

citizens needed to be close enough to urban centers to conveniently access work, shops, and other core

institutions of urban life. The increasing cost of real estate made upward growth attractive, and so did the

prestige that towering buildings carried for the businesses that occupied them. Workers completed the _rst

skyscraper in Chicago, the ten-story Home Insurance Building, in 1885 (Figure 19.5). Although engineers had

the capability to go higher, thanks to new steel construction techniques, they required another vital invention

in order to make taller buildings viable: the elevator. In 1889, the Otis Elevator Company, led by inventor Elisha

Otis, installed the _rst electric elevator. This began the skyscraper craze, allowing developers in eastern cities

to build and market prestigious real estate in the hearts of crowded eastern metropoles.

19.1 • Urbanization and Its Challenges 495

FIGURE 19.5 While the technology existed to engineer tall buildings, it was not until the invention of the electric

elevator in 1889 that skyscrapers began to take over the urban landscape. Shown here is the Home Insurance

Building in Chicago, considered the [rst modern skyscraper.

Jacob Riis and the Window into “How the Other Half Lives”

Jacob Riis was a Danish immigrant who moved to New York in the late nineteenth century and, after experiencing

poverty and joblessness [rst-hand, ultimately built a career as a police reporter. In the course of his work, he

spent much of his time in the slums and tenements of New York’s working poor. Appalled by what he found there,

Riis began documenting these scenes of squalor and sharing them through lectures and ultimately through the

publication of his book,

How the Other Half Lives

, in 1890 (Figure 19.6).

DEFINING AMERICAN

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FIGURE 19.6 In photographs such as

Bandit’s Roost

(1888), taken on Mulberry Street in the infamous Five

Points neighborhood of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Jacob Riis documented the plight of New York City slums in

the late nineteenth century.

By most contemporary accounts, Riis was an effective storyteller, using drama and racial stereotypes to tell his

stories of the ethnic slums he encountered. But while his racial thinking was very much a product of his time, he

was also a reformer; he felt strongly that upper and middle-class Americans could and should care about the

living conditions of the poor. In his book and lectures, he argued against the immoral landlords and useless laws

that allowed dangerous living conditions and high rents. He also suggested remodeling existing tenements or

building new ones. He was not alone in his concern for the plight of the poor; other reporters and activists had

already brought the issue into the public eye, and Riis’s photographs added a new element to the story.

To tell his stories, Riis used a series of deeply compelling photographs. Riis and his group of amateur

photographers moved through the various slums of New York, laboriously setting up their tripods and explosive

chemicals to create enough light to take the photographs. His photos and writings shocked the public, made Riis

a well-known [gure both in his day and beyond, and eventually led to new state legislation curbing abuses in

tenements.

THE IMMEDIATE CHALLENGES OF URBAN LIFE

Congestion, pollution, crime, and disease were prevalent problems in all urban centers; city planners and

inhabitants alike sought new solutions to the problems caused by rapid urban growth. Living conditions for

most working-class urban dwellers were atrocious. They lived in crowded tenement houses and cramped

apartments with terrible ventilation and substandard plumbing and sanitation. As a result, disease ran

rampant, with typhoid and cholera common. Memphis, Tennessee, experienced waves of cholera (1873)

followed by yellow fever (1878 and 1879) that resulted in the loss of over ten thousand lives. By the late 1880s,

New York City, Baltimore, Chicago, and New Orleans had all introduced sewage pumping systems to provide

19.1 • Urbanization and Its Challenges 497

ef_cient waste management. Many cities were also serious _re hazards. An average working-class family of six,

with two adults and four children, had at best a two-bedroom tenement. By one 1900 estimate, in the New York

City borough of Manhattan alone, there were nearly _fty thousand tenement houses. The photographs of these

tenement houses are seen in Jacob Riis’s book,

How the Other Half Lives

, discussed in the feature above. Citing

a study by the New York State Assembly at this time, Riis found New York to be the most densely populated city

in the world, with as many as eight hundred residents per square acre in the Lower East Side working-class

slums, comprising the Eleventh and Thirteenth Wards.

CLICK AND EXPLORE

Visit New York City, Tenement Life (http://openstax.org/l/tenement) to get an impression of the everyday life of

tenement dwellers on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

Churches and civic organizations provided some relief to the challenges of working-class city life. Churches

were moved to intervene through their belief in the concept of the social gospel. This philosophy stated that all

Christians, whether they were church leaders or social reformers, should be as concerned about the conditions

of life in the secular world as the afterlife, and the Reverend Washington Gladden was a major advocate. Rather

than preaching sermons on heaven and hell, Gladden talked about social changes of the time, urging other

preachers to follow his lead. He advocated for improvements in daily life and encouraged Americans of all

classes to work together for the betterment of society. His sermons included the message to “love thy

neighbor” and held that all Americans had to work together to help the masses. As a result of his in`uence,

churches began to include gymnasiums and libraries as well as offer evening classes on hygiene and health

care. Other religious organizations like the Salvation Army and the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA)

expanded their reach in American cities at this time as well. Beginning in the 1870s, these organizations

began providing community services and other bene_ts to the urban poor.

In the secular sphere, the settlement house movement of the 1890s provided additional relief. Pioneering

women such as Jane Addams in Chicago and Lillian Wald in New York led this early progressive reform

movement in the United States, building upon ideas originally fashioned by social reformers in England. With

no particular religious bent, they worked to create settlement houses in urban centers where they could help

the working class, and in particular, working-class women, _nd aid. Their help included child daycare, evening

classes, libraries, gym facilities, and free health care. Addams opened her now-famous Hull House (Figure

19.7) in Chicago in 1889, and Wald’s Henry Street Settlement opened in New York six years later. The

movement spread quickly to other cities, where they not only provided relief to working-class women but also

offered employment opportunities for women graduating college in the growing _eld of social work.

Oftentimes, living in the settlement houses among the women they helped, these college graduates

experienced the equivalent of living social classrooms in which to practice their skills, which also frequently

caused friction with immigrant women who had their own ideas of reform and self-improvement.

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FIGURE 19.7 Jane Addams opened Hull House in Chicago in 1889, offering services and support to the city’s

working poor.

The success of the settlement house movement later became the basis of a political agenda that included

pressure for housing laws, child labor laws, and worker’s compensation laws, among others. Florence Kelley,

who originally worked with Addams in Chicago, later joined Wald’s efforts in New York; together, they created

the National Child Labor Committee and advocated for the subsequent creation of the Children’s Bureau in the

U.S. Department of Labor in 1912. Julia Lathrop—herself a former resident of Hull House—became the _rst

woman to head a federal government agency, when President William Howard Taft appointed her to run the

bureau. Settlement house workers also became in`uential leaders in the women’s suffrage movement as well

as the antiwar movement during World War I.

Jane Addams Reflects on the Settlement House Movement

Jane Addams was a social activist whose work took many forms. She is perhaps best known as the founder of

Hull House in Chicago, which later became a model for settlement houses throughout the country. Here, she

reflects on the role that the settlement played.

“Life in the Settlement discovers above all what has been called ‘the extraordinary pliability of human nature,’

and it seems impossible to set any bounds to the moral capabilities which might unfold under ideal civic and

educational conditions. But in order to obtain these conditions, the Settlement recognizes the need of

cooperation, both with the radical and the conservative, and from the very nature of the case the Settlement

cannot limit its friends to any one political party or economic school.” “The Settlement casts side none of those

things which cultivated men have come to consider reasonable and goodly, but it insists that those belong as well

to that great body of people who, because of toilsome and underpaid labor, are unable to procure them for

themselves. Added to this is a profound conviction that the common stock of intellectual enjoyment should not

be dif[cult of access because of the economic position of him who would approach it, that those ‘best results of

civilization’ upon which depend the [ner and freer aspects of living must be incorporated into our common life

and have free mobility through all elements of society if we would have our democracy endure.” “The

educational activities of a Settlement, as well its philanthropic, civic, and social undertakings, are but differing

manifestations of the attempt to socialize democracy, as is the very existence of the Settlement itself. ”

In addition to her pioneering work in the settlement house movement, Addams also was active in the women’s

suffrage movement as well as an outspoken proponent for international peace efforts. She was instrumental in

the relief effort after World War I, a commitment that led to her winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.

MY STORY

19.1 • Urbanization and Its Challenges 499

19.2 The African American “Great Migration” and New European Immigration

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Identify the factors that prompted African American and European immigration to American cities in the late

nineteenth century

• Explain the discrimination and anti-immigration legislation that immigrants faced in the late nineteenth century

New cities were populated with diverse waves of new arrivals, who came to the cities to seek work in the

businesses and factories there. While a small percentage of these newcomers were White Americans seeking

jobs, most were made up of two groups that had not previously been factors in the urbanization movement:

African Americans `eeing the racism of the farms and former plantations in the South, and southern and

eastern European immigrants. These new immigrants supplanted the previous waves of northern and western

European immigrants, who had tended to move west to purchase land. Unlike their predecessors, the newer

immigrants lacked the funds to strike out to the western lands and instead remained in the urban centers

where they arrived, seeking any work that would keep them alive.

THE AFRICAN AMERICAN “GREAT MIGRATION”

Between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the Great Depression, nearly two million African

Americans `ed the rural South to seek new opportunities elsewhere. While some moved west, the vast

majority of this Great Migration, as the large exodus of African Americans leaving the South in the early

twentieth century was called, traveled to the Northeast and Upper Midwest. The following cities were the

primary destinations for these African Americans: New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Detroit,

Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Indianapolis. These eight cities accounted for over two-thirds of the total population

of the African American migration.

A combination of both “push” and “pull” factors played a role in this movement. Despite the end of the Civil

War and the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution (ending

slavery, ensuring equal protection under the law, and protecting the right to vote, respectively), African

Americans were still subjected to intense racial hatred. The rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the immediate

aftermath of the Civil War led to increased death threats, violence, and a wave of lynchings. Even after the

formal dismantling of the Klan in the late 1870s, racially motivated violence continued. According to

researchers at the Tuskegee Institute, there were thirty-_ve hundred racially motivated lynchings and other

murders committed in the South between 1865 and 1900. For African Americans `eeing this culture of

violence, northern and midwestern cities offered an opportunity to escape the dangers of the South.

In addition to this “push” out of the South, African Americans were also “pulled” to the cities by factors that

attracted them, including job opportunities, where they could earn a wage rather than be tied to a landlord,

and the chance to vote (for men, at least), supposedly free from the threat of violence. Although many lacked

the funds to move themselves north, factory owners and other businesses that sought cheap labor assisted the

migration. Often, the men moved _rst then sent for their families once they were ensconced in their new city

life. Racism and a lack of formal education relegated these African American workers to many of the lower-

paying unskilled or semi-skilled occupations. More than 80 percent of African American men worked menial

jobs in steel mills, mines, construction, and meat packing. In the railroad industry, they were often employed

as porters or servants (Figure 19.8). In other businesses, they worked as janitors, waiters, or cooks. African

American women, who faced discrimination due to both their race and gender, found a few job opportunities

in the garment industry or laundries, but were more often employed as maids and domestic servants.

Regardless of the status of their jobs, however, African Americans earned higher wages in the North than they

did for the same occupations in the South, and typically found housing to be more available.

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FIGURE 19.8 African American men who moved north as part of the Great Migration were often consigned to

menial employment, such as working in construction or as porters on the railways (a), such as in the celebrated

Pullman dining and sleeping cars (b).

However, such economic gains were offset by the higher cost of living in the North, especially in terms of rent,

food costs, and other essentials. As a result, African Americans often found themselves living in overcrowded,

unsanitary conditions, much like the tenement slums in which European immigrants lived in the cities. For

newly arrived African Americans, even those who sought out the cities for the opportunities they provided, life

in these urban centers was exceedingly dif_cult. They quickly learned that racial discrimination did not end at

the Mason-Dixon Line, but continued to `ourish in the North as well as the South. European immigrants, also

seeking a better life in the cities of the United States, resented the arrival of the African Americans, whom they

feared would compete for the same jobs or offer to work at lower wages. Landlords frequently discriminated

against them; their rapid in`ux into the cities created severe housing shortages and even more overcrowded

tenements. Homeowners in traditionally White neighborhoods later entered into covenants in which they

agreed not to sell to African American buyers; they also often `ed neighborhoods into which African

Americans had gained successful entry. In addition, some bankers practiced mortgage discrimination, later

known as “redlining,” in order to deny home loans to quali_ed buyers. Such pervasive discrimination led to a

concentration of African Americans in some of the worst slum areas of most major metropolitan cities, a

problem that remained ongoing throughout most of the twentieth century.

So why move to the North, given that the economic challenges they faced were similar to those that African

Americans encountered in the South? The answer lies in noneconomic gains. Greater educational

opportunities and more expansive personal freedoms mattered greatly to the African Americans who made

the trek northward during the Great Migration. State legislatures and local school districts allocated more

funds for the education of both Black and White people in the North, and also enforced compulsory school

attendance laws more rigorously. Similarly, unlike the South where a simple gesture (or lack of a deferential

one) could result in physical harm to the African American who committed it, life in larger, crowded northern

urban centers permitted a degree of anonymity—and with it, personal freedom—that enabled African

Americans to move, work, and speak without deferring to every White person with whom they crossed paths.

Psychologically, these gains more than offset the continued economic challenges that Black migrants faced.

THE CHANGING NATURE OF EUROPEAN IMMIGRATION

Immigrants also shifted the demographics of the rapidly growing cities. Although immigration had always

19.2 • The African American “Great Migration” and New European Immigration 501

been a force of change in the United States, it took on a new character in the late nineteenth century. Beginning

in the 1880s, the arrival of immigrants from mostly southern and eastern European countries rapidly

increased while the `ow from northern and western Europe remained relatively constant (Table 19.1).

Region Country 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910

Northern and Western Europe 4,845,679 5,499,889 7,288,917 7,204,649 7,306,325

Germany 1,690,533 1,966,742 2,784,894 2,663,418 2,311,237

Ireland 1,855,827 1,854,571 1,871,509 1,615,459 1,352,251

England 550,924 662,676 908,141 840,513 877,719

Sweden 97,332 194,337 478,041 582,014 665,207

Austria 30,508 38,663 123,271 275,907 626,341

Norway 114,246 181,729 322,665 336,388 403,877

Scotland 140,835 170,136 242,231 233,524 261,076

Southern and Eastern Europe 93,824 248,620 728,851 1,674,648 4,500,932

Italy 17,157 44,230 182,580 484,027 1,343,125

Russia 4,644 35,722 182,644 423,726 1,184,412

Poland 14,436 48,557 147,440 383,407 937,884

Hungary 3,737 11,526 62,435 145,714 495,609

Czechoslovakia 40,289 85,361 118,106 156,891 219,214

TABLE 19.1 Cumulative Total of the Foreign-Born Population in the United States, 1870–1910 (by

major country of birth and European region)

The previous waves of immigrants from northern and western Europe, particularly Germany, Great Britain,

and the Nordic countries, were relatively well off, arriving in the country with some funds and often moving to

the newly settled western territories. In contrast, the newer immigrants from southern and eastern European

countries, including Italy, Greece, and several Slavic countries including Russia, came over due to “push” and

“pull” factors similar to those that in`uenced the African Americans arriving from the South. Many were

“pushed” from their countries by a series of ongoing famines, by the need to escape religious, political, or

racial persecution, or by the desire to avoid compulsory military service. They were also “pulled” by the

promise of consistent, wage-earning work.

Whatever the reason, these immigrants arrived without the education and _nances of the earlier waves of

immigrants, and settled more readily in the port towns where they arrived, rather than setting out to seek their

fortunes in the West. By 1890, over 80 percent of the population of New York would be either foreign-born or

children of foreign-born parentage. Other cities saw huge spikes in foreign populations as well, though not to

the same degree, due in large part to Ellis Island in New York City being the primary port of entry for most

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European immigrants arriving in the United States.

The number of immigrants peaked between 1900 and 1910, when over nine million people arrived in the

United States. To assist in the processing and management of this massive wave of immigrants, the Bureau of

Immigration in New York City, which had become the of_cial port of entry, opened Ellis Island in 1892. Today,

nearly half of all Americans have ancestors who, at some point in time, entered the country through the portal

at Ellis Island. Doctors or nurses inspected the immigrants upon arrival, looking for any signs of infectious

diseases (Figure 19.9). Most immigrants were admitted to the country with only a cursory glance at any other

paperwork. Roughly 2 percent of the arriving immigrants were denied entry due to a medical condition or

criminal history. The rest would enter the country by way of the streets of New York, many unable to speak

English and totally reliant on _nding those who spoke their native tongue.

FIGURE 19.9 This photo shows newly arrived immigrants at Ellis Island in New York. Inspectors are examining

them for contagious health problems, which could require them to be sent back. (credit: NIAID)

Seeking comfort in a strange land, as well as a common language, many immigrants sought out relatives,

friends, former neighbors, townspeople, and countrymen who had already settled in American cities. This led

to a rise in ethnic enclaves within the larger city. Little Italy, Chinatown, and many other communities

developed in which immigrant groups could _nd everything to remind them of home, from local language

newspapers to ethnic food stores. While these enclaves provided a sense of community to their members, they

added to the problems of urban congestion, particularly in the poorest slums where immigrants could afford

housing.

CLICK AND EXPLORE

This Library of Congress exhibit on the history of Jewish immigration (http:///l/jewishimmig) to

the United States illustrates the ongoing challenge immigrants felt between the ties to their old land and a love

for America.

The demographic shift at the turn of the century was later con_rmed by the Dillingham Commission, created

by Congress in 1907 to report on the nature of immigration in America; the commission reinforced this ethnic

identi_cation of immigrants and their simultaneous discrimination. The report put it simply: These newer

immigrants looked and acted differently. They had darker skin tone, spoke languages with which most

Americans were unfamiliar, and practiced unfamiliar religions, speci_cally Judaism and Catholicism. Even the

foods they sought out at butchers and grocery stores set immigrants apart. Because of these easily identi_able

differences, new immigrants became easy targets for hatred and discrimination. If jobs were hard to _nd, or if

housing was overcrowded, it became easy to blame the immigrants. Like African Americans, immigrants in

cities were blamed for the problems of the day.

19.2 • The African American “Great Migration” and New European Immigration 503

Growing numbers of Americans resented the waves of new immigrants, resulting in a backlash. The Reverend

Josiah Strong fueled the hatred and discrimination in his bestselling book,

Our Country: Its Possible Future

and Its Present Crisis

, published in 1885. In a revised edition that re`ected the 1890 census records, he clearly

identi_ed undesirable immigrants—those from southern and eastern European countries—as a key threat to

the moral _ber of the country, and urged all good Americans to face the challenge. Several thousand

Americans answered his call by forming the American Protective Association, the chief political activist group

to promote legislation curbing immigration into the United States. The group successfully lobbied Congress to

adopt both an English language literacy test for immigrants, which eventually passed in 1917, and the Chinese

Exclusion Act (discussed in a previous chapter). The group’s political lobbying also laid the groundwork for the

subsequent Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924, as well as the National Origins Act.

CLICK AND EXPLORE

The global timeline of immigration (http://openstax.org/l/immig1) at the Library of Congress offers a summary

of immigration policies and the groups affected by it, as well as a compelling overview of different ethnic

groups’ immigration stories. Browse through to see how different ethnic groups made their way in the United

States.

19.3 Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Identify how each class of Americans—working class, middle class, and upper class—responded to the

challenges associated with urban life

• Explain the process of machine politics and how it brought relief to working-class Americans

Settlement houses and religious and civic organizations attempted to provide some support to working-class

city dwellers through free health care, education, and leisure opportunities. Still, for urban citizens, life in the

city was chaotic and challenging. But how that chaos manifested and how relief was sought differed greatly,

depending on where people were in the social caste—the working class, the upper class, or the newly emerging

professional middle class—in addition to the aforementioned issues of race and ethnicity. While many

communities found life in the largest American cities disorganized and overwhelming, the ways they answered

these challenges were as diverse as the people who lived there. Broad solutions emerged that were typically

class speci_c: The rise of machine politics and popular culture provided relief to the working class, higher

education opportunities and suburbanization bene_tted the professional middle class, and reminders of their

elite status gave comfort to the upper class. And everyone, no matter where they fell in the class system,

bene_ted from the efforts to improve the physical landscapes of the fast-growing urban environment.

THE LIFE AND STRUGGLES OF THE URBAN WORKING CLASS

For the working-class residents of America’s cities, one practical way of coping with the challenges of urban

life was to take advantage of the system of machine politics, while another was to seek relief in the variety of

popular culture and entertainment found in and around cities. Although neither of these forms of relief was

restricted to the working class, they were the ones who relied most heavily on them.

Machine Politics

The primary form of relief for working-class urban Americans, and particularly immigrants, came in the form

of machine politics. This phrase referred to the process by which every citizen of the city, no matter their

ethnicity or race, was a ward resident with an alderman who spoke on their behalf at city hall. When everyday

challenges arose, whether sanitation problems or the need for a sidewalk along a muddy road, citizens would

approach their alderman to _nd a solution. The aldermen knew that, rather than work through the long

bureaucratic process associated with city hall, they could work within the “machine” of local politics to _nd a

504 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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speedy, mutually bene_cial solution. In machine politics, favors were exchanged for votes, votes were given in

exchange for fast solutions, and the price of the solutions included a kickback to the boss. In the short term,

everyone got what they needed, but the process was neither transparent nor democratic, and it was an

inef_cient way of conducting the city’s business.

One example of a machine political system was the Democratic political machine Tammany Hall in New York,

run by machine boss William Tweed with assistance from George Washington Plunkitt (Figure 19.10). There,

citizens knew their immediate problems would be addressed in return for their promise of political support in

future elections. In this way, machines provided timely solutions for citizens and votes for the politicians. For

example, if in Little Italy there was a desperate need for sidewalks in order to improve traf_c to the stores on a

particular street, the request would likely get bogged down in the bureaucratic red tape at city hall. Instead,

store owners would approach the machine. A district captain would approach the “boss” and make him aware

of the problem. The boss would contact city politicians and strongly urge them to appropriate the needed

funds for the sidewalk in exchange for the promise that the boss would direct votes in their favor in the

upcoming election. The boss then used the funds to pay one of his friends for the sidewalk construction,

typically at an exorbitant cost, with a _nancial kickback to the boss, which was known as graft. The sidewalk

was built more quickly than anyone hoped, in exchange for the citizens’ promises to vote for machine-

supported candidates in the next elections. Despite its corrupt nature, Tammany Hall essentially ran New York

politics from the 1850s until the 1930s. Other large cities, including Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, St. Louis,

and Kansas City, made use of political machines as well.

FIGURE 19.10 This political cartoon depicts the control of Boss Tweed, of Tammany Hall, over the election process

in New York. Why were people willing to accept the corruption involved in machine politics?

Popular Culture and Entertainment

Working-class residents also found relief in the diverse and omnipresent offerings of popular culture and

entertainment in and around cities. These offerings provided an immediate escape from the squalor and

dif_culties of everyday life. As improved means of internal transportation developed, working-class residents

could escape the city and experience one of the popular new forms of entertainment—the amusement park.

For example, Coney Island on the Brooklyn shoreline consisted of several different amusement parks, the _rst

of which opened in 1895 (Figure 19.11). At these parks, New Yorkers enjoyed wild rides, animal attractions,

and large stage productions designed to help them forget the struggles of their working-day lives. Freak “side”

19.3 • Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life 505

shows fed the public’s curiosity about physical deviance. For a mere ten cents, spectators could watch a high-

diving horse, take a ride to the moon to watch moon maidens eat green cheese, or witness the electrocution of

an elephant, a spectacle that fascinated the public both with technological marvels and exotic wildlife. The

treatment of animals in many acts at Coney Island and other public amusement parks drew the attention of

middle-class reformers such as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Despite

questions regarding the propriety of many of the acts, other cities quickly followed New York’s lead with

similar, if smaller, versions of Coney Island’s attractions.

FIGURE 19.11 The Dreamland Amusement Park tower was just one of Coney Island’s amusements.

CLICK AND EXPLORE

The Coney Island History Project (http://www.coneyislandhistory.org/collection) shows a photographic history

of Coney Island. Look to see what elements of American culture, from the hot dog to the roller coaster, debuted

there.

Another common form of popular entertainment was vaudeville—large stage variety shows that included

everything from singing, dancing, and comedy acts to live animals and magic. The vaudeville circuit gave rise

to several prominent performers, including magician Harry Houdini, who began his career in these variety

shows before his fame propelled him to solo acts. In addition to live theater shows, it was primarily working-

class citizens who enjoyed the advent of the nickelodeon, a forerunner to the movie theater. The _rst

nickelodeon opened in Pittsburgh in 1905, where nearly one hundred visitors packed into a storefront theater

to see a traditional vaudeville show interspersed with one-minute _lm clips. Several theaters initially used the

_lms as “chasers” to indicate the end of the show to the live audience so they would clear the auditorium.

However, a vaudeville performers’ strike generated even greater interest in the _lms, eventually resulting in

the rise of modern movie theaters by 1910.

One other major form of entertainment for the working class was professional baseball (Figure 19.12). Club

teams transformed into professional baseball teams with the Cincinnati Red Stockings, now the Cincinnati

Reds, in 1869. Soon, professional teams sprang up in several major American cities. Baseball games provided

an inexpensive form of entertainment, where for less than a dollar, a person could enjoy a double-header, two

hot dogs, and a beer. But more importantly, the teams became a way for newly relocated Americans and

immigrants of diverse backgrounds to develop a uni_ed civic identity, all cheering for one team. By 1876, the

National League had formed, and soon after, cathedral-style ballparks began to spring up in many cities.

Fenway Park in Boston (1912), Forbes Field in Pittsburgh (1909), and the Polo Grounds in New York (1890) all

became touch points where working-class Americans came together to support a common cause.

506 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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FIGURE 19.12 Boston’s Fenway Park opened in 1912 and was a popular site for working-class Bostonians to spend

their leisure time. The “Green Monster,” the iconic, left [eld wall, makes it one of the most recognizable stadiums in

baseball today.

Other popular sports included prize-_ghting, which attracted a predominantly male, working- and middle-

class audience who lived vicariously through the triumphs of the boxers during a time where opportunities for

individual success were rapidly shrinking, and college football, which paralleled a modern corporation in its

team hierarchy, divisions of duties, and emphasis on time management.

THE UPPER CLASS IN THE CITIES

The American _nancial elite did not need to crowd into cities to _nd work, like their working-class

counterparts. But as urban centers were vital business cores, where multi-million-dollar _nancial deals were

made daily, those who worked in that world wished to remain close to the action. The rich chose to be in the

midst of the chaos of the cities, but they were also able to provide signi_cant measures of comfort,

convenience, and luxury for themselves.

Wealthy citizens seldom attended what they considered the crass entertainment of the working class. Instead

of amusement parks and baseball games, urban elites sought out more re_ned pastimes that underscored

their knowledge of art and culture, preferring classical music concerts, _ne art collections, and social

gatherings with their peers. In New York, Andrew Carnegie built Carnegie Hall in 1891, which quickly became

the center of classical music performances in the country. Nearby, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened its

doors in 1872 and still remains one of the largest collections of _ne art in the world. Other cities followed suit,

and these cultural pursuits became a way for the upper class to remind themselves of their elevated place

amid urban squalor.

As new opportunities for the middle class threatened the austerity of upper-class citizens, including the newer

forms of transportation that allowed middle-class Americans to travel with greater ease, wealthier Americans

sought unique ways to further set themselves apart in society. These included more expensive excursions,

such as vacations in Newport, Rhode Island, winter relocation to sunny Florida, and frequent trips aboard

steamships to Europe. For those who were not of the highly respected “old money,” but only recently obtained

their riches through business ventures, the relief they sought came in the form of one book—the annual

Social

Register

. First published in 1886 by Louis Keller in New York City, the register became a directory of the

wealthy socialites who populated the city. Keller updated it annually, and people would watch with varying

degrees of anxiety or complacency to see their names appear in print. Also called the

Blue Book

, the register

was instrumental in the planning of society dinners, balls, and other social events. For those of newer wealth,

there was relief found simply in the notion that they and others witnessed their wealth through the publication

of their names in the register.

A NEW MIDDLE CLASS

While the working class were con_ned to tenement houses in the cities by their need to be close to their work

and the lack of funds to _nd anyplace better, and the wealthy class chose to remain in the cities to stay close to

the action of big business transactions, the emerging middle class responded to urban challenges with their

own solutions. This group included the managers, salesmen, engineers, doctors, accountants, and other

19.3 • Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life 507

salaried professionals who still worked for a living, but were signi_cantly better educated and compensated

than the working-class poor. For this new middle class, relief from the trials of the cities came through

education and suburbanization.

In large part, the middle class responded to the challenges of the city by physically escaping it. As

transportation improved and outlying communities connected to urban centers, the middle class embraced a

new type of community—the suburbs. It became possible for those with adequate means to work in the city and

escape each evening, by way of a train or trolley, to a house in the suburbs. As the number of people moving to

the suburbs grew, there also grew a perception among the middle class that the farther one lived from the city

and the more amenities one had, the more af`uence one had achieved.

Although a few suburbs existed in the United States prior to the 1880s (such as Llewellyn Park, New Jersey),

the introduction of the electric railway generated greater interest and growth during the last decade of the

century. The ability to travel from home to work on a relatively quick and cheap mode of transportation

encouraged more Americans of modest means to consider living away from the chaos of the city. Eventually,

Henry Ford’s popularization of the automobile, speci_cally in terms of a lower price, permitted more families

to own cars and thus consider suburban life. Later in the twentieth century, both the advent of the interstate

highway system, along with federal legislation designed to allow families to construct homes with low-interest

loans, further sparked the suburban phenomenon.

New Roles for Middle-Class Women

Social norms of the day encouraged middle-class women to take great pride in creating a positive home

environment for their working husbands and school-age children, which reinforced the business and

educational principles that they practiced on the job or in school. It was at this time that the magazines

Ladies'

Home Journal

and

Good Housekeeping

began distribution, to tremendous popularity (Figure 19.13).

FIGURE 19.13 The middle-class family of the late nineteenth century largely embraced a separation of gendered

spheres that had [rst emerged during the market revolution of the antebellum years. Whereas the husband earned

money for the family outside the home, the wife oversaw domestic chores, raised the children, and tended to the

family’s spiritual, social, and cultural needs. The magazine

Good Housekeeping

, launched in 1885, capitalized on

the middle-class woman’s focus on maintaining a pride-worthy home.

While the vast majority of middle-class women took on the expected role of housewife and homemaker, some

women were _nding paths to college. A small number of men’s colleges began to open their doors to women in

the mid-1800s, and co-education became an option. Some of the most elite universities created af_liated

508 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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women’s colleges, such as Radcliffe College with Harvard, and Pembroke College with Brown University. But

more importantly, the _rst women’s colleges opened at this time. Mount Holyoke, Vassar, Smith, and Wellesley

Colleges, still some of the best known women’s schools, opened their doors between 1865 and 1880, and,

although enrollment was low (initial class sizes ranged from sixty-one students at Vassar to seventy at

Wellesley, seventy-one at Smith, and up to eighty-eight at Mount Holyoke), the opportunity for a higher

education, and even a career, began to emerge for young women. These schools offered a unique, all-women

environment in which professors and a community of education-seeking young women came together. While

most college-educated young women still married, their education offered them new opportunities to work

outside the home, most frequently as teachers, professors, or in the aforementioned settlement house

environments created by Jane Addams and others.

Education and the Middle Class

Since the children of the professional class did not have to leave school and _nd work to support their families,

they had opportunities for education and advancement that would solidify their position in the middle class.

They also bene_ted from the presence of stay-at-home mothers, unlike working-class children, whose mothers

typically worked the same long hours as their fathers. Public school enrollment exploded at this time, with the

number of students attending public school tripling from seven million in 1870 to twenty-one million in 1920.

Unlike the old-fashioned one-room schoolhouses, larger schools slowly began the practice of employing

different teachers for each grade, and some even began hiring discipline-speci_c instructors. High schools

also grew at this time, from one hundred high schools nationally in 1860 to over six thousand by 1900.

The federal government supported the growth of higher education with the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890.

These laws set aside public land and federal funds to create land-grant colleges that were affordable to middle-

class families, offering courses and degrees useful in the professions, but also in trade, commerce, industry,

and agriculture (Figure 19.14). Land-grant colleges stood in contrast to the expensive, private Ivy League

universities such as Harvard and Yale, which still catered to the elite. Iowa became the _rst state to accept the

provisions of the original Morrill Act, creating what later became Iowa State University. Other states soon

followed suit, and the availability of an affordable college education encouraged a boost in enrollment, from

50,000 students nationwide in 1870 to over 600,000 students by 1920.

FIGURE 19.14 This rendering of Kansas State University in 1878 shows an early land-grant college, created by the

Morrill Act. These newly created schools allowed many more students to attend college than the elite Ivy League

system, and focused more on preparing them for professional careers in business, medicine, and law, as well as

business, agriculture, and other trades.

College curricula also changed at this time. Students grew less likely to take traditional liberal arts classes in

rhetoric, philosophy, and foreign language, and instead focused on preparing for the modern work world.

Professional schools for the study of medicine, law, and business also developed. In short, education for the

children of middle-class parents catered to class-speci_c interests and helped ensure that parents could

establish their children comfortably in the middle class as well.

19.3 • Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life 509

“CITY BEAUTIFUL”

While the working poor lived in the worst of it and the wealthy elite sought to avoid it, all city dwellers at the

time had to deal with the harsh realities of urban sprawl. Skyscrapers rose and _lled the air, streets were

crowded with pedestrians of all sorts, and, as developers worked to meet the always-increasing demand for

space, the few remaining green spaces in the city quickly disappeared. As the U.S. population became

increasingly centered in urban areas while the century drew to a close, questions about the quality of city

life—particularly with regard to issues of aesthetics, crime, and poverty—quickly consumed many reformers’

minds. Those middle-class and wealthier urbanites who enjoyed the costlier amenities presented by city

life—including theaters, restaurants, and shopping—were free to escape to the suburbs, leaving behind the

poorer working classes living in squalor and unsanitary conditions. Through the City Beautiful movement,

leaders such as Frederick Law Olmsted and Daniel Burnham sought to champion middle- and upper-class

progressive reforms. They improved the quality of life for city dwellers, but also cultivated middle-class-

dominated urban spaces in which Americans of different ethnicities, racial origins, and classes worked and

lived.

Olmsted, one of the earliest and most in`uential designers of urban green space, and the original designer of

Central Park in New York, worked with Burnham to introduce the idea of the City Beautiful movement at the

Columbian Exposition in 1893. There, they helped to design and construct the “White City”—so named for the

plaster of Paris construction of several buildings that were subsequently painted a bright white—an example of

landscaping and architecture that shone as an example of perfect city planning. From wide-open green spaces

to brightly painted white buildings, connected with modern transportation services and appropriate

sanitation, the “White City” set the stage for American urban city planning for the next generation, beginning

in 1901 with the modernization of Washington, DC. This model encouraged city planners to consider three

principal tenets: First, create larger park areas inside cities; second, build wider boulevards to decrease traf_c

congestion and allow for lines of trees and other greenery between lanes; and third, add more suburbs in order

to mitigate congested living in the city itself (Figure 19.15). As each city adapted these principles in various

ways, the City Beautiful movement became a cornerstone of urban development well into the twentieth

century.

FIGURE 19.15 This blueprint shows Burnham’s vision for Chicago, an example of the City Beautiful movement. His

goal was to preserve much of the green space along the city’s lakefront, and to ensure that all city dwellers had

access to green space.

510 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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19.4 Change Reflected in Thought and Writing

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain how American writers, both [ction and non[ction, helped Americans to better understand the changes

they faced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

• Identify some of the influential women and African American writers of the era

In the late nineteenth century, Americans were living in a world characterized by rapid change. Western

expansion, dramatic new technologies, and the rise of big business drastically in`uenced society in a matter of

a few decades. For those living in the fast-growing urban areas, the pace of change was even faster and harder

to ignore. One result of this time of transformation was the emergence of a series of notable authors, who,

whether writing _ction or non_ction, offered a lens through which to better understand the shifts in American

society.

UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL PROGRESS

One key idea of the nineteenth century that moved from the realm of science to the murkier ground of social

and economic success was Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Darwin was a British naturalist who, in his

1859 work

On the Origin of Species

, made the case that species develop and evolve through natural selection,

not through divine intervention. The idea quickly drew _re from the Anglican Church (although a liberal

branch of Anglicans embraced the notion of natural selection being part of God’s plan) and later from many

others, both in England and abroad, who felt that the theory directly contradicted the role of God in the earth’s

creation. Although biologists, botanists, and most of the scienti_c establishment widely accepted the theory of

evolution at the time of Darwin’s publication, which they felt synthesized much of the previous work in the

_eld, the theory remained controversial in the public realm for decades.

Political philosopher Herbert Spencer took Darwin’s theory of evolution further, coining the actual phrase

“survival of the _ttest,” and later helping to popularize the phrase social Darwinism to posit that society

evolved much like a natural organism, wherein some individuals will succeed due to racially and ethnically

inherent traits, and their ability to adapt. This model allowed that a collection of traits and skills, which could

include intelligence, inherited wealth, and so on, mixed with the ability to adapt, would let all Americans rise

or fall of their own accord, so long as the road to success was accessible to all. William Graham Sumner, a

sociologist at Yale, became the most vocal proponent of social Darwinism. Not surprisingly, this ideology,

which Darwin himself would have rejected as a gross misreading of his scienti_c discoveries, drew great praise

from those who made their wealth at this time. They saw their success as proof of biological _tness, although

critics of this theory were quick to point out that those who did not succeed often did not have the same

opportunities or equal playing _eld that the ideology of social Darwinism purported. Eventually, the concept

fell into disrepute in the 1930s and 1940s, as eugenicists began to utilize it in conjunction with their racial

theories of genetic superiority.

Other thinkers of the day took Charles Darwin’s theories in a more nuanced direction, focusing on different

theories of realism that sought to understand the truth underlying the changes in the United States. These

thinkers believed that ideas and social constructs must be proven to work before they could be accepted.

Philosopher William James was one of the key proponents of the closely related concept of pragmatism, which

held that Americans needed to experiment with different ideas and perspectives to _nd the truth about

American society, rather than assuming that there was truth in old, previously accepted models. Only by tying

ideas, thoughts, and statements to actual objects and occurrences could one begin to identify a coherent truth,

according to James. His work strongly in`uenced the subsequent avant-garde and modernist movements in

literature and art, especially in understanding the role of the observer, artist, or writer in shaping the society

they attempted to observe. John Dewey built on the idea of pragmatism to create a theory of instrumentalism,

which advocated the use of education in the search for truth. Dewey believed that education, speci_cally

observation and change through the scienti_c method, was the best tool by which to reform and improve

19.4 • Change Reflected in Thought and Writing 511

American society as it continued to grow ever more complex. To that end, Dewey strongly encouraged

educational reforms designed to create an informed American citizenry that could then form the basis for

other, much-needed progressive reforms in society.

In addition to the new medium of photography, popularized by Riis, novelists and other artists also embraced

realism in their work. They sought to portray vignettes from real life in their stories, partly in response to the

more sentimental works of their predecessors. Visual artists such as George Bellows, Edward Hopper, and

Robert Henri, among others, formed the Ashcan School of Art, which was interested primarily in depicting the

urban lifestyle that was quickly gripping the United States at the turn of the century. Their works typically

focused on working-class city life, including the slums and tenement houses, as well as working-class forms of

leisure and entertainment (Figure 19.16).

FIGURE 19.16 Like most examples of works by Ashcan artists,

The Cliff Dwellers

, by George Wesley Bellows,

depicts the crowd of urban life realistically. (credit: Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

Novelists and journalists also popularized realism in literary works. Authors such as Stephen Crane, who wrote

stark stories about life in the slums or during the Civil War, and Rebecca Harding Davis, who in 1861 published

Life in the Iron Mills

, embodied this popular style. Mark Twain also sought realism in his books, whether it was

the reality of the pioneer spirit, seen in

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

, published in 1884, or the issue of

corruption in

The Gilded Age

, co-authored with Charles Dudley Warner in 1873. The narratives and visual arts

of these realists could nonetheless be highly stylized, crafted, and even fabricated, since their goal was the

effective portrayal of social realities they thought required reform. Some authors, such as Jack London, who

wrote

The Call of the Wild

, embraced a school of thought called naturalism, which concluded that the laws of

nature and the natural world were the only truly relevant laws governing humanity (Figure 19.17).

512 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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FIGURE 19.17 Jack London poses with his dog Rollo in 1885 (a). The cover of Jack London’s

The Call of the Wild

(b)

shows the dogs in the brutal environment of the Klondike. The book tells the story of Buck, a dog living happily in

California until he is sold to be a sled dog in Canada. There, he must survive harsh conditions and brutal behavior,

but his innate animal nature takes over and he prevails. The story clari[es the struggle between humanity’s nature

versus the nurturing forces of society.

Kate Chopin, widely regarded as the foremost woman short story writer and novelist of her day, sought to

portray a realistic view of women’s lives in late nineteenth-century America, thus paving the way for more

explicit feminist literature in generations to come. Although Chopin never described herself as a feminist per

se, her re`ective works on her experiences as a southern woman introduced a form of creative non_ction that

captured the struggles of women in the United States through their own individual experiences. She also was

among the _rst authors to openly address the race issue of miscegenation, a term referring to interracial

relations, which usually has negative associations. In her work

Desiree’s Baby

, Chopin speci_cally explores the

Creole community of her native Louisiana in depths that exposed the reality of racism in a manner seldom

seen in literature of the time.

African American poet, playwright, and novelist of the realist period, Paul Laurence Dunbar dealt with issues

of race at a time when most reform-minded Americans preferred to focus on other issues. Through his

combination of writing in both standard English and Black dialect, Dunbar delighted readers with his rich

portrayals of the successes and struggles associated with African American life. Although he initially struggled

to _nd the patronage and _nancial support required to develop a full-time literary career, Dunbar’s

subsequent professional relationship with literary critic and

Atlantic Monthly

editor William Dean Howells

helped to _rmly cement his literary credentials as the foremost African American writer of his generation. As

with Chopin and Harding Davis, Dunbar’s writing highlighted parts of the American experience that were not

well understood by the dominant demographic of the country. In their work, these authors provided readers

with insights into a world that was not necessarily familiar to them and also gave hidden communities—be it

iron mill workers, southern women, or African American men—a sense of voice.

CLICK AND EXPLORE

Mark Twain’s lampoon of author Horatio Alger (http://openstax.org/l/twain1) demonstrates Twain’s

commitment to realism by mocking the myth set out by Alger, whose stories followed a common theme in

which a poor but honest boy goes from rags to riches through a combination of “luck and pluck.” See how

19.4 • Change Reflected in Thought and Writing 513

Twain twists Alger’s hugely popular storyline in this piece of satire.

Kate Chopin: An Awakening in an Unpopular Time

Author Kate Chopin grew up in the American South and later moved to St. Louis, where she began writing stories

to make a living after the death of her husband. She published her works throughout the late 1890s, with stories

appearing in literary magazines and local papers. It was her second novel,

The Awakening

, which gained her

notoriety and criticism in her lifetime, and ongoing literary fame after her death (Figure 19.18).

FIGURE 19.18 Critics railed against Kate Chopin, the author of the 1899 novel

The Awakening

, criticizing its

stark portrayal of a woman struggling with societal con[nes and her own desires. In the twentieth century,

scholars rediscovered Chopin’s work and

The Awakening

is now considered part of the canon of American

literature.

The Awakening

, set in the New Orleans society that Chopin knew well, tells the story of a woman struggling with

the constraints of marriage who ultimately seeks her own ful[llment over the needs of her family. The book deals

far more openly than most novels of the day with questions of women’s sexual desires. It also flouted

nineteenth-century conventions by looking at the protagonist’s struggles with the traditional role expected of

women.

While a few contemporary reviewers saw merit in the book, most criticized it as immoral and unseemly. It was

censored, called “pure poison,” and critics railed against Chopin herself. While Chopin wrote squarely in the

tradition of realism that was popular at this time, her work covered ground that was considered “too real” for

comfort. After the negative reception of the novel, Chopin retreated from public life and discontinued writing. She

died [ve years after its publication. After her death, Chopin’s work was largely ignored, until scholars

rediscovered it in the late twentieth century, and her books and stories came back into print.

The Awakening

in

particular has been recognized as vital to the earliest edges of the modern feminist movement.

DEFINING AMERICAN

514 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

Access for free at openstax.org.

CLICK AND EXPLORE

Excerpts from interviews (http:///l/katechopin) with David Chopin, Kate Chopin’s grandson, and a

scholar who studies her work provide interesting perspectives on the author and her views.

CRITICS OF MODERN AMERICA

While many Americans at this time, both everyday working people and theorists, felt the changes of the era

would lead to improvements and opportunities, there were critics of the emerging social shifts as well.

Although less popular than Twain and London, authors such as Edward Bellamy, Henry George, and Thorstein

Veblen were also in`uential in spreading critiques of the industrial age. While their critiques were quite

distinct from each other, all three believed that the industrial age was a step in the wrong direction for the

country.

In the 1888 novel

Looking Backward, 2000-1887

, Edward Bellamy portrays a utopian America in the year

2000, with the country living in peace and harmony after abandoning the capitalist model and moving to a

socialist state. In the book, Bellamy predicts the future advent of credit cards, cable entertainment, and

“super-store” cooperatives that resemble a modern day Wal-Mart.

Looking Backward

proved to be a popular

bestseller (third only to

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

and

Ben Hur

among late nineteenth-century publications) and

appealed to those who felt the industrial age of big business was sending the country in the wrong direction.

Eugene Debs, who led the national Pullman Railroad Strike in 1894, later commented on how Bellamy’s work

in`uenced him to adopt socialism as the answer to the exploitative industrial capitalist model. In addition,

Bellamy’s work spurred the publication of no fewer than thirty-six additional books or articles by other writers,

either supporting Bellamy’s outlook or directly criticizing it. In 1897, Bellamy felt compelled to publish a

sequel, entitled

Equality

, in which he further explained ideas he had previously introduced concerning

educational reform and women’s equality, as well as a world of vegetarians who speak a universal language.

Another author whose work illustrated the criticisms of the day was non_ction writer Henry George, an

economist best known for his 1879 work

Progress and Poverty

, which criticized the inequality found in an

industrial economy. He suggested that, while people should own that which they create, all land and natural

resources should belong to all equally, and should be taxed through a “single land tax” in order to

disincentivize private land ownership. His thoughts in`uenced many economic progressive reformers, as well

as led directly to the creation of the now-popular board game, Monopoly.

Another critique of late nineteenth-century American capitalism was Thorstein Veblen, who lamented in

The

Theory of the Leisure Class

(1899) that capitalism created a middle class more preoccupied with its own

comfort and consumption than with maximizing production. In coining the phrase “conspicuous

consumption,” Veblen identi_ed the means by which one class of nonproducers exploited the working class

that produced the goods for their consumption. Such practices, including the creation of business trusts,

served only to create a greater divide between the haves and have-nots in American society, and resulted in

economic inef_ciencies that required correction or reform.

19.4 • Change Reflected in Thought and Writing 515

Key Terms

City Beautiful a movement begun by Daniel Burnham and Fredrick Law Olmsted, who believed that cities

should be built with three core tenets in mind: the inclusion of parks within city limits, the creation of wide

boulevards, and the expansion of more suburbs

graft the _nancial kickback provided to city bosses in exchange for political favors

Great Migration the name for the large wave of African Americans who left the South after the Civil War,

mostly moving to cities in the Northeast and Upper Midwest

instrumentalism a theory promoted by John Dewey, who believed that education was key to the search for

the truth about ideals and institutions

machine politics the process by which citizens of a city used their local ward alderman to work the

“machine” of local politics to meet local needs within a neighborhood

naturalism a theory of realism that states that the laws of nature and the natural world were the only

relevant laws governing humanity

pragmatism a doctrine supported by philosopher William James, which held that Americans needed to

experiment and _nd the truth behind underlying institutions, religions, and ideas in American life, rather

than accepting them on faith

realism a collection of theories and ideas that sought to understand the underlying changes in the United

States during the late nineteenth century

settlement house movement an early progressive reform movement, largely spearheaded by women,

which sought to offer services such as childcare and free healthcare to help the working poor

social gospel the belief that the church should be as concerned about the conditions of people in the secular

world as it was with their afterlife

Social Register

a de facto directory of the wealthy socialites in each city, _rst published by Louis Keller in

1886

Tammany Hall a political machine in New York, run by machine boss William Tweed with assistance from

George Washington Plunkitt

Summary

19.1 Urbanization and Its Challenges

Urbanization spread rapidly in the mid-nineteenth century due to a con`uence of factors. New technologies,

such as electricity and steam engines, transformed factory work, allowing factories to move closer to urban

centers and away from the rivers that had previously been vital sources of both water power and

transportation. The growth of factories—as well as innovations such as electric lighting, which allowed them to

run at all hours of the day and night—created a massive need for workers, who poured in from both rural areas

of the United States and from eastern and southern Europe. As cities grew, they were unable to cope with this

rapid in`ux of workers, and the living conditions for the working class were terrible. Tight living quarters, with

inadequate plumbing and sanitation, led to widespread illness. Churches, civic organizations, and the secular

settlement house movement all sought to provide some relief to the urban working class, but conditions

remained brutal for many new city dwellers.

19.2 The African American “Great Migration” and New European Immigration

For both African Americans migrating from the postwar South and immigrants arriving from southeastern

Europe, a combination of “push” and “pull” factors in`uenced their migration to America’s urban centers.

African Americans moved away from the racial violence and limited opportunities that existed in the rural

South, seeking wages and steady work, as well as the opportunity to vote safely as free men; however, they

quickly learned that racial discrimination and violence were not limited to the South. For European

immigrants, famine and persecution led them to seek a new life in the United States, where, the stories said,

the streets were paved in gold. Of course, in northeastern and midwestern cities, both groups found a more

516 19 • Key Terms

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challenging welcome than they had anticipated. City residents blamed recent arrivals for the ills of the cities,

from overcrowding to a rise in crime. Activist groups pushed for anti-immigration legislation, seeking to limit

the waves of immigrants that sought a better future in the United States.

19.3 Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life

The burgeoning cities brought together both rich and poor, working class and upper class; however, the

realities of urban dwellers’ lives varied dramatically based on where they fell in the social chain.

Entertainment and leisure-time activities were heavily dependent on one’s status and wealth. For the working

poor, amusement parks and baseball games offered inexpensive entertainment and a brief break from the

squalor of the tenements. For the emerging middle class of salaried professionals, an escape to the suburbs

kept them removed from the city’s chaos outside of working hours. And for the wealthy, immersion in arts and

culture, as well as inclusion in the

Social Register

, allowed them to socialize exclusively with those they felt

were of the same social status. The City Beautiful movement bene_tted all city dwellers, with its emphasis on

public green spaces, and more beautiful and practical city boulevards. In all, these different opportunities for

leisure and pleasure made city life manageable for the citizens who lived there.

19.4 Change Reflected in Thought and Writing

Americans were overwhelmed by the rapid pace and scale of change at the close of the nineteenth century.

Authors and thinkers tried to assess the meaning of the country’s seismic shifts in culture and society through

their work. Fiction writers often used realism in an attempt to paint an accurate portrait of how people were

living at the time. Proponents of economic developments and cultural changes cited social Darwinism as an

acceptable model to explain why some people succeeded and others failed, whereas other philosophers looked

more closely at Darwin’s work and sought to apply a model of proof and pragmatism to all ideas and

institutions. Other sociologists and philosophers criticized the changes of the era, citing the inequities found in

the new industrial economy and its negative effects on workers.

Review Questions

1. Which of the following four elements was

not

essential for creating massive urban growth in late

nineteenth-century America?

A. electric lighting

B. communication improvements

C. skyscrapers

D. settlement houses

2. Which of the following did the settlement house movement offer as a means of relief for working-class

women?

A. childcare

B. job opportunities

C. political advocacy

D. relocation services

3. What technological and economic factors combined to lead to the explosive growth of American cities at

this time?

4. Why did African Americans consider moving from the rural South to the urban North following the Civil

War?

A. to be able to buy land

B. to avoid slavery

C. to _nd wage-earning work

D. to further their education

19 • Review Questions 517

5. Which of the following is true of late nineteenth-century southern and eastern European immigrants, as

opposed to their western and northern European predecessors?

A. Southern and eastern European immigrants tended to be wealthier.

B. Southern and eastern European immigrants were, on the whole, more skilled and able to _nd better

paying employment.

C. Many southern and eastern European immigrants acquired land in the West, while western and

northern European immigrants tended to remain in urban centers.

D. Ellis Island was the _rst destination for most southern and eastern Europeans.

6. What made recent European immigrants the ready targets of more established city dwellers? What was the

result of this discrimination?

7. Which of the following was a popular pastime for working-class urban dwellers?

A. football games

B. opera

C. museums

D. amusement parks

8. Which of the following was a disadvantage of machine politics?

A. Immigrants did not have a voice.

B. Taxpayers ultimately paid higher city taxes due to graft.

C. Only wealthy parts of the city received timely responses.

D. Citizens who voiced complaints were at risk for their safety.

9. In what way did education play a crucial role in the emergence of the middle class?

10. Which of the following statements accurately represents Thorstein Veblen’s argument in

The Theory of

the Leisure Class

?

A. All citizens of an industrial society would rise or fall based on their own innate merits.

B. The tenets of naturalism were the only laws through which society should be governed.

C. The middle class was overly focused on its own comfort and consumption.

D. Land and natural resources should belong equally to all citizens.

11. Which of the following was

not

an element of realism?

A. social Darwinism

B. instrumentalism

C. naturalism

D. pragmatism

12. In what ways did writers, photographers, and visual artists begin to embrace more realistic subjects in

their work? How were these responses to the advent of the industrial age and the rise of cities?

Critical Thinking Questions

13. What triumphs did the late nineteenth century witness in the realms of industrial growth, urbanization,

and technological innovation? What challenges did these developments pose for urban dwellers, workers,

and recent immigrants? How did city of_cials and everyday citizens respond to these challenges?

14. What were the effects of urbanization on the working, middle, and elite classes of American society?

Conversely, how did the different social classes and their activities change the scope, character, and use of

urban spaces?

518 19 • Critical Thinking Questions

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15. How do you think that different classes of city dwellers would have viewed the City Beautiful movement?

What potential bene_ts and drawbacks of this new direction in urban planning might members of each

class have cited?

16. How was Darwin’s work on the evolution of species exploited by proponents of the industrial age? Why

might they have latched on to this idea in particular?

17. Historians often mine the arts for clues to the social, cultural, political, and intellectual shifts that

characterized a given era. How do the many works of visual art, literature, and social philosophy that

emerged from this period re`ect the massive changes that were taking place? How were Americans—both

those who created these works and those who read or viewed them—struggling to understand the new

reality through art, literature, and scholarship?

19 • Critical Thinking Questions 519

520 19 • Critical Thinking Questions

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FIGURE 19.1 For the millions of immigrants arriving by ship in New York City’s harbor, the sight of the Statue of

Liberty, as in

Unveiling the Statue of Liberty

(1886) by Edward Moran, stood as a physical representation of the new

freedoms and economic opportunities they hoped to [nd.

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER OUTLINE

19.1 Urbanization and Its Challenges

19.2 The African American “Great Migration” and New European Immigration

19.3 Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life

19.4 Change Reflected in Thought and Writing

“We saw the big woman with spikes on her head.” So begins Sadie Frowne’s _rst memory of

arriving in the United States. Many Americans experienced in their new home what the thirteen-year-old

Polish girl had seen in the silhouette of the Statue of Liberty (Figure 19.1): a wondrous world of new

opportunities fraught with dangers. Sadie and her mother, for instance, had left Poland after her father’s death.

Her mother died shortly thereafter, and Sadie had to _nd her own way in New York, working in factories and

slowly assimilating to life in a vast multinational metropolis. Her story is similar to millions of others, as

people came to the United States seeking a better future than the one they had at home.

The future they found, however, was often grim. While many believed in the land of opportunity, the reality of

urban life in the United States was more chaotic and dif_cult than people expected. In addition to the

challenges of language, class, race, and ethnicity, these new arrivals dealt with low wages, overcrowded

buildings, poor sanitation, and widespread disease. The land of opportunity, it seemed, did not always deliver

19

The Growing Pains of Urbanization,

1870-1900

on its promises.

19.1 Urbanization and Its Challenges

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the growth of American cities in the late nineteenth century

• Identify the key challenges that Americans faced due to urbanization, as well as some of the possible solutions

to those challenges

FIGURE 19.2

Urbanization occurred rapidly in the second half of the nineteenth century in the United States for a number of

reasons. The new technologies of the time led to a massive leap in industrialization, requiring large numbers

of workers. New electric lights and powerful machinery allowed factories to run twenty-four hours a day, seven

days a week. Workers were forced into grueling twelve-hour shifts, requiring them to live close to the factories.

While the work was dangerous and dif_cult, many Americans were willing to leave behind the declining

prospects of preindustrial agriculture in the hope of better wages in industrial labor. Furthermore, problems

ranging from famine to religious persecution led a new wave of immigrants to arrive from central, eastern, and

southern Europe, many of whom settled and found work near the cities where they _rst arrived. Immigrants

sought solace and comfort among others who shared the same language and customs, and the nation’s cities

became an invaluable economic and cultural resource.

Although cities such as Philadelphia, Boston, and New York sprang up from the initial days of colonial

settlement, the explosion in urban population growth did not occur until the mid-nineteenth century (Figure

19.3). At this time, the attractions of city life, and in particular, employment opportunities, grew exponentially

due to rapid changes in industrialization. Before the mid-1800s, factories, such as the early textile mills, had to

be located near rivers and seaports, both for the transport of goods and the necessary water power. Production

became dependent upon seasonal water `ow, with cold, icy winters all but stopping river transportation

entirely. The development of the steam engine transformed this need, allowing businesses to locate their

factories near urban centers. These factories encouraged more and more people to move to urban areas where

jobs were plentiful, but hourly wages were often low and the work was routine and grindingly monotonous.

492 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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FIGURE 19.3 As these panels illustrate, the population of the United States grew rapidly in the late 1800s (a). Much

of this new growth took place in urban areas (de[ned by the census as twenty-[ve hundred people or more), and

this urban population, particularly that of major cities (b), dealt with challenges and opportunities that were

unknown in previous generations.

Eventually, cities developed their own unique characters based on the core industry that spurred their growth.

In Pittsburgh, it was steel; in Chicago, it was meat packing; in New York, the garment and _nancial industries

dominated; and Detroit, by the mid-twentieth century, was de_ned by the automobiles it built. But all cities at

this time, regardless of their industry, suffered from the universal problems that rapid expansion brought with

it, including concerns over housing and living conditions, transportation, and communication. These issues

were almost always rooted in deep class inequalities, shaped by racial divisions, religious differences, and

ethnic strife, and distorted by corrupt local politics.

CLICK AND EXPLORE

This 1884 Bureau of Labor Statistics report for Massachusetts (http://openstax.org/l/clothingfact) from Boston

looks in detail at the wages, living conditions, and moral code of the girls who worked in the clothing factories

there.

THE KEYS TO SUCCESSFUL URBANIZATION

As the country grew, certain elements led some towns to morph into large urban centers, while others did not.

The following four innovations proved critical in shaping urbanization at the turn of the century: electric

lighting, communication improvements, intracity transportation, and the rise of skyscrapers. As people

migrated for the new jobs, they often struggled with the absence of basic urban infrastructures, such as better

transportation, adequate housing, means of communication, and ef_cient sources of light and energy. Even

the basic necessities, such as fresh water and proper sanitation—often taken for granted in the

countryside—presented a greater challenge in urban life.

Electric Lighting

Thomas Edison patented the incandescent light bulb in 1879. This development quickly became common in

homes as well as factories, transforming how even lower- and middle-class Americans lived. Although slow to

arrive in rural areas of the country, electric power became readily available in cities when the _rst commercial

power plants began to open in 1882. When Nikola Tesla subsequently developed the AC (alternating current)

system for the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company, power supplies for lights and other factory

equipment could extend for miles from the power source. AC power transformed the use of electricity, allowing

urban centers to physically cover greater areas. In the factories, electric lights permitted operations to run

twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. This increase in production required additional workers, and this

demand brought more people to cities.

Gradually, cities began to illuminate the streets with electric lamps to allow the city to remain alight

19.1 • Urbanization and Its Challenges 493

throughout the night. No longer did the pace of life and economic activity slow substantially at sunset, the way

it had in smaller towns. The cities, following the factories that drew people there, stayed open all the time.

Communications Improvements

The telephone, patented in 1876, greatly transformed communication both regionally and nationally. The

telephone rapidly supplanted the telegraph as the preferred form of communication; by 1900, over 1.5 million

telephones were in use around the nation, whether as private lines in the homes of some middle- and upper-

class Americans, or as jointly used “party lines” in many rural areas. By allowing instant communication over

larger distances at any given time, growing telephone networks made urban sprawl possible.

In the same way that electric lights spurred greater factory production and economic growth, the telephone

increased business through the more rapid pace of demand. Now, orders could come constantly via telephone,

rather than via mail-order. More orders generated greater production, which in turn required still more

workers. This demand for additional labor played a key role in urban growth, as expanding companies sought

workers to handle the increasing consumer demand for their products.

Intracity Transportation

As cities grew and sprawled outward, a major challenge was ef_cient travel within the city—from home to

factories or shops, and then back again. Most transportation infrastructure was used to connect cities to each

other, typically by rail or canal. Prior to the 1880s, two of the most common forms of transportation within

cities were the omnibus and the horse car. An omnibus was a large, horse-drawn carriage. A horse car was

similar to an omnibus, but it was placed on iron or steel tracks to provide a smoother ride. While these horse-

driven vehicles worked adequately in smaller, less-congested cities, they were not equipped to handle the

larger crowds that developed at the close of the century. The horses had to stop and rest, and horse manure

became an ongoing problem.

In 1887, Frank Sprague invented the electric trolley, which worked along the same concept as the horse car,

with a large wagon on tracks, but was powered by electricity rather than horses. The electric trolley could run

throughout the day and night, like the factories and the workers who fueled them. But it also modernized less

important industrial centers, such as the southern city of Richmond, Virginia. As early as 1873, San Francisco

engineers adopted pulley technology from the mining industry to introduce cable cars and turn the city’s steep

hills into elegant middle-class communities. However, as crowds continued to grow in the largest cities, such

as Chicago and New York, trolleys were unable to move ef_ciently through the crowds of pedestrians (Figure

19.4). To avoid this challenge, city planners elevated the trolley lines above the streets, creating elevated trains,

or L-trains, as early as 1868 in New York City, and quickly spreading to Boston in 1887 and Chicago in 1892.

Finally, as skyscrapers began to dominate the air, transportation evolved one step further to move

underground as subways. Boston’s subway system began operating in 1897, and was quickly followed by New

York and other cities.

494 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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FIGURE 19.4 Although trolleys were far more ef[cient than horse-drawn carriages, populous cities such as New

York experienced frequent accidents, as depicted in this 1895 illustration from

Leslie’s Weekly

(a). To avoid

overcrowded streets, trolleys soon went underground, as at the Public Gardens Portal in Boston (b), where three

different lines met to enter the Tremont Street Subway, the oldest subway tunnel in the United States, opening on

September 1, 1897.

The Rise of Skyscrapers

The last limitation that large cities had to overcome was the ever-increasing need for space. Eastern cities,

unlike their midwestern counterparts, could not continue to grow outward, as the land surrounding them was

already settled. Geographic limitations such as rivers or the coast also hampered sprawl. And in all cities,

citizens needed to be close enough to urban centers to conveniently access work, shops, and other core

institutions of urban life. The increasing cost of real estate made upward growth attractive, and so did the

prestige that towering buildings carried for the businesses that occupied them. Workers completed the _rst

skyscraper in Chicago, the ten-story Home Insurance Building, in 1885 (Figure 19.5). Although engineers had

the capability to go higher, thanks to new steel construction techniques, they required another vital invention

in order to make taller buildings viable: the elevator. In 1889, the Otis Elevator Company, led by inventor Elisha

Otis, installed the _rst electric elevator. This began the skyscraper craze, allowing developers in eastern cities

to build and market prestigious real estate in the hearts of crowded eastern metropoles.

19.1 • Urbanization and Its Challenges 495

FIGURE 19.5 While the technology existed to engineer tall buildings, it was not until the invention of the electric

elevator in 1889 that skyscrapers began to take over the urban landscape. Shown here is the Home Insurance

Building in Chicago, considered the [rst modern skyscraper.

Jacob Riis and the Window into “How the Other Half Lives”

Jacob Riis was a Danish immigrant who moved to New York in the late nineteenth century and, after experiencing

poverty and joblessness [rst-hand, ultimately built a career as a police reporter. In the course of his work, he

spent much of his time in the slums and tenements of New York’s working poor. Appalled by what he found there,

Riis began documenting these scenes of squalor and sharing them through lectures and ultimately through the

publication of his book,

How the Other Half Lives

, in 1890 (Figure 19.6).

DEFINING AMERICAN

496 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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FIGURE 19.6 In photographs such as

Bandit’s Roost

(1888), taken on Mulberry Street in the infamous Five

Points neighborhood of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Jacob Riis documented the plight of New York City slums in

the late nineteenth century.

By most contemporary accounts, Riis was an effective storyteller, using drama and racial stereotypes to tell his

stories of the ethnic slums he encountered. But while his racial thinking was very much a product of his time, he

was also a reformer; he felt strongly that upper and middle-class Americans could and should care about the

living conditions of the poor. In his book and lectures, he argued against the immoral landlords and useless laws

that allowed dangerous living conditions and high rents. He also suggested remodeling existing tenements or

building new ones. He was not alone in his concern for the plight of the poor; other reporters and activists had

already brought the issue into the public eye, and Riis’s photographs added a new element to the story.

To tell his stories, Riis used a series of deeply compelling photographs. Riis and his group of amateur

photographers moved through the various slums of New York, laboriously setting up their tripods and explosive

chemicals to create enough light to take the photographs. His photos and writings shocked the public, made Riis

a well-known [gure both in his day and beyond, and eventually led to new state legislation curbing abuses in

tenements.

THE IMMEDIATE CHALLENGES OF URBAN LIFE

Congestion, pollution, crime, and disease were prevalent problems in all urban centers; city planners and

inhabitants alike sought new solutions to the problems caused by rapid urban growth. Living conditions for

most working-class urban dwellers were atrocious. They lived in crowded tenement houses and cramped

apartments with terrible ventilation and substandard plumbing and sanitation. As a result, disease ran

rampant, with typhoid and cholera common. Memphis, Tennessee, experienced waves of cholera (1873)

followed by yellow fever (1878 and 1879) that resulted in the loss of over ten thousand lives. By the late 1880s,

New York City, Baltimore, Chicago, and New Orleans had all introduced sewage pumping systems to provide

19.1 • Urbanization and Its Challenges 497

ef_cient waste management. Many cities were also serious _re hazards. An average working-class family of six,

with two adults and four children, had at best a two-bedroom tenement. By one 1900 estimate, in the New York

City borough of Manhattan alone, there were nearly _fty thousand tenement houses. The photographs of these

tenement houses are seen in Jacob Riis’s book,

How the Other Half Lives

, discussed in the feature above. Citing

a study by the New York State Assembly at this time, Riis found New York to be the most densely populated city

in the world, with as many as eight hundred residents per square acre in the Lower East Side working-class

slums, comprising the Eleventh and Thirteenth Wards.

CLICK AND EXPLORE

Visit New York City, Tenement Life (http://openstax.org/l/tenement) to get an impression of the everyday life of

tenement dwellers on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

Churches and civic organizations provided some relief to the challenges of working-class city life. Churches

were moved to intervene through their belief in the concept of the social gospel. This philosophy stated that all

Christians, whether they were church leaders or social reformers, should be as concerned about the conditions

of life in the secular world as the afterlife, and the Reverend Washington Gladden was a major advocate. Rather

than preaching sermons on heaven and hell, Gladden talked about social changes of the time, urging other

preachers to follow his lead. He advocated for improvements in daily life and encouraged Americans of all

classes to work together for the betterment of society. His sermons included the message to “love thy

neighbor” and held that all Americans had to work together to help the masses. As a result of his in`uence,

churches began to include gymnasiums and libraries as well as offer evening classes on hygiene and health

care. Other religious organizations like the Salvation Army and the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA)

expanded their reach in American cities at this time as well. Beginning in the 1870s, these organizations

began providing community services and other bene_ts to the urban poor.

In the secular sphere, the settlement house movement of the 1890s provided additional relief. Pioneering

women such as Jane Addams in Chicago and Lillian Wald in New York led this early progressive reform

movement in the United States, building upon ideas originally fashioned by social reformers in England. With

no particular religious bent, they worked to create settlement houses in urban centers where they could help

the working class, and in particular, working-class women, _nd aid. Their help included child daycare, evening

classes, libraries, gym facilities, and free health care. Addams opened her now-famous Hull House (Figure

19.7) in Chicago in 1889, and Wald’s Henry Street Settlement opened in New York six years later. The

movement spread quickly to other cities, where they not only provided relief to working-class women but also

offered employment opportunities for women graduating college in the growing _eld of social work.

Oftentimes, living in the settlement houses among the women they helped, these college graduates

experienced the equivalent of living social classrooms in which to practice their skills, which also frequently

caused friction with immigrant women who had their own ideas of reform and self-improvement.

498 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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FIGURE 19.7 Jane Addams opened Hull House in Chicago in 1889, offering services and support to the city’s

working poor.

The success of the settlement house movement later became the basis of a political agenda that included

pressure for housing laws, child labor laws, and worker’s compensation laws, among others. Florence Kelley,

who originally worked with Addams in Chicago, later joined Wald’s efforts in New York; together, they created

the National Child Labor Committee and advocated for the subsequent creation of the Children’s Bureau in the

U.S. Department of Labor in 1912. Julia Lathrop—herself a former resident of Hull House—became the _rst

woman to head a federal government agency, when President William Howard Taft appointed her to run the

bureau. Settlement house workers also became in`uential leaders in the women’s suffrage movement as well

as the antiwar movement during World War I.

Jane Addams Reflects on the Settlement House Movement

Jane Addams was a social activist whose work took many forms. She is perhaps best known as the founder of

Hull House in Chicago, which later became a model for settlement houses throughout the country. Here, she

reflects on the role that the settlement played.

“Life in the Settlement discovers above all what has been called ‘the extraordinary pliability of human nature,’

and it seems impossible to set any bounds to the moral capabilities which might unfold under ideal civic and

educational conditions. But in order to obtain these conditions, the Settlement recognizes the need of

cooperation, both with the radical and the conservative, and from the very nature of the case the Settlement

cannot limit its friends to any one political party or economic school.” “The Settlement casts side none of those

things which cultivated men have come to consider reasonable and goodly, but it insists that those belong as well

to that great body of people who, because of toilsome and underpaid labor, are unable to procure them for

themselves. Added to this is a profound conviction that the common stock of intellectual enjoyment should not

be dif[cult of access because of the economic position of him who would approach it, that those ‘best results of

civilization’ upon which depend the [ner and freer aspects of living must be incorporated into our common life

and have free mobility through all elements of society if we would have our democracy endure.” “The

educational activities of a Settlement, as well its philanthropic, civic, and social undertakings, are but differing

manifestations of the attempt to socialize democracy, as is the very existence of the Settlement itself. ”

In addition to her pioneering work in the settlement house movement, Addams also was active in the women’s

suffrage movement as well as an outspoken proponent for international peace efforts. She was instrumental in

the relief effort after World War I, a commitment that led to her winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.

MY STORY

19.1 • Urbanization and Its Challenges 499

19.2 The African American “Great Migration” and New European Immigration

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Identify the factors that prompted African American and European immigration to American cities in the late

nineteenth century

• Explain the discrimination and anti-immigration legislation that immigrants faced in the late nineteenth century

New cities were populated with diverse waves of new arrivals, who came to the cities to seek work in the

businesses and factories there. While a small percentage of these newcomers were White Americans seeking

jobs, most were made up of two groups that had not previously been factors in the urbanization movement:

African Americans `eeing the racism of the farms and former plantations in the South, and southern and

eastern European immigrants. These new immigrants supplanted the previous waves of northern and western

European immigrants, who had tended to move west to purchase land. Unlike their predecessors, the newer

immigrants lacked the funds to strike out to the western lands and instead remained in the urban centers

where they arrived, seeking any work that would keep them alive.

THE AFRICAN AMERICAN “GREAT MIGRATION”

Between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the Great Depression, nearly two million African

Americans `ed the rural South to seek new opportunities elsewhere. While some moved west, the vast

majority of this Great Migration, as the large exodus of African Americans leaving the South in the early

twentieth century was called, traveled to the Northeast and Upper Midwest. The following cities were the

primary destinations for these African Americans: New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Detroit,

Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Indianapolis. These eight cities accounted for over two-thirds of the total population

of the African American migration.

A combination of both “push” and “pull” factors played a role in this movement. Despite the end of the Civil

War and the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution (ending

slavery, ensuring equal protection under the law, and protecting the right to vote, respectively), African

Americans were still subjected to intense racial hatred. The rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the immediate

aftermath of the Civil War led to increased death threats, violence, and a wave of lynchings. Even after the

formal dismantling of the Klan in the late 1870s, racially motivated violence continued. According to

researchers at the Tuskegee Institute, there were thirty-_ve hundred racially motivated lynchings and other

murders committed in the South between 1865 and 1900. For African Americans `eeing this culture of

violence, northern and midwestern cities offered an opportunity to escape the dangers of the South.

In addition to this “push” out of the South, African Americans were also “pulled” to the cities by factors that

attracted them, including job opportunities, where they could earn a wage rather than be tied to a landlord,

and the chance to vote (for men, at least), supposedly free from the threat of violence. Although many lacked

the funds to move themselves north, factory owners and other businesses that sought cheap labor assisted the

migration. Often, the men moved _rst then sent for their families once they were ensconced in their new city

life. Racism and a lack of formal education relegated these African American workers to many of the lower-

paying unskilled or semi-skilled occupations. More than 80 percent of African American men worked menial

jobs in steel mills, mines, construction, and meat packing. In the railroad industry, they were often employed

as porters or servants (Figure 19.8). In other businesses, they worked as janitors, waiters, or cooks. African

American women, who faced discrimination due to both their race and gender, found a few job opportunities

in the garment industry or laundries, but were more often employed as maids and domestic servants.

Regardless of the status of their jobs, however, African Americans earned higher wages in the North than they

did for the same occupations in the South, and typically found housing to be more available.

500 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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FIGURE 19.8 African American men who moved north as part of the Great Migration were often consigned to

menial employment, such as working in construction or as porters on the railways (a), such as in the celebrated

Pullman dining and sleeping cars (b).

However, such economic gains were offset by the higher cost of living in the North, especially in terms of rent,

food costs, and other essentials. As a result, African Americans often found themselves living in overcrowded,

unsanitary conditions, much like the tenement slums in which European immigrants lived in the cities. For

newly arrived African Americans, even those who sought out the cities for the opportunities they provided, life

in these urban centers was exceedingly dif_cult. They quickly learned that racial discrimination did not end at

the Mason-Dixon Line, but continued to `ourish in the North as well as the South. European immigrants, also

seeking a better life in the cities of the United States, resented the arrival of the African Americans, whom they

feared would compete for the same jobs or offer to work at lower wages. Landlords frequently discriminated

against them; their rapid in`ux into the cities created severe housing shortages and even more overcrowded

tenements. Homeowners in traditionally White neighborhoods later entered into covenants in which they

agreed not to sell to African American buyers; they also often `ed neighborhoods into which African

Americans had gained successful entry. In addition, some bankers practiced mortgage discrimination, later

known as “redlining,” in order to deny home loans to quali_ed buyers. Such pervasive discrimination led to a

concentration of African Americans in some of the worst slum areas of most major metropolitan cities, a

problem that remained ongoing throughout most of the twentieth century.

So why move to the North, given that the economic challenges they faced were similar to those that African

Americans encountered in the South? The answer lies in noneconomic gains. Greater educational

opportunities and more expansive personal freedoms mattered greatly to the African Americans who made

the trek northward during the Great Migration. State legislatures and local school districts allocated more

funds for the education of both Black and White people in the North, and also enforced compulsory school

attendance laws more rigorously. Similarly, unlike the South where a simple gesture (or lack of a deferential

one) could result in physical harm to the African American who committed it, life in larger, crowded northern

urban centers permitted a degree of anonymity—and with it, personal freedom—that enabled African

Americans to move, work, and speak without deferring to every White person with whom they crossed paths.

Psychologically, these gains more than offset the continued economic challenges that Black migrants faced.

THE CHANGING NATURE OF EUROPEAN IMMIGRATION

Immigrants also shifted the demographics of the rapidly growing cities. Although immigration had always

19.2 • The African American “Great Migration” and New European Immigration 501

been a force of change in the United States, it took on a new character in the late nineteenth century. Beginning

in the 1880s, the arrival of immigrants from mostly southern and eastern European countries rapidly

increased while the `ow from northern and western Europe remained relatively constant (Table 19.1).

Region Country 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910

Northern and Western Europe 4,845,679 5,499,889 7,288,917 7,204,649 7,306,325

Germany 1,690,533 1,966,742 2,784,894 2,663,418 2,311,237

Ireland 1,855,827 1,854,571 1,871,509 1,615,459 1,352,251

England 550,924 662,676 908,141 840,513 877,719

Sweden 97,332 194,337 478,041 582,014 665,207

Austria 30,508 38,663 123,271 275,907 626,341

Norway 114,246 181,729 322,665 336,388 403,877

Scotland 140,835 170,136 242,231 233,524 261,076

Southern and Eastern Europe 93,824 248,620 728,851 1,674,648 4,500,932

Italy 17,157 44,230 182,580 484,027 1,343,125

Russia 4,644 35,722 182,644 423,726 1,184,412

Poland 14,436 48,557 147,440 383,407 937,884

Hungary 3,737 11,526 62,435 145,714 495,609

Czechoslovakia 40,289 85,361 118,106 156,891 219,214

TABLE 19.1 Cumulative Total of the Foreign-Born Population in the United States, 1870–1910 (by

major country of birth and European region)

The previous waves of immigrants from northern and western Europe, particularly Germany, Great Britain,

and the Nordic countries, were relatively well off, arriving in the country with some funds and often moving to

the newly settled western territories. In contrast, the newer immigrants from southern and eastern European

countries, including Italy, Greece, and several Slavic countries including Russia, came over due to “push” and

“pull” factors similar to those that in`uenced the African Americans arriving from the South. Many were

“pushed” from their countries by a series of ongoing famines, by the need to escape religious, political, or

racial persecution, or by the desire to avoid compulsory military service. They were also “pulled” by the

promise of consistent, wage-earning work.

Whatever the reason, these immigrants arrived without the education and _nances of the earlier waves of

immigrants, and settled more readily in the port towns where they arrived, rather than setting out to seek their

fortunes in the West. By 1890, over 80 percent of the population of New York would be either foreign-born or

children of foreign-born parentage. Other cities saw huge spikes in foreign populations as well, though not to

the same degree, due in large part to Ellis Island in New York City being the primary port of entry for most

502 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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European immigrants arriving in the United States.

The number of immigrants peaked between 1900 and 1910, when over nine million people arrived in the

United States. To assist in the processing and management of this massive wave of immigrants, the Bureau of

Immigration in New York City, which had become the of_cial port of entry, opened Ellis Island in 1892. Today,

nearly half of all Americans have ancestors who, at some point in time, entered the country through the portal

at Ellis Island. Doctors or nurses inspected the immigrants upon arrival, looking for any signs of infectious

diseases (Figure 19.9). Most immigrants were admitted to the country with only a cursory glance at any other

paperwork. Roughly 2 percent of the arriving immigrants were denied entry due to a medical condition or

criminal history. The rest would enter the country by way of the streets of New York, many unable to speak

English and totally reliant on _nding those who spoke their native tongue.

FIGURE 19.9 This photo shows newly arrived immigrants at Ellis Island in New York. Inspectors are examining

them for contagious health problems, which could require them to be sent back. (credit: NIAID)

Seeking comfort in a strange land, as well as a common language, many immigrants sought out relatives,

friends, former neighbors, townspeople, and countrymen who had already settled in American cities. This led

to a rise in ethnic enclaves within the larger city. Little Italy, Chinatown, and many other communities

developed in which immigrant groups could _nd everything to remind them of home, from local language

newspapers to ethnic food stores. While these enclaves provided a sense of community to their members, they

added to the problems of urban congestion, particularly in the poorest slums where immigrants could afford

housing.

CLICK AND EXPLORE

This Library of Congress exhibit on the history of Jewish immigration (http:///l/jewishimmig) to

the United States illustrates the ongoing challenge immigrants felt between the ties to their old land and a love

for America.

The demographic shift at the turn of the century was later con_rmed by the Dillingham Commission, created

by Congress in 1907 to report on the nature of immigration in America; the commission reinforced this ethnic

identi_cation of immigrants and their simultaneous discrimination. The report put it simply: These newer

immigrants looked and acted differently. They had darker skin tone, spoke languages with which most

Americans were unfamiliar, and practiced unfamiliar religions, speci_cally Judaism and Catholicism. Even the

foods they sought out at butchers and grocery stores set immigrants apart. Because of these easily identi_able

differences, new immigrants became easy targets for hatred and discrimination. If jobs were hard to _nd, or if

housing was overcrowded, it became easy to blame the immigrants. Like African Americans, immigrants in

cities were blamed for the problems of the day.

19.2 • The African American “Great Migration” and New European Immigration 503

Growing numbers of Americans resented the waves of new immigrants, resulting in a backlash. The Reverend

Josiah Strong fueled the hatred and discrimination in his bestselling book,

Our Country: Its Possible Future

and Its Present Crisis

, published in 1885. In a revised edition that re`ected the 1890 census records, he clearly

identi_ed undesirable immigrants—those from southern and eastern European countries—as a key threat to

the moral _ber of the country, and urged all good Americans to face the challenge. Several thousand

Americans answered his call by forming the American Protective Association, the chief political activist group

to promote legislation curbing immigration into the United States. The group successfully lobbied Congress to

adopt both an English language literacy test for immigrants, which eventually passed in 1917, and the Chinese

Exclusion Act (discussed in a previous chapter). The group’s political lobbying also laid the groundwork for the

subsequent Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924, as well as the National Origins Act.

CLICK AND EXPLORE

The global timeline of immigration (http://openstax.org/l/immig1) at the Library of Congress offers a summary

of immigration policies and the groups affected by it, as well as a compelling overview of different ethnic

groups’ immigration stories. Browse through to see how different ethnic groups made their way in the United

States.

19.3 Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Identify how each class of Americans—working class, middle class, and upper class—responded to the

challenges associated with urban life

• Explain the process of machine politics and how it brought relief to working-class Americans

Settlement houses and religious and civic organizations attempted to provide some support to working-class

city dwellers through free health care, education, and leisure opportunities. Still, for urban citizens, life in the

city was chaotic and challenging. But how that chaos manifested and how relief was sought differed greatly,

depending on where people were in the social caste—the working class, the upper class, or the newly emerging

professional middle class—in addition to the aforementioned issues of race and ethnicity. While many

communities found life in the largest American cities disorganized and overwhelming, the ways they answered

these challenges were as diverse as the people who lived there. Broad solutions emerged that were typically

class speci_c: The rise of machine politics and popular culture provided relief to the working class, higher

education opportunities and suburbanization bene_tted the professional middle class, and reminders of their

elite status gave comfort to the upper class. And everyone, no matter where they fell in the class system,

bene_ted from the efforts to improve the physical landscapes of the fast-growing urban environment.

THE LIFE AND STRUGGLES OF THE URBAN WORKING CLASS

For the working-class residents of America’s cities, one practical way of coping with the challenges of urban

life was to take advantage of the system of machine politics, while another was to seek relief in the variety of

popular culture and entertainment found in and around cities. Although neither of these forms of relief was

restricted to the working class, they were the ones who relied most heavily on them.

Machine Politics

The primary form of relief for working-class urban Americans, and particularly immigrants, came in the form

of machine politics. This phrase referred to the process by which every citizen of the city, no matter their

ethnicity or race, was a ward resident with an alderman who spoke on their behalf at city hall. When everyday

challenges arose, whether sanitation problems or the need for a sidewalk along a muddy road, citizens would

approach their alderman to _nd a solution. The aldermen knew that, rather than work through the long

bureaucratic process associated with city hall, they could work within the “machine” of local politics to _nd a

504 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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speedy, mutually bene_cial solution. In machine politics, favors were exchanged for votes, votes were given in

exchange for fast solutions, and the price of the solutions included a kickback to the boss. In the short term,

everyone got what they needed, but the process was neither transparent nor democratic, and it was an

inef_cient way of conducting the city’s business.

One example of a machine political system was the Democratic political machine Tammany Hall in New York,

run by machine boss William Tweed with assistance from George Washington Plunkitt (Figure 19.10). There,

citizens knew their immediate problems would be addressed in return for their promise of political support in

future elections. In this way, machines provided timely solutions for citizens and votes for the politicians. For

example, if in Little Italy there was a desperate need for sidewalks in order to improve traf_c to the stores on a

particular street, the request would likely get bogged down in the bureaucratic red tape at city hall. Instead,

store owners would approach the machine. A district captain would approach the “boss” and make him aware

of the problem. The boss would contact city politicians and strongly urge them to appropriate the needed

funds for the sidewalk in exchange for the promise that the boss would direct votes in their favor in the

upcoming election. The boss then used the funds to pay one of his friends for the sidewalk construction,

typically at an exorbitant cost, with a _nancial kickback to the boss, which was known as graft. The sidewalk

was built more quickly than anyone hoped, in exchange for the citizens’ promises to vote for machine-

supported candidates in the next elections. Despite its corrupt nature, Tammany Hall essentially ran New York

politics from the 1850s until the 1930s. Other large cities, including Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, St. Louis,

and Kansas City, made use of political machines as well.

FIGURE 19.10 This political cartoon depicts the control of Boss Tweed, of Tammany Hall, over the election process

in New York. Why were people willing to accept the corruption involved in machine politics?

Popular Culture and Entertainment

Working-class residents also found relief in the diverse and omnipresent offerings of popular culture and

entertainment in and around cities. These offerings provided an immediate escape from the squalor and

dif_culties of everyday life. As improved means of internal transportation developed, working-class residents

could escape the city and experience one of the popular new forms of entertainment—the amusement park.

For example, Coney Island on the Brooklyn shoreline consisted of several different amusement parks, the _rst

of which opened in 1895 (Figure 19.11). At these parks, New Yorkers enjoyed wild rides, animal attractions,

and large stage productions designed to help them forget the struggles of their working-day lives. Freak “side”

19.3 • Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life 505

shows fed the public’s curiosity about physical deviance. For a mere ten cents, spectators could watch a high-

diving horse, take a ride to the moon to watch moon maidens eat green cheese, or witness the electrocution of

an elephant, a spectacle that fascinated the public both with technological marvels and exotic wildlife. The

treatment of animals in many acts at Coney Island and other public amusement parks drew the attention of

middle-class reformers such as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Despite

questions regarding the propriety of many of the acts, other cities quickly followed New York’s lead with

similar, if smaller, versions of Coney Island’s attractions.

FIGURE 19.11 The Dreamland Amusement Park tower was just one of Coney Island’s amusements.

CLICK AND EXPLORE

The Coney Island History Project (http://www.coneyislandhistory.org/collection) shows a photographic history

of Coney Island. Look to see what elements of American culture, from the hot dog to the roller coaster, debuted

there.

Another common form of popular entertainment was vaudeville—large stage variety shows that included

everything from singing, dancing, and comedy acts to live animals and magic. The vaudeville circuit gave rise

to several prominent performers, including magician Harry Houdini, who began his career in these variety

shows before his fame propelled him to solo acts. In addition to live theater shows, it was primarily working-

class citizens who enjoyed the advent of the nickelodeon, a forerunner to the movie theater. The _rst

nickelodeon opened in Pittsburgh in 1905, where nearly one hundred visitors packed into a storefront theater

to see a traditional vaudeville show interspersed with one-minute _lm clips. Several theaters initially used the

_lms as “chasers” to indicate the end of the show to the live audience so they would clear the auditorium.

However, a vaudeville performers’ strike generated even greater interest in the _lms, eventually resulting in

the rise of modern movie theaters by 1910.

One other major form of entertainment for the working class was professional baseball (Figure 19.12). Club

teams transformed into professional baseball teams with the Cincinnati Red Stockings, now the Cincinnati

Reds, in 1869. Soon, professional teams sprang up in several major American cities. Baseball games provided

an inexpensive form of entertainment, where for less than a dollar, a person could enjoy a double-header, two

hot dogs, and a beer. But more importantly, the teams became a way for newly relocated Americans and

immigrants of diverse backgrounds to develop a uni_ed civic identity, all cheering for one team. By 1876, the

National League had formed, and soon after, cathedral-style ballparks began to spring up in many cities.

Fenway Park in Boston (1912), Forbes Field in Pittsburgh (1909), and the Polo Grounds in New York (1890) all

became touch points where working-class Americans came together to support a common cause.

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FIGURE 19.12 Boston’s Fenway Park opened in 1912 and was a popular site for working-class Bostonians to spend

their leisure time. The “Green Monster,” the iconic, left [eld wall, makes it one of the most recognizable stadiums in

baseball today.

Other popular sports included prize-_ghting, which attracted a predominantly male, working- and middle-

class audience who lived vicariously through the triumphs of the boxers during a time where opportunities for

individual success were rapidly shrinking, and college football, which paralleled a modern corporation in its

team hierarchy, divisions of duties, and emphasis on time management.

THE UPPER CLASS IN THE CITIES

The American _nancial elite did not need to crowd into cities to _nd work, like their working-class

counterparts. But as urban centers were vital business cores, where multi-million-dollar _nancial deals were

made daily, those who worked in that world wished to remain close to the action. The rich chose to be in the

midst of the chaos of the cities, but they were also able to provide signi_cant measures of comfort,

convenience, and luxury for themselves.

Wealthy citizens seldom attended what they considered the crass entertainment of the working class. Instead

of amusement parks and baseball games, urban elites sought out more re_ned pastimes that underscored

their knowledge of art and culture, preferring classical music concerts, _ne art collections, and social

gatherings with their peers. In New York, Andrew Carnegie built Carnegie Hall in 1891, which quickly became

the center of classical music performances in the country. Nearby, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened its

doors in 1872 and still remains one of the largest collections of _ne art in the world. Other cities followed suit,

and these cultural pursuits became a way for the upper class to remind themselves of their elevated place

amid urban squalor.

As new opportunities for the middle class threatened the austerity of upper-class citizens, including the newer

forms of transportation that allowed middle-class Americans to travel with greater ease, wealthier Americans

sought unique ways to further set themselves apart in society. These included more expensive excursions,

such as vacations in Newport, Rhode Island, winter relocation to sunny Florida, and frequent trips aboard

steamships to Europe. For those who were not of the highly respected “old money,” but only recently obtained

their riches through business ventures, the relief they sought came in the form of one book—the annual

Social

Register

. First published in 1886 by Louis Keller in New York City, the register became a directory of the

wealthy socialites who populated the city. Keller updated it annually, and people would watch with varying

degrees of anxiety or complacency to see their names appear in print. Also called the

Blue Book

, the register

was instrumental in the planning of society dinners, balls, and other social events. For those of newer wealth,

there was relief found simply in the notion that they and others witnessed their wealth through the publication

of their names in the register.

A NEW MIDDLE CLASS

While the working class were con_ned to tenement houses in the cities by their need to be close to their work

and the lack of funds to _nd anyplace better, and the wealthy class chose to remain in the cities to stay close to

the action of big business transactions, the emerging middle class responded to urban challenges with their

own solutions. This group included the managers, salesmen, engineers, doctors, accountants, and other

19.3 • Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life 507

salaried professionals who still worked for a living, but were signi_cantly better educated and compensated

than the working-class poor. For this new middle class, relief from the trials of the cities came through

education and suburbanization.

In large part, the middle class responded to the challenges of the city by physically escaping it. As

transportation improved and outlying communities connected to urban centers, the middle class embraced a

new type of community—the suburbs. It became possible for those with adequate means to work in the city and

escape each evening, by way of a train or trolley, to a house in the suburbs. As the number of people moving to

the suburbs grew, there also grew a perception among the middle class that the farther one lived from the city

and the more amenities one had, the more af`uence one had achieved.

Although a few suburbs existed in the United States prior to the 1880s (such as Llewellyn Park, New Jersey),

the introduction of the electric railway generated greater interest and growth during the last decade of the

century. The ability to travel from home to work on a relatively quick and cheap mode of transportation

encouraged more Americans of modest means to consider living away from the chaos of the city. Eventually,

Henry Ford’s popularization of the automobile, speci_cally in terms of a lower price, permitted more families

to own cars and thus consider suburban life. Later in the twentieth century, both the advent of the interstate

highway system, along with federal legislation designed to allow families to construct homes with low-interest

loans, further sparked the suburban phenomenon.

New Roles for Middle-Class Women

Social norms of the day encouraged middle-class women to take great pride in creating a positive home

environment for their working husbands and school-age children, which reinforced the business and

educational principles that they practiced on the job or in school. It was at this time that the magazines

Ladies'

Home Journal

and

Good Housekeeping

began distribution, to tremendous popularity (Figure 19.13).

FIGURE 19.13 The middle-class family of the late nineteenth century largely embraced a separation of gendered

spheres that had [rst emerged during the market revolution of the antebellum years. Whereas the husband earned

money for the family outside the home, the wife oversaw domestic chores, raised the children, and tended to the

family’s spiritual, social, and cultural needs. The magazine

Good Housekeeping

, launched in 1885, capitalized on

the middle-class woman’s focus on maintaining a pride-worthy home.

While the vast majority of middle-class women took on the expected role of housewife and homemaker, some

women were _nding paths to college. A small number of men’s colleges began to open their doors to women in

the mid-1800s, and co-education became an option. Some of the most elite universities created af_liated

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women’s colleges, such as Radcliffe College with Harvard, and Pembroke College with Brown University. But

more importantly, the _rst women’s colleges opened at this time. Mount Holyoke, Vassar, Smith, and Wellesley

Colleges, still some of the best known women’s schools, opened their doors between 1865 and 1880, and,

although enrollment was low (initial class sizes ranged from sixty-one students at Vassar to seventy at

Wellesley, seventy-one at Smith, and up to eighty-eight at Mount Holyoke), the opportunity for a higher

education, and even a career, began to emerge for young women. These schools offered a unique, all-women

environment in which professors and a community of education-seeking young women came together. While

most college-educated young women still married, their education offered them new opportunities to work

outside the home, most frequently as teachers, professors, or in the aforementioned settlement house

environments created by Jane Addams and others.

Education and the Middle Class

Since the children of the professional class did not have to leave school and _nd work to support their families,

they had opportunities for education and advancement that would solidify their position in the middle class.

They also bene_ted from the presence of stay-at-home mothers, unlike working-class children, whose mothers

typically worked the same long hours as their fathers. Public school enrollment exploded at this time, with the

number of students attending public school tripling from seven million in 1870 to twenty-one million in 1920.

Unlike the old-fashioned one-room schoolhouses, larger schools slowly began the practice of employing

different teachers for each grade, and some even began hiring discipline-speci_c instructors. High schools

also grew at this time, from one hundred high schools nationally in 1860 to over six thousand by 1900.

The federal government supported the growth of higher education with the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890.

These laws set aside public land and federal funds to create land-grant colleges that were affordable to middle-

class families, offering courses and degrees useful in the professions, but also in trade, commerce, industry,

and agriculture (Figure 19.14). Land-grant colleges stood in contrast to the expensive, private Ivy League

universities such as Harvard and Yale, which still catered to the elite. Iowa became the _rst state to accept the

provisions of the original Morrill Act, creating what later became Iowa State University. Other states soon

followed suit, and the availability of an affordable college education encouraged a boost in enrollment, from

50,000 students nationwide in 1870 to over 600,000 students by 1920.

FIGURE 19.14 This rendering of Kansas State University in 1878 shows an early land-grant college, created by the

Morrill Act. These newly created schools allowed many more students to attend college than the elite Ivy League

system, and focused more on preparing them for professional careers in business, medicine, and law, as well as

business, agriculture, and other trades.

College curricula also changed at this time. Students grew less likely to take traditional liberal arts classes in

rhetoric, philosophy, and foreign language, and instead focused on preparing for the modern work world.

Professional schools for the study of medicine, law, and business also developed. In short, education for the

children of middle-class parents catered to class-speci_c interests and helped ensure that parents could

establish their children comfortably in the middle class as well.

19.3 • Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life 509

“CITY BEAUTIFUL”

While the working poor lived in the worst of it and the wealthy elite sought to avoid it, all city dwellers at the

time had to deal with the harsh realities of urban sprawl. Skyscrapers rose and _lled the air, streets were

crowded with pedestrians of all sorts, and, as developers worked to meet the always-increasing demand for

space, the few remaining green spaces in the city quickly disappeared. As the U.S. population became

increasingly centered in urban areas while the century drew to a close, questions about the quality of city

life—particularly with regard to issues of aesthetics, crime, and poverty—quickly consumed many reformers’

minds. Those middle-class and wealthier urbanites who enjoyed the costlier amenities presented by city

life—including theaters, restaurants, and shopping—were free to escape to the suburbs, leaving behind the

poorer working classes living in squalor and unsanitary conditions. Through the City Beautiful movement,

leaders such as Frederick Law Olmsted and Daniel Burnham sought to champion middle- and upper-class

progressive reforms. They improved the quality of life for city dwellers, but also cultivated middle-class-

dominated urban spaces in which Americans of different ethnicities, racial origins, and classes worked and

lived.

Olmsted, one of the earliest and most in`uential designers of urban green space, and the original designer of

Central Park in New York, worked with Burnham to introduce the idea of the City Beautiful movement at the

Columbian Exposition in 1893. There, they helped to design and construct the “White City”—so named for the

plaster of Paris construction of several buildings that were subsequently painted a bright white—an example of

landscaping and architecture that shone as an example of perfect city planning. From wide-open green spaces

to brightly painted white buildings, connected with modern transportation services and appropriate

sanitation, the “White City” set the stage for American urban city planning for the next generation, beginning

in 1901 with the modernization of Washington, DC. This model encouraged city planners to consider three

principal tenets: First, create larger park areas inside cities; second, build wider boulevards to decrease traf_c

congestion and allow for lines of trees and other greenery between lanes; and third, add more suburbs in order

to mitigate congested living in the city itself (Figure 19.15). As each city adapted these principles in various

ways, the City Beautiful movement became a cornerstone of urban development well into the twentieth

century.

FIGURE 19.15 This blueprint shows Burnham’s vision for Chicago, an example of the City Beautiful movement. His

goal was to preserve much of the green space along the city’s lakefront, and to ensure that all city dwellers had

access to green space.

510 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

Access for free at openstax.org.

19.4 Change Reflected in Thought and Writing

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain how American writers, both [ction and non[ction, helped Americans to better understand the changes

they faced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

• Identify some of the influential women and African American writers of the era

In the late nineteenth century, Americans were living in a world characterized by rapid change. Western

expansion, dramatic new technologies, and the rise of big business drastically in`uenced society in a matter of

a few decades. For those living in the fast-growing urban areas, the pace of change was even faster and harder

to ignore. One result of this time of transformation was the emergence of a series of notable authors, who,

whether writing _ction or non_ction, offered a lens through which to better understand the shifts in American

society.

UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL PROGRESS

One key idea of the nineteenth century that moved from the realm of science to the murkier ground of social

and economic success was Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Darwin was a British naturalist who, in his

1859 work

On the Origin of Species

, made the case that species develop and evolve through natural selection,

not through divine intervention. The idea quickly drew _re from the Anglican Church (although a liberal

branch of Anglicans embraced the notion of natural selection being part of God’s plan) and later from many

others, both in England and abroad, who felt that the theory directly contradicted the role of God in the earth’s

creation. Although biologists, botanists, and most of the scienti_c establishment widely accepted the theory of

evolution at the time of Darwin’s publication, which they felt synthesized much of the previous work in the

_eld, the theory remained controversial in the public realm for decades.

Political philosopher Herbert Spencer took Darwin’s theory of evolution further, coining the actual phrase

“survival of the _ttest,” and later helping to popularize the phrase social Darwinism to posit that society

evolved much like a natural organism, wherein some individuals will succeed due to racially and ethnically

inherent traits, and their ability to adapt. This model allowed that a collection of traits and skills, which could

include intelligence, inherited wealth, and so on, mixed with the ability to adapt, would let all Americans rise

or fall of their own accord, so long as the road to success was accessible to all. William Graham Sumner, a

sociologist at Yale, became the most vocal proponent of social Darwinism. Not surprisingly, this ideology,

which Darwin himself would have rejected as a gross misreading of his scienti_c discoveries, drew great praise

from those who made their wealth at this time. They saw their success as proof of biological _tness, although

critics of this theory were quick to point out that those who did not succeed often did not have the same

opportunities or equal playing _eld that the ideology of social Darwinism purported. Eventually, the concept

fell into disrepute in the 1930s and 1940s, as eugenicists began to utilize it in conjunction with their racial

theories of genetic superiority.

Other thinkers of the day took Charles Darwin’s theories in a more nuanced direction, focusing on different

theories of realism that sought to understand the truth underlying the changes in the United States. These

thinkers believed that ideas and social constructs must be proven to work before they could be accepted.

Philosopher William James was one of the key proponents of the closely related concept of pragmatism, which

held that Americans needed to experiment with different ideas and perspectives to _nd the truth about

American society, rather than assuming that there was truth in old, previously accepted models. Only by tying

ideas, thoughts, and statements to actual objects and occurrences could one begin to identify a coherent truth,

according to James. His work strongly in`uenced the subsequent avant-garde and modernist movements in

literature and art, especially in understanding the role of the observer, artist, or writer in shaping the society

they attempted to observe. John Dewey built on the idea of pragmatism to create a theory of instrumentalism,

which advocated the use of education in the search for truth. Dewey believed that education, speci_cally

observation and change through the scienti_c method, was the best tool by which to reform and improve

19.4 • Change Reflected in Thought and Writing 511

American society as it continued to grow ever more complex. To that end, Dewey strongly encouraged

educational reforms designed to create an informed American citizenry that could then form the basis for

other, much-needed progressive reforms in society.

In addition to the new medium of photography, popularized by Riis, novelists and other artists also embraced

realism in their work. They sought to portray vignettes from real life in their stories, partly in response to the

more sentimental works of their predecessors. Visual artists such as George Bellows, Edward Hopper, and

Robert Henri, among others, formed the Ashcan School of Art, which was interested primarily in depicting the

urban lifestyle that was quickly gripping the United States at the turn of the century. Their works typically

focused on working-class city life, including the slums and tenement houses, as well as working-class forms of

leisure and entertainment (Figure 19.16).

FIGURE 19.16 Like most examples of works by Ashcan artists,

The Cliff Dwellers

, by George Wesley Bellows,

depicts the crowd of urban life realistically. (credit: Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

Novelists and journalists also popularized realism in literary works. Authors such as Stephen Crane, who wrote

stark stories about life in the slums or during the Civil War, and Rebecca Harding Davis, who in 1861 published

Life in the Iron Mills

, embodied this popular style. Mark Twain also sought realism in his books, whether it was

the reality of the pioneer spirit, seen in

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

, published in 1884, or the issue of

corruption in

The Gilded Age

, co-authored with Charles Dudley Warner in 1873. The narratives and visual arts

of these realists could nonetheless be highly stylized, crafted, and even fabricated, since their goal was the

effective portrayal of social realities they thought required reform. Some authors, such as Jack London, who

wrote

The Call of the Wild

, embraced a school of thought called naturalism, which concluded that the laws of

nature and the natural world were the only truly relevant laws governing humanity (Figure 19.17).

512 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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FIGURE 19.17 Jack London poses with his dog Rollo in 1885 (a). The cover of Jack London’s

The Call of the Wild

(b)

shows the dogs in the brutal environment of the Klondike. The book tells the story of Buck, a dog living happily in

California until he is sold to be a sled dog in Canada. There, he must survive harsh conditions and brutal behavior,

but his innate animal nature takes over and he prevails. The story clari[es the struggle between humanity’s nature

versus the nurturing forces of society.

Kate Chopin, widely regarded as the foremost woman short story writer and novelist of her day, sought to

portray a realistic view of women’s lives in late nineteenth-century America, thus paving the way for more

explicit feminist literature in generations to come. Although Chopin never described herself as a feminist per

se, her re`ective works on her experiences as a southern woman introduced a form of creative non_ction that

captured the struggles of women in the United States through their own individual experiences. She also was

among the _rst authors to openly address the race issue of miscegenation, a term referring to interracial

relations, which usually has negative associations. In her work

Desiree’s Baby

, Chopin speci_cally explores the

Creole community of her native Louisiana in depths that exposed the reality of racism in a manner seldom

seen in literature of the time.

African American poet, playwright, and novelist of the realist period, Paul Laurence Dunbar dealt with issues

of race at a time when most reform-minded Americans preferred to focus on other issues. Through his

combination of writing in both standard English and Black dialect, Dunbar delighted readers with his rich

portrayals of the successes and struggles associated with African American life. Although he initially struggled

to _nd the patronage and _nancial support required to develop a full-time literary career, Dunbar’s

subsequent professional relationship with literary critic and

Atlantic Monthly

editor William Dean Howells

helped to _rmly cement his literary credentials as the foremost African American writer of his generation. As

with Chopin and Harding Davis, Dunbar’s writing highlighted parts of the American experience that were not

well understood by the dominant demographic of the country. In their work, these authors provided readers

with insights into a world that was not necessarily familiar to them and also gave hidden communities—be it

iron mill workers, southern women, or African American men—a sense of voice.

CLICK AND EXPLORE

Mark Twain’s lampoon of author Horatio Alger (http://openstax.org/l/twain1) demonstrates Twain’s

commitment to realism by mocking the myth set out by Alger, whose stories followed a common theme in

which a poor but honest boy goes from rags to riches through a combination of “luck and pluck.” See how

19.4 • Change Reflected in Thought and Writing 513

Twain twists Alger’s hugely popular storyline in this piece of satire.

Kate Chopin: An Awakening in an Unpopular Time

Author Kate Chopin grew up in the American South and later moved to St. Louis, where she began writing stories

to make a living after the death of her husband. She published her works throughout the late 1890s, with stories

appearing in literary magazines and local papers. It was her second novel,

The Awakening

, which gained her

notoriety and criticism in her lifetime, and ongoing literary fame after her death (Figure 19.18).

FIGURE 19.18 Critics railed against Kate Chopin, the author of the 1899 novel

The Awakening

, criticizing its

stark portrayal of a woman struggling with societal con[nes and her own desires. In the twentieth century,

scholars rediscovered Chopin’s work and

The Awakening

is now considered part of the canon of American

literature.

The Awakening

, set in the New Orleans society that Chopin knew well, tells the story of a woman struggling with

the constraints of marriage who ultimately seeks her own ful[llment over the needs of her family. The book deals

far more openly than most novels of the day with questions of women’s sexual desires. It also flouted

nineteenth-century conventions by looking at the protagonist’s struggles with the traditional role expected of

women.

While a few contemporary reviewers saw merit in the book, most criticized it as immoral and unseemly. It was

censored, called “pure poison,” and critics railed against Chopin herself. While Chopin wrote squarely in the

tradition of realism that was popular at this time, her work covered ground that was considered “too real” for

comfort. After the negative reception of the novel, Chopin retreated from public life and discontinued writing. She

died [ve years after its publication. After her death, Chopin’s work was largely ignored, until scholars

rediscovered it in the late twentieth century, and her books and stories came back into print.

The Awakening

in

particular has been recognized as vital to the earliest edges of the modern feminist movement.

DEFINING AMERICAN

514 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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CLICK AND EXPLORE

Excerpts from interviews (http:///l/katechopin) with David Chopin, Kate Chopin’s grandson, and a

scholar who studies her work provide interesting perspectives on the author and her views.

CRITICS OF MODERN AMERICA

While many Americans at this time, both everyday working people and theorists, felt the changes of the era

would lead to improvements and opportunities, there were critics of the emerging social shifts as well.

Although less popular than Twain and London, authors such as Edward Bellamy, Henry George, and Thorstein

Veblen were also in`uential in spreading critiques of the industrial age. While their critiques were quite

distinct from each other, all three believed that the industrial age was a step in the wrong direction for the

country.

In the 1888 novel

Looking Backward, 2000-1887

, Edward Bellamy portrays a utopian America in the year

2000, with the country living in peace and harmony after abandoning the capitalist model and moving to a

socialist state. In the book, Bellamy predicts the future advent of credit cards, cable entertainment, and

“super-store” cooperatives that resemble a modern day Wal-Mart.

Looking Backward

proved to be a popular

bestseller (third only to

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

and

Ben Hur

among late nineteenth-century publications) and

appealed to those who felt the industrial age of big business was sending the country in the wrong direction.

Eugene Debs, who led the national Pullman Railroad Strike in 1894, later commented on how Bellamy’s work

in`uenced him to adopt socialism as the answer to the exploitative industrial capitalist model. In addition,

Bellamy’s work spurred the publication of no fewer than thirty-six additional books or articles by other writers,

either supporting Bellamy’s outlook or directly criticizing it. In 1897, Bellamy felt compelled to publish a

sequel, entitled

Equality

, in which he further explained ideas he had previously introduced concerning

educational reform and women’s equality, as well as a world of vegetarians who speak a universal language.

Another author whose work illustrated the criticisms of the day was non_ction writer Henry George, an

economist best known for his 1879 work

Progress and Poverty

, which criticized the inequality found in an

industrial economy. He suggested that, while people should own that which they create, all land and natural

resources should belong to all equally, and should be taxed through a “single land tax” in order to

disincentivize private land ownership. His thoughts in`uenced many economic progressive reformers, as well

as led directly to the creation of the now-popular board game, Monopoly.

Another critique of late nineteenth-century American capitalism was Thorstein Veblen, who lamented in

The

Theory of the Leisure Class

(1899) that capitalism created a middle class more preoccupied with its own

comfort and consumption than with maximizing production. In coining the phrase “conspicuous

consumption,” Veblen identi_ed the means by which one class of nonproducers exploited the working class

that produced the goods for their consumption. Such practices, including the creation of business trusts,

served only to create a greater divide between the haves and have-nots in American society, and resulted in

economic inef_ciencies that required correction or reform.

19.4 • Change Reflected in Thought and Writing 515

Key Terms

City Beautiful a movement begun by Daniel Burnham and Fredrick Law Olmsted, who believed that cities

should be built with three core tenets in mind: the inclusion of parks within city limits, the creation of wide

boulevards, and the expansion of more suburbs

graft the _nancial kickback provided to city bosses in exchange for political favors

Great Migration the name for the large wave of African Americans who left the South after the Civil War,

mostly moving to cities in the Northeast and Upper Midwest

instrumentalism a theory promoted by John Dewey, who believed that education was key to the search for

the truth about ideals and institutions

machine politics the process by which citizens of a city used their local ward alderman to work the

“machine” of local politics to meet local needs within a neighborhood

naturalism a theory of realism that states that the laws of nature and the natural world were the only

relevant laws governing humanity

pragmatism a doctrine supported by philosopher William James, which held that Americans needed to

experiment and _nd the truth behind underlying institutions, religions, and ideas in American life, rather

than accepting them on faith

realism a collection of theories and ideas that sought to understand the underlying changes in the United

States during the late nineteenth century

settlement house movement an early progressive reform movement, largely spearheaded by women,

which sought to offer services such as childcare and free healthcare to help the working poor

social gospel the belief that the church should be as concerned about the conditions of people in the secular

world as it was with their afterlife

Social Register

a de facto directory of the wealthy socialites in each city, _rst published by Louis Keller in

1886

Tammany Hall a political machine in New York, run by machine boss William Tweed with assistance from

George Washington Plunkitt

Summary

19.1 Urbanization and Its Challenges

Urbanization spread rapidly in the mid-nineteenth century due to a con`uence of factors. New technologies,

such as electricity and steam engines, transformed factory work, allowing factories to move closer to urban

centers and away from the rivers that had previously been vital sources of both water power and

transportation. The growth of factories—as well as innovations such as electric lighting, which allowed them to

run at all hours of the day and night—created a massive need for workers, who poured in from both rural areas

of the United States and from eastern and southern Europe. As cities grew, they were unable to cope with this

rapid in`ux of workers, and the living conditions for the working class were terrible. Tight living quarters, with

inadequate plumbing and sanitation, led to widespread illness. Churches, civic organizations, and the secular

settlement house movement all sought to provide some relief to the urban working class, but conditions

remained brutal for many new city dwellers.

19.2 The African American “Great Migration” and New European Immigration

For both African Americans migrating from the postwar South and immigrants arriving from southeastern

Europe, a combination of “push” and “pull” factors in`uenced their migration to America’s urban centers.

African Americans moved away from the racial violence and limited opportunities that existed in the rural

South, seeking wages and steady work, as well as the opportunity to vote safely as free men; however, they

quickly learned that racial discrimination and violence were not limited to the South. For European

immigrants, famine and persecution led them to seek a new life in the United States, where, the stories said,

the streets were paved in gold. Of course, in northeastern and midwestern cities, both groups found a more

516 19 • Key Terms

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challenging welcome than they had anticipated. City residents blamed recent arrivals for the ills of the cities,

from overcrowding to a rise in crime. Activist groups pushed for anti-immigration legislation, seeking to limit

the waves of immigrants that sought a better future in the United States.

19.3 Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life

The burgeoning cities brought together both rich and poor, working class and upper class; however, the

realities of urban dwellers’ lives varied dramatically based on where they fell in the social chain.

Entertainment and leisure-time activities were heavily dependent on one’s status and wealth. For the working

poor, amusement parks and baseball games offered inexpensive entertainment and a brief break from the

squalor of the tenements. For the emerging middle class of salaried professionals, an escape to the suburbs

kept them removed from the city’s chaos outside of working hours. And for the wealthy, immersion in arts and

culture, as well as inclusion in the

Social Register

, allowed them to socialize exclusively with those they felt

were of the same social status. The City Beautiful movement bene_tted all city dwellers, with its emphasis on

public green spaces, and more beautiful and practical city boulevards. In all, these different opportunities for

leisure and pleasure made city life manageable for the citizens who lived there.

19.4 Change Reflected in Thought and Writing

Americans were overwhelmed by the rapid pace and scale of change at the close of the nineteenth century.

Authors and thinkers tried to assess the meaning of the country’s seismic shifts in culture and society through

their work. Fiction writers often used realism in an attempt to paint an accurate portrait of how people were

living at the time. Proponents of economic developments and cultural changes cited social Darwinism as an

acceptable model to explain why some people succeeded and others failed, whereas other philosophers looked

more closely at Darwin’s work and sought to apply a model of proof and pragmatism to all ideas and

institutions. Other sociologists and philosophers criticized the changes of the era, citing the inequities found in

the new industrial economy and its negative effects on workers.

Review Questions

1. Which of the following four elements was

not

essential for creating massive urban growth in late

nineteenth-century America?

A. electric lighting

B. communication improvements

C. skyscrapers

D. settlement houses

2. Which of the following did the settlement house movement offer as a means of relief for working-class

women?

A. childcare

B. job opportunities

C. political advocacy

D. relocation services

3. What technological and economic factors combined to lead to the explosive growth of American cities at

this time?

4. Why did African Americans consider moving from the rural South to the urban North following the Civil

War?

A. to be able to buy land

B. to avoid slavery

C. to _nd wage-earning work

D. to further their education

19 • Review Questions 517

5. Which of the following is true of late nineteenth-century southern and eastern European immigrants, as

opposed to their western and northern European predecessors?

A. Southern and eastern European immigrants tended to be wealthier.

B. Southern and eastern European immigrants were, on the whole, more skilled and able to _nd better

paying employment.

C. Many southern and eastern European immigrants acquired land in the West, while western and

northern European immigrants tended to remain in urban centers.

D. Ellis Island was the _rst destination for most southern and eastern Europeans.

6. What made recent European immigrants the ready targets of more established city dwellers? What was the

result of this discrimination?

7. Which of the following was a popular pastime for working-class urban dwellers?

A. football games

B. opera

C. museums

D. amusement parks

8. Which of the following was a disadvantage of machine politics?

A. Immigrants did not have a voice.

B. Taxpayers ultimately paid higher city taxes due to graft.

C. Only wealthy parts of the city received timely responses.

D. Citizens who voiced complaints were at risk for their safety.

9. In what way did education play a crucial role in the emergence of the middle class?

10. Which of the following statements accurately represents Thorstein Veblen’s argument in

The Theory of

the Leisure Class

?

A. All citizens of an industrial society would rise or fall based on their own innate merits.

B. The tenets of naturalism were the only laws through which society should be governed.

C. The middle class was overly focused on its own comfort and consumption.

D. Land and natural resources should belong equally to all citizens.

11. Which of the following was

not

an element of realism?

A. social Darwinism

B. instrumentalism

C. naturalism

D. pragmatism

12. In what ways did writers, photographers, and visual artists begin to embrace more realistic subjects in

their work? How were these responses to the advent of the industrial age and the rise of cities?

Critical Thinking Questions

13. What triumphs did the late nineteenth century witness in the realms of industrial growth, urbanization,

and technological innovation? What challenges did these developments pose for urban dwellers, workers,

and recent immigrants? How did city of_cials and everyday citizens respond to these challenges?

14. What were the effects of urbanization on the working, middle, and elite classes of American society?

Conversely, how did the different social classes and their activities change the scope, character, and use of

urban spaces?

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15. How do you think that different classes of city dwellers would have viewed the City Beautiful movement?

What potential bene_ts and drawbacks of this new direction in urban planning might members of each

class have cited?

16. How was Darwin’s work on the evolution of species exploited by proponents of the industrial age? Why

might they have latched on to this idea in particular?

17. Historians often mine the arts for clues to the social, cultural, political, and intellectual shifts that

characterized a given era. How do the many works of visual art, literature, and social philosophy that

emerged from this period re`ect the massive changes that were taking place? How were Americans—both

those who created these works and those who read or viewed them—struggling to understand the new

reality through art, literature, and scholarship?

19 • Critical Thinking Questions 519

520 19 • Critical Thinking Questions

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FIGURE 19.1 For the millions of immigrants arriving by ship in New York City’s harbor, the sight of the Statue of

Liberty, as in

Unveiling the Statue of Liberty

(1886) by Edward Moran, stood as a physical representation of the new

freedoms and economic opportunities they hoped to [nd.

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER OUTLINE

19.1 Urbanization and Its Challenges

19.2 The African American “Great Migration” and New European Immigration

19.3 Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life

19.4 Change Reflected in Thought and Writing

“We saw the big woman with spikes on her head.” So begins Sadie Frowne’s _rst memory of

arriving in the United States. Many Americans experienced in their new home what the thirteen-year-old

Polish girl had seen in the silhouette of the Statue of Liberty (Figure 19.1): a wondrous world of new

opportunities fraught with dangers. Sadie and her mother, for instance, had left Poland after her father’s death.

Her mother died shortly thereafter, and Sadie had to _nd her own way in New York, working in factories and

slowly assimilating to life in a vast multinational metropolis. Her story is similar to millions of others, as

people came to the United States seeking a better future than the one they had at home.

The future they found, however, was often grim. While many believed in the land of opportunity, the reality of

urban life in the United States was more chaotic and dif_cult than people expected. In addition to the

challenges of language, class, race, and ethnicity, these new arrivals dealt with low wages, overcrowded

buildings, poor sanitation, and widespread disease. The land of opportunity, it seemed, did not always deliver

19

The Growing Pains of Urbanization,

1870-1900

on its promises.

19.1 Urbanization and Its Challenges

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the growth of American cities in the late nineteenth century

• Identify the key challenges that Americans faced due to urbanization, as well as some of the possible solutions

to those challenges

FIGURE 19.2

Urbanization occurred rapidly in the second half of the nineteenth century in the United States for a number of

reasons. The new technologies of the time led to a massive leap in industrialization, requiring large numbers

of workers. New electric lights and powerful machinery allowed factories to run twenty-four hours a day, seven

days a week. Workers were forced into grueling twelve-hour shifts, requiring them to live close to the factories.

While the work was dangerous and dif_cult, many Americans were willing to leave behind the declining

prospects of preindustrial agriculture in the hope of better wages in industrial labor. Furthermore, problems

ranging from famine to religious persecution led a new wave of immigrants to arrive from central, eastern, and

southern Europe, many of whom settled and found work near the cities where they _rst arrived. Immigrants

sought solace and comfort among others who shared the same language and customs, and the nation’s cities

became an invaluable economic and cultural resource.

Although cities such as Philadelphia, Boston, and New York sprang up from the initial days of colonial

settlement, the explosion in urban population growth did not occur until the mid-nineteenth century (Figure

19.3). At this time, the attractions of city life, and in particular, employment opportunities, grew exponentially

due to rapid changes in industrialization. Before the mid-1800s, factories, such as the early textile mills, had to

be located near rivers and seaports, both for the transport of goods and the necessary water power. Production

became dependent upon seasonal water `ow, with cold, icy winters all but stopping river transportation

entirely. The development of the steam engine transformed this need, allowing businesses to locate their

factories near urban centers. These factories encouraged more and more people to move to urban areas where

jobs were plentiful, but hourly wages were often low and the work was routine and grindingly monotonous.

492 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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FIGURE 19.3 As these panels illustrate, the population of the United States grew rapidly in the late 1800s (a). Much

of this new growth took place in urban areas (de[ned by the census as twenty-[ve hundred people or more), and

this urban population, particularly that of major cities (b), dealt with challenges and opportunities that were

unknown in previous generations.

Eventually, cities developed their own unique characters based on the core industry that spurred their growth.

In Pittsburgh, it was steel; in Chicago, it was meat packing; in New York, the garment and _nancial industries

dominated; and Detroit, by the mid-twentieth century, was de_ned by the automobiles it built. But all cities at

this time, regardless of their industry, suffered from the universal problems that rapid expansion brought with

it, including concerns over housing and living conditions, transportation, and communication. These issues

were almost always rooted in deep class inequalities, shaped by racial divisions, religious differences, and

ethnic strife, and distorted by corrupt local politics.

CLICK AND EXPLORE

This 1884 Bureau of Labor Statistics report for Massachusetts (http://openstax.org/l/clothingfact) from Boston

looks in detail at the wages, living conditions, and moral code of the girls who worked in the clothing factories

there.

THE KEYS TO SUCCESSFUL URBANIZATION

As the country grew, certain elements led some towns to morph into large urban centers, while others did not.

The following four innovations proved critical in shaping urbanization at the turn of the century: electric

lighting, communication improvements, intracity transportation, and the rise of skyscrapers. As people

migrated for the new jobs, they often struggled with the absence of basic urban infrastructures, such as better

transportation, adequate housing, means of communication, and ef_cient sources of light and energy. Even

the basic necessities, such as fresh water and proper sanitation—often taken for granted in the

countryside—presented a greater challenge in urban life.

Electric Lighting

Thomas Edison patented the incandescent light bulb in 1879. This development quickly became common in

homes as well as factories, transforming how even lower- and middle-class Americans lived. Although slow to

arrive in rural areas of the country, electric power became readily available in cities when the _rst commercial

power plants began to open in 1882. When Nikola Tesla subsequently developed the AC (alternating current)

system for the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company, power supplies for lights and other factory

equipment could extend for miles from the power source. AC power transformed the use of electricity, allowing

urban centers to physically cover greater areas. In the factories, electric lights permitted operations to run

twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. This increase in production required additional workers, and this

demand brought more people to cities.

Gradually, cities began to illuminate the streets with electric lamps to allow the city to remain alight

19.1 • Urbanization and Its Challenges 493

throughout the night. No longer did the pace of life and economic activity slow substantially at sunset, the way

it had in smaller towns. The cities, following the factories that drew people there, stayed open all the time.

Communications Improvements

The telephone, patented in 1876, greatly transformed communication both regionally and nationally. The

telephone rapidly supplanted the telegraph as the preferred form of communication; by 1900, over 1.5 million

telephones were in use around the nation, whether as private lines in the homes of some middle- and upper-

class Americans, or as jointly used “party lines” in many rural areas. By allowing instant communication over

larger distances at any given time, growing telephone networks made urban sprawl possible.

In the same way that electric lights spurred greater factory production and economic growth, the telephone

increased business through the more rapid pace of demand. Now, orders could come constantly via telephone,

rather than via mail-order. More orders generated greater production, which in turn required still more

workers. This demand for additional labor played a key role in urban growth, as expanding companies sought

workers to handle the increasing consumer demand for their products.

Intracity Transportation

As cities grew and sprawled outward, a major challenge was ef_cient travel within the city—from home to

factories or shops, and then back again. Most transportation infrastructure was used to connect cities to each

other, typically by rail or canal. Prior to the 1880s, two of the most common forms of transportation within

cities were the omnibus and the horse car. An omnibus was a large, horse-drawn carriage. A horse car was

similar to an omnibus, but it was placed on iron or steel tracks to provide a smoother ride. While these horse-

driven vehicles worked adequately in smaller, less-congested cities, they were not equipped to handle the

larger crowds that developed at the close of the century. The horses had to stop and rest, and horse manure

became an ongoing problem.

In 1887, Frank Sprague invented the electric trolley, which worked along the same concept as the horse car,

with a large wagon on tracks, but was powered by electricity rather than horses. The electric trolley could run

throughout the day and night, like the factories and the workers who fueled them. But it also modernized less

important industrial centers, such as the southern city of Richmond, Virginia. As early as 1873, San Francisco

engineers adopted pulley technology from the mining industry to introduce cable cars and turn the city’s steep

hills into elegant middle-class communities. However, as crowds continued to grow in the largest cities, such

as Chicago and New York, trolleys were unable to move ef_ciently through the crowds of pedestrians (Figure

19.4). To avoid this challenge, city planners elevated the trolley lines above the streets, creating elevated trains,

or L-trains, as early as 1868 in New York City, and quickly spreading to Boston in 1887 and Chicago in 1892.

Finally, as skyscrapers began to dominate the air, transportation evolved one step further to move

underground as subways. Boston’s subway system began operating in 1897, and was quickly followed by New

York and other cities.

494 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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FIGURE 19.4 Although trolleys were far more ef[cient than horse-drawn carriages, populous cities such as New

York experienced frequent accidents, as depicted in this 1895 illustration from

Leslie’s Weekly

(a). To avoid

overcrowded streets, trolleys soon went underground, as at the Public Gardens Portal in Boston (b), where three

different lines met to enter the Tremont Street Subway, the oldest subway tunnel in the United States, opening on

September 1, 1897.

The Rise of Skyscrapers

The last limitation that large cities had to overcome was the ever-increasing need for space. Eastern cities,

unlike their midwestern counterparts, could not continue to grow outward, as the land surrounding them was

already settled. Geographic limitations such as rivers or the coast also hampered sprawl. And in all cities,

citizens needed to be close enough to urban centers to conveniently access work, shops, and other core

institutions of urban life. The increasing cost of real estate made upward growth attractive, and so did the

prestige that towering buildings carried for the businesses that occupied them. Workers completed the _rst

skyscraper in Chicago, the ten-story Home Insurance Building, in 1885 (Figure 19.5). Although engineers had

the capability to go higher, thanks to new steel construction techniques, they required another vital invention

in order to make taller buildings viable: the elevator. In 1889, the Otis Elevator Company, led by inventor Elisha

Otis, installed the _rst electric elevator. This began the skyscraper craze, allowing developers in eastern cities

to build and market prestigious real estate in the hearts of crowded eastern metropoles.

19.1 • Urbanization and Its Challenges 495

FIGURE 19.5 While the technology existed to engineer tall buildings, it was not until the invention of the electric

elevator in 1889 that skyscrapers began to take over the urban landscape. Shown here is the Home Insurance

Building in Chicago, considered the [rst modern skyscraper.

Jacob Riis and the Window into “How the Other Half Lives”

Jacob Riis was a Danish immigrant who moved to New York in the late nineteenth century and, after experiencing

poverty and joblessness [rst-hand, ultimately built a career as a police reporter. In the course of his work, he

spent much of his time in the slums and tenements of New York’s working poor. Appalled by what he found there,

Riis began documenting these scenes of squalor and sharing them through lectures and ultimately through the

publication of his book,

How the Other Half Lives

, in 1890 (Figure 19.6).

DEFINING AMERICAN

496 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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FIGURE 19.6 In photographs such as

Bandit’s Roost

(1888), taken on Mulberry Street in the infamous Five

Points neighborhood of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Jacob Riis documented the plight of New York City slums in

the late nineteenth century.

By most contemporary accounts, Riis was an effective storyteller, using drama and racial stereotypes to tell his

stories of the ethnic slums he encountered. But while his racial thinking was very much a product of his time, he

was also a reformer; he felt strongly that upper and middle-class Americans could and should care about the

living conditions of the poor. In his book and lectures, he argued against the immoral landlords and useless laws

that allowed dangerous living conditions and high rents. He also suggested remodeling existing tenements or

building new ones. He was not alone in his concern for the plight of the poor; other reporters and activists had

already brought the issue into the public eye, and Riis’s photographs added a new element to the story.

To tell his stories, Riis used a series of deeply compelling photographs. Riis and his group of amateur

photographers moved through the various slums of New York, laboriously setting up their tripods and explosive

chemicals to create enough light to take the photographs. His photos and writings shocked the public, made Riis

a well-known [gure both in his day and beyond, and eventually led to new state legislation curbing abuses in

tenements.

THE IMMEDIATE CHALLENGES OF URBAN LIFE

Congestion, pollution, crime, and disease were prevalent problems in all urban centers; city planners and

inhabitants alike sought new solutions to the problems caused by rapid urban growth. Living conditions for

most working-class urban dwellers were atrocious. They lived in crowded tenement houses and cramped

apartments with terrible ventilation and substandard plumbing and sanitation. As a result, disease ran

rampant, with typhoid and cholera common. Memphis, Tennessee, experienced waves of cholera (1873)

followed by yellow fever (1878 and 1879) that resulted in the loss of over ten thousand lives. By the late 1880s,

New York City, Baltimore, Chicago, and New Orleans had all introduced sewage pumping systems to provide

19.1 • Urbanization and Its Challenges 497

ef_cient waste management. Many cities were also serious _re hazards. An average working-class family of six,

with two adults and four children, had at best a two-bedroom tenement. By one 1900 estimate, in the New York

City borough of Manhattan alone, there were nearly _fty thousand tenement houses. The photographs of these

tenement houses are seen in Jacob Riis’s book,

How the Other Half Lives

, discussed in the feature above. Citing

a study by the New York State Assembly at this time, Riis found New York to be the most densely populated city

in the world, with as many as eight hundred residents per square acre in the Lower East Side working-class

slums, comprising the Eleventh and Thirteenth Wards.

CLICK AND EXPLORE

Visit New York City, Tenement Life (http://openstax.org/l/tenement) to get an impression of the everyday life of

tenement dwellers on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

Churches and civic organizations provided some relief to the challenges of working-class city life. Churches

were moved to intervene through their belief in the concept of the social gospel. This philosophy stated that all

Christians, whether they were church leaders or social reformers, should be as concerned about the conditions

of life in the secular world as the afterlife, and the Reverend Washington Gladden was a major advocate. Rather

than preaching sermons on heaven and hell, Gladden talked about social changes of the time, urging other

preachers to follow his lead. He advocated for improvements in daily life and encouraged Americans of all

classes to work together for the betterment of society. His sermons included the message to “love thy

neighbor” and held that all Americans had to work together to help the masses. As a result of his in`uence,

churches began to include gymnasiums and libraries as well as offer evening classes on hygiene and health

care. Other religious organizations like the Salvation Army and the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA)

expanded their reach in American cities at this time as well. Beginning in the 1870s, these organizations

began providing community services and other bene_ts to the urban poor.

In the secular sphere, the settlement house movement of the 1890s provided additional relief. Pioneering

women such as Jane Addams in Chicago and Lillian Wald in New York led this early progressive reform

movement in the United States, building upon ideas originally fashioned by social reformers in England. With

no particular religious bent, they worked to create settlement houses in urban centers where they could help

the working class, and in particular, working-class women, _nd aid. Their help included child daycare, evening

classes, libraries, gym facilities, and free health care. Addams opened her now-famous Hull House (Figure

19.7) in Chicago in 1889, and Wald’s Henry Street Settlement opened in New York six years later. The

movement spread quickly to other cities, where they not only provided relief to working-class women but also

offered employment opportunities for women graduating college in the growing _eld of social work.

Oftentimes, living in the settlement houses among the women they helped, these college graduates

experienced the equivalent of living social classrooms in which to practice their skills, which also frequently

caused friction with immigrant women who had their own ideas of reform and self-improvement.

498 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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FIGURE 19.7 Jane Addams opened Hull House in Chicago in 1889, offering services and support to the city’s

working poor.

The success of the settlement house movement later became the basis of a political agenda that included

pressure for housing laws, child labor laws, and worker’s compensation laws, among others. Florence Kelley,

who originally worked with Addams in Chicago, later joined Wald’s efforts in New York; together, they created

the National Child Labor Committee and advocated for the subsequent creation of the Children’s Bureau in the

U.S. Department of Labor in 1912. Julia Lathrop—herself a former resident of Hull House—became the _rst

woman to head a federal government agency, when President William Howard Taft appointed her to run the

bureau. Settlement house workers also became in`uential leaders in the women’s suffrage movement as well

as the antiwar movement during World War I.

Jane Addams Reflects on the Settlement House Movement

Jane Addams was a social activist whose work took many forms. She is perhaps best known as the founder of

Hull House in Chicago, which later became a model for settlement houses throughout the country. Here, she

reflects on the role that the settlement played.

“Life in the Settlement discovers above all what has been called ‘the extraordinary pliability of human nature,’

and it seems impossible to set any bounds to the moral capabilities which might unfold under ideal civic and

educational conditions. But in order to obtain these conditions, the Settlement recognizes the need of

cooperation, both with the radical and the conservative, and from the very nature of the case the Settlement

cannot limit its friends to any one political party or economic school.” “The Settlement casts side none of those

things which cultivated men have come to consider reasonable and goodly, but it insists that those belong as well

to that great body of people who, because of toilsome and underpaid labor, are unable to procure them for

themselves. Added to this is a profound conviction that the common stock of intellectual enjoyment should not

be dif[cult of access because of the economic position of him who would approach it, that those ‘best results of

civilization’ upon which depend the [ner and freer aspects of living must be incorporated into our common life

and have free mobility through all elements of society if we would have our democracy endure.” “The

educational activities of a Settlement, as well its philanthropic, civic, and social undertakings, are but differing

manifestations of the attempt to socialize democracy, as is the very existence of the Settlement itself. ”

In addition to her pioneering work in the settlement house movement, Addams also was active in the women’s

suffrage movement as well as an outspoken proponent for international peace efforts. She was instrumental in

the relief effort after World War I, a commitment that led to her winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.

MY STORY

19.1 • Urbanization and Its Challenges 499

19.2 The African American “Great Migration” and New European Immigration

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Identify the factors that prompted African American and European immigration to American cities in the late

nineteenth century

• Explain the discrimination and anti-immigration legislation that immigrants faced in the late nineteenth century

New cities were populated with diverse waves of new arrivals, who came to the cities to seek work in the

businesses and factories there. While a small percentage of these newcomers were White Americans seeking

jobs, most were made up of two groups that had not previously been factors in the urbanization movement:

African Americans `eeing the racism of the farms and former plantations in the South, and southern and

eastern European immigrants. These new immigrants supplanted the previous waves of northern and western

European immigrants, who had tended to move west to purchase land. Unlike their predecessors, the newer

immigrants lacked the funds to strike out to the western lands and instead remained in the urban centers

where they arrived, seeking any work that would keep them alive.

THE AFRICAN AMERICAN “GREAT MIGRATION”

Between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the Great Depression, nearly two million African

Americans `ed the rural South to seek new opportunities elsewhere. While some moved west, the vast

majority of this Great Migration, as the large exodus of African Americans leaving the South in the early

twentieth century was called, traveled to the Northeast and Upper Midwest. The following cities were the

primary destinations for these African Americans: New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Detroit,

Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Indianapolis. These eight cities accounted for over two-thirds of the total population

of the African American migration.

A combination of both “push” and “pull” factors played a role in this movement. Despite the end of the Civil

War and the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution (ending

slavery, ensuring equal protection under the law, and protecting the right to vote, respectively), African

Americans were still subjected to intense racial hatred. The rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the immediate

aftermath of the Civil War led to increased death threats, violence, and a wave of lynchings. Even after the

formal dismantling of the Klan in the late 1870s, racially motivated violence continued. According to

researchers at the Tuskegee Institute, there were thirty-_ve hundred racially motivated lynchings and other

murders committed in the South between 1865 and 1900. For African Americans `eeing this culture of

violence, northern and midwestern cities offered an opportunity to escape the dangers of the South.

In addition to this “push” out of the South, African Americans were also “pulled” to the cities by factors that

attracted them, including job opportunities, where they could earn a wage rather than be tied to a landlord,

and the chance to vote (for men, at least), supposedly free from the threat of violence. Although many lacked

the funds to move themselves north, factory owners and other businesses that sought cheap labor assisted the

migration. Often, the men moved _rst then sent for their families once they were ensconced in their new city

life. Racism and a lack of formal education relegated these African American workers to many of the lower-

paying unskilled or semi-skilled occupations. More than 80 percent of African American men worked menial

jobs in steel mills, mines, construction, and meat packing. In the railroad industry, they were often employed

as porters or servants (Figure 19.8). In other businesses, they worked as janitors, waiters, or cooks. African

American women, who faced discrimination due to both their race and gender, found a few job opportunities

in the garment industry or laundries, but were more often employed as maids and domestic servants.

Regardless of the status of their jobs, however, African Americans earned higher wages in the North than they

did for the same occupations in the South, and typically found housing to be more available.

500 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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FIGURE 19.8 African American men who moved north as part of the Great Migration were often consigned to

menial employment, such as working in construction or as porters on the railways (a), such as in the celebrated

Pullman dining and sleeping cars (b).

However, such economic gains were offset by the higher cost of living in the North, especially in terms of rent,

food costs, and other essentials. As a result, African Americans often found themselves living in overcrowded,

unsanitary conditions, much like the tenement slums in which European immigrants lived in the cities. For

newly arrived African Americans, even those who sought out the cities for the opportunities they provided, life

in these urban centers was exceedingly dif_cult. They quickly learned that racial discrimination did not end at

the Mason-Dixon Line, but continued to `ourish in the North as well as the South. European immigrants, also

seeking a better life in the cities of the United States, resented the arrival of the African Americans, whom they

feared would compete for the same jobs or offer to work at lower wages. Landlords frequently discriminated

against them; their rapid in`ux into the cities created severe housing shortages and even more overcrowded

tenements. Homeowners in traditionally White neighborhoods later entered into covenants in which they

agreed not to sell to African American buyers; they also often `ed neighborhoods into which African

Americans had gained successful entry. In addition, some bankers practiced mortgage discrimination, later

known as “redlining,” in order to deny home loans to quali_ed buyers. Such pervasive discrimination led to a

concentration of African Americans in some of the worst slum areas of most major metropolitan cities, a

problem that remained ongoing throughout most of the twentieth century.

So why move to the North, given that the economic challenges they faced were similar to those that African

Americans encountered in the South? The answer lies in noneconomic gains. Greater educational

opportunities and more expansive personal freedoms mattered greatly to the African Americans who made

the trek northward during the Great Migration. State legislatures and local school districts allocated more

funds for the education of both Black and White people in the North, and also enforced compulsory school

attendance laws more rigorously. Similarly, unlike the South where a simple gesture (or lack of a deferential

one) could result in physical harm to the African American who committed it, life in larger, crowded northern

urban centers permitted a degree of anonymity—and with it, personal freedom—that enabled African

Americans to move, work, and speak without deferring to every White person with whom they crossed paths.

Psychologically, these gains more than offset the continued economic challenges that Black migrants faced.

THE CHANGING NATURE OF EUROPEAN IMMIGRATION

Immigrants also shifted the demographics of the rapidly growing cities. Although immigration had always

19.2 • The African American “Great Migration” and New European Immigration 501

been a force of change in the United States, it took on a new character in the late nineteenth century. Beginning

in the 1880s, the arrival of immigrants from mostly southern and eastern European countries rapidly

increased while the `ow from northern and western Europe remained relatively constant (Table 19.1).

Region Country 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910

Northern and Western Europe 4,845,679 5,499,889 7,288,917 7,204,649 7,306,325

Germany 1,690,533 1,966,742 2,784,894 2,663,418 2,311,237

Ireland 1,855,827 1,854,571 1,871,509 1,615,459 1,352,251

England 550,924 662,676 908,141 840,513 877,719

Sweden 97,332 194,337 478,041 582,014 665,207

Austria 30,508 38,663 123,271 275,907 626,341

Norway 114,246 181,729 322,665 336,388 403,877

Scotland 140,835 170,136 242,231 233,524 261,076

Southern and Eastern Europe 93,824 248,620 728,851 1,674,648 4,500,932

Italy 17,157 44,230 182,580 484,027 1,343,125

Russia 4,644 35,722 182,644 423,726 1,184,412

Poland 14,436 48,557 147,440 383,407 937,884

Hungary 3,737 11,526 62,435 145,714 495,609

Czechoslovakia 40,289 85,361 118,106 156,891 219,214

TABLE 19.1 Cumulative Total of the Foreign-Born Population in the United States, 1870–1910 (by

major country of birth and European region)

The previous waves of immigrants from northern and western Europe, particularly Germany, Great Britain,

and the Nordic countries, were relatively well off, arriving in the country with some funds and often moving to

the newly settled western territories. In contrast, the newer immigrants from southern and eastern European

countries, including Italy, Greece, and several Slavic countries including Russia, came over due to “push” and

“pull” factors similar to those that in`uenced the African Americans arriving from the South. Many were

“pushed” from their countries by a series of ongoing famines, by the need to escape religious, political, or

racial persecution, or by the desire to avoid compulsory military service. They were also “pulled” by the

promise of consistent, wage-earning work.

Whatever the reason, these immigrants arrived without the education and _nances of the earlier waves of

immigrants, and settled more readily in the port towns where they arrived, rather than setting out to seek their

fortunes in the West. By 1890, over 80 percent of the population of New York would be either foreign-born or

children of foreign-born parentage. Other cities saw huge spikes in foreign populations as well, though not to

the same degree, due in large part to Ellis Island in New York City being the primary port of entry for most

502 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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European immigrants arriving in the United States.

The number of immigrants peaked between 1900 and 1910, when over nine million people arrived in the

United States. To assist in the processing and management of this massive wave of immigrants, the Bureau of

Immigration in New York City, which had become the of_cial port of entry, opened Ellis Island in 1892. Today,

nearly half of all Americans have ancestors who, at some point in time, entered the country through the portal

at Ellis Island. Doctors or nurses inspected the immigrants upon arrival, looking for any signs of infectious

diseases (Figure 19.9). Most immigrants were admitted to the country with only a cursory glance at any other

paperwork. Roughly 2 percent of the arriving immigrants were denied entry due to a medical condition or

criminal history. The rest would enter the country by way of the streets of New York, many unable to speak

English and totally reliant on _nding those who spoke their native tongue.

FIGURE 19.9 This photo shows newly arrived immigrants at Ellis Island in New York. Inspectors are examining

them for contagious health problems, which could require them to be sent back. (credit: NIAID)

Seeking comfort in a strange land, as well as a common language, many immigrants sought out relatives,

friends, former neighbors, townspeople, and countrymen who had already settled in American cities. This led

to a rise in ethnic enclaves within the larger city. Little Italy, Chinatown, and many other communities

developed in which immigrant groups could _nd everything to remind them of home, from local language

newspapers to ethnic food stores. While these enclaves provided a sense of community to their members, they

added to the problems of urban congestion, particularly in the poorest slums where immigrants could afford

housing.

CLICK AND EXPLORE

This Library of Congress exhibit on the history of Jewish immigration (http:///l/jewishimmig) to

the United States illustrates the ongoing challenge immigrants felt between the ties to their old land and a love

for America.

The demographic shift at the turn of the century was later con_rmed by the Dillingham Commission, created

by Congress in 1907 to report on the nature of immigration in America; the commission reinforced this ethnic

identi_cation of immigrants and their simultaneous discrimination. The report put it simply: These newer

immigrants looked and acted differently. They had darker skin tone, spoke languages with which most

Americans were unfamiliar, and practiced unfamiliar religions, speci_cally Judaism and Catholicism. Even the

foods they sought out at butchers and grocery stores set immigrants apart. Because of these easily identi_able

differences, new immigrants became easy targets for hatred and discrimination. If jobs were hard to _nd, or if

housing was overcrowded, it became easy to blame the immigrants. Like African Americans, immigrants in

cities were blamed for the problems of the day.

19.2 • The African American “Great Migration” and New European Immigration 503

Growing numbers of Americans resented the waves of new immigrants, resulting in a backlash. The Reverend

Josiah Strong fueled the hatred and discrimination in his bestselling book,

Our Country: Its Possible Future

and Its Present Crisis

, published in 1885. In a revised edition that re`ected the 1890 census records, he clearly

identi_ed undesirable immigrants—those from southern and eastern European countries—as a key threat to

the moral _ber of the country, and urged all good Americans to face the challenge. Several thousand

Americans answered his call by forming the American Protective Association, the chief political activist group

to promote legislation curbing immigration into the United States. The group successfully lobbied Congress to

adopt both an English language literacy test for immigrants, which eventually passed in 1917, and the Chinese

Exclusion Act (discussed in a previous chapter). The group’s political lobbying also laid the groundwork for the

subsequent Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924, as well as the National Origins Act.

CLICK AND EXPLORE

The global timeline of immigration (http://openstax.org/l/immig1) at the Library of Congress offers a summary

of immigration policies and the groups affected by it, as well as a compelling overview of different ethnic

groups’ immigration stories. Browse through to see how different ethnic groups made their way in the United

States.

19.3 Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Identify how each class of Americans—working class, middle class, and upper class—responded to the

challenges associated with urban life

• Explain the process of machine politics and how it brought relief to working-class Americans

Settlement houses and religious and civic organizations attempted to provide some support to working-class

city dwellers through free health care, education, and leisure opportunities. Still, for urban citizens, life in the

city was chaotic and challenging. But how that chaos manifested and how relief was sought differed greatly,

depending on where people were in the social caste—the working class, the upper class, or the newly emerging

professional middle class—in addition to the aforementioned issues of race and ethnicity. While many

communities found life in the largest American cities disorganized and overwhelming, the ways they answered

these challenges were as diverse as the people who lived there. Broad solutions emerged that were typically

class speci_c: The rise of machine politics and popular culture provided relief to the working class, higher

education opportunities and suburbanization bene_tted the professional middle class, and reminders of their

elite status gave comfort to the upper class. And everyone, no matter where they fell in the class system,

bene_ted from the efforts to improve the physical landscapes of the fast-growing urban environment.

THE LIFE AND STRUGGLES OF THE URBAN WORKING CLASS

For the working-class residents of America’s cities, one practical way of coping with the challenges of urban

life was to take advantage of the system of machine politics, while another was to seek relief in the variety of

popular culture and entertainment found in and around cities. Although neither of these forms of relief was

restricted to the working class, they were the ones who relied most heavily on them.

Machine Politics

The primary form of relief for working-class urban Americans, and particularly immigrants, came in the form

of machine politics. This phrase referred to the process by which every citizen of the city, no matter their

ethnicity or race, was a ward resident with an alderman who spoke on their behalf at city hall. When everyday

challenges arose, whether sanitation problems or the need for a sidewalk along a muddy road, citizens would

approach their alderman to _nd a solution. The aldermen knew that, rather than work through the long

bureaucratic process associated with city hall, they could work within the “machine” of local politics to _nd a

504 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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speedy, mutually bene_cial solution. In machine politics, favors were exchanged for votes, votes were given in

exchange for fast solutions, and the price of the solutions included a kickback to the boss. In the short term,

everyone got what they needed, but the process was neither transparent nor democratic, and it was an

inef_cient way of conducting the city’s business.

One example of a machine political system was the Democratic political machine Tammany Hall in New York,

run by machine boss William Tweed with assistance from George Washington Plunkitt (Figure 19.10). There,

citizens knew their immediate problems would be addressed in return for their promise of political support in

future elections. In this way, machines provided timely solutions for citizens and votes for the politicians. For

example, if in Little Italy there was a desperate need for sidewalks in order to improve traf_c to the stores on a

particular street, the request would likely get bogged down in the bureaucratic red tape at city hall. Instead,

store owners would approach the machine. A district captain would approach the “boss” and make him aware

of the problem. The boss would contact city politicians and strongly urge them to appropriate the needed

funds for the sidewalk in exchange for the promise that the boss would direct votes in their favor in the

upcoming election. The boss then used the funds to pay one of his friends for the sidewalk construction,

typically at an exorbitant cost, with a _nancial kickback to the boss, which was known as graft. The sidewalk

was built more quickly than anyone hoped, in exchange for the citizens’ promises to vote for machine-

supported candidates in the next elections. Despite its corrupt nature, Tammany Hall essentially ran New York

politics from the 1850s until the 1930s. Other large cities, including Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, St. Louis,

and Kansas City, made use of political machines as well.

FIGURE 19.10 This political cartoon depicts the control of Boss Tweed, of Tammany Hall, over the election process

in New York. Why were people willing to accept the corruption involved in machine politics?

Popular Culture and Entertainment

Working-class residents also found relief in the diverse and omnipresent offerings of popular culture and

entertainment in and around cities. These offerings provided an immediate escape from the squalor and

dif_culties of everyday life. As improved means of internal transportation developed, working-class residents

could escape the city and experience one of the popular new forms of entertainment—the amusement park.

For example, Coney Island on the Brooklyn shoreline consisted of several different amusement parks, the _rst

of which opened in 1895 (Figure 19.11). At these parks, New Yorkers enjoyed wild rides, animal attractions,

and large stage productions designed to help them forget the struggles of their working-day lives. Freak “side”

19.3 • Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life 505

shows fed the public’s curiosity about physical deviance. For a mere ten cents, spectators could watch a high-

diving horse, take a ride to the moon to watch moon maidens eat green cheese, or witness the electrocution of

an elephant, a spectacle that fascinated the public both with technological marvels and exotic wildlife. The

treatment of animals in many acts at Coney Island and other public amusement parks drew the attention of

middle-class reformers such as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Despite

questions regarding the propriety of many of the acts, other cities quickly followed New York’s lead with

similar, if smaller, versions of Coney Island’s attractions.

FIGURE 19.11 The Dreamland Amusement Park tower was just one of Coney Island’s amusements.

CLICK AND EXPLORE

The Coney Island History Project (http://www.coneyislandhistory.org/collection) shows a photographic history

of Coney Island. Look to see what elements of American culture, from the hot dog to the roller coaster, debuted

there.

Another common form of popular entertainment was vaudeville—large stage variety shows that included

everything from singing, dancing, and comedy acts to live animals and magic. The vaudeville circuit gave rise

to several prominent performers, including magician Harry Houdini, who began his career in these variety

shows before his fame propelled him to solo acts. In addition to live theater shows, it was primarily working-

class citizens who enjoyed the advent of the nickelodeon, a forerunner to the movie theater. The _rst

nickelodeon opened in Pittsburgh in 1905, where nearly one hundred visitors packed into a storefront theater

to see a traditional vaudeville show interspersed with one-minute _lm clips. Several theaters initially used the

_lms as “chasers” to indicate the end of the show to the live audience so they would clear the auditorium.

However, a vaudeville performers’ strike generated even greater interest in the _lms, eventually resulting in

the rise of modern movie theaters by 1910.

One other major form of entertainment for the working class was professional baseball (Figure 19.12). Club

teams transformed into professional baseball teams with the Cincinnati Red Stockings, now the Cincinnati

Reds, in 1869. Soon, professional teams sprang up in several major American cities. Baseball games provided

an inexpensive form of entertainment, where for less than a dollar, a person could enjoy a double-header, two

hot dogs, and a beer. But more importantly, the teams became a way for newly relocated Americans and

immigrants of diverse backgrounds to develop a uni_ed civic identity, all cheering for one team. By 1876, the

National League had formed, and soon after, cathedral-style ballparks began to spring up in many cities.

Fenway Park in Boston (1912), Forbes Field in Pittsburgh (1909), and the Polo Grounds in New York (1890) all

became touch points where working-class Americans came together to support a common cause.

506 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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FIGURE 19.12 Boston’s Fenway Park opened in 1912 and was a popular site for working-class Bostonians to spend

their leisure time. The “Green Monster,” the iconic, left [eld wall, makes it one of the most recognizable stadiums in

baseball today.

Other popular sports included prize-_ghting, which attracted a predominantly male, working- and middle-

class audience who lived vicariously through the triumphs of the boxers during a time where opportunities for

individual success were rapidly shrinking, and college football, which paralleled a modern corporation in its

team hierarchy, divisions of duties, and emphasis on time management.

THE UPPER CLASS IN THE CITIES

The American _nancial elite did not need to crowd into cities to _nd work, like their working-class

counterparts. But as urban centers were vital business cores, where multi-million-dollar _nancial deals were

made daily, those who worked in that world wished to remain close to the action. The rich chose to be in the

midst of the chaos of the cities, but they were also able to provide signi_cant measures of comfort,

convenience, and luxury for themselves.

Wealthy citizens seldom attended what they considered the crass entertainment of the working class. Instead

of amusement parks and baseball games, urban elites sought out more re_ned pastimes that underscored

their knowledge of art and culture, preferring classical music concerts, _ne art collections, and social

gatherings with their peers. In New York, Andrew Carnegie built Carnegie Hall in 1891, which quickly became

the center of classical music performances in the country. Nearby, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened its

doors in 1872 and still remains one of the largest collections of _ne art in the world. Other cities followed suit,

and these cultural pursuits became a way for the upper class to remind themselves of their elevated place

amid urban squalor.

As new opportunities for the middle class threatened the austerity of upper-class citizens, including the newer

forms of transportation that allowed middle-class Americans to travel with greater ease, wealthier Americans

sought unique ways to further set themselves apart in society. These included more expensive excursions,

such as vacations in Newport, Rhode Island, winter relocation to sunny Florida, and frequent trips aboard

steamships to Europe. For those who were not of the highly respected “old money,” but only recently obtained

their riches through business ventures, the relief they sought came in the form of one book—the annual

Social

Register

. First published in 1886 by Louis Keller in New York City, the register became a directory of the

wealthy socialites who populated the city. Keller updated it annually, and people would watch with varying

degrees of anxiety or complacency to see their names appear in print. Also called the

Blue Book

, the register

was instrumental in the planning of society dinners, balls, and other social events. For those of newer wealth,

there was relief found simply in the notion that they and others witnessed their wealth through the publication

of their names in the register.

A NEW MIDDLE CLASS

While the working class were con_ned to tenement houses in the cities by their need to be close to their work

and the lack of funds to _nd anyplace better, and the wealthy class chose to remain in the cities to stay close to

the action of big business transactions, the emerging middle class responded to urban challenges with their

own solutions. This group included the managers, salesmen, engineers, doctors, accountants, and other

19.3 • Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life 507

salaried professionals who still worked for a living, but were signi_cantly better educated and compensated

than the working-class poor. For this new middle class, relief from the trials of the cities came through

education and suburbanization.

In large part, the middle class responded to the challenges of the city by physically escaping it. As

transportation improved and outlying communities connected to urban centers, the middle class embraced a

new type of community—the suburbs. It became possible for those with adequate means to work in the city and

escape each evening, by way of a train or trolley, to a house in the suburbs. As the number of people moving to

the suburbs grew, there also grew a perception among the middle class that the farther one lived from the city

and the more amenities one had, the more af`uence one had achieved.

Although a few suburbs existed in the United States prior to the 1880s (such as Llewellyn Park, New Jersey),

the introduction of the electric railway generated greater interest and growth during the last decade of the

century. The ability to travel from home to work on a relatively quick and cheap mode of transportation

encouraged more Americans of modest means to consider living away from the chaos of the city. Eventually,

Henry Ford’s popularization of the automobile, speci_cally in terms of a lower price, permitted more families

to own cars and thus consider suburban life. Later in the twentieth century, both the advent of the interstate

highway system, along with federal legislation designed to allow families to construct homes with low-interest

loans, further sparked the suburban phenomenon.

New Roles for Middle-Class Women

Social norms of the day encouraged middle-class women to take great pride in creating a positive home

environment for their working husbands and school-age children, which reinforced the business and

educational principles that they practiced on the job or in school. It was at this time that the magazines

Ladies'

Home Journal

and

Good Housekeeping

began distribution, to tremendous popularity (Figure 19.13).

FIGURE 19.13 The middle-class family of the late nineteenth century largely embraced a separation of gendered

spheres that had [rst emerged during the market revolution of the antebellum years. Whereas the husband earned

money for the family outside the home, the wife oversaw domestic chores, raised the children, and tended to the

family’s spiritual, social, and cultural needs. The magazine

Good Housekeeping

, launched in 1885, capitalized on

the middle-class woman’s focus on maintaining a pride-worthy home.

While the vast majority of middle-class women took on the expected role of housewife and homemaker, some

women were _nding paths to college. A small number of men’s colleges began to open their doors to women in

the mid-1800s, and co-education became an option. Some of the most elite universities created af_liated

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women’s colleges, such as Radcliffe College with Harvard, and Pembroke College with Brown University. But

more importantly, the _rst women’s colleges opened at this time. Mount Holyoke, Vassar, Smith, and Wellesley

Colleges, still some of the best known women’s schools, opened their doors between 1865 and 1880, and,

although enrollment was low (initial class sizes ranged from sixty-one students at Vassar to seventy at

Wellesley, seventy-one at Smith, and up to eighty-eight at Mount Holyoke), the opportunity for a higher

education, and even a career, began to emerge for young women. These schools offered a unique, all-women

environment in which professors and a community of education-seeking young women came together. While

most college-educated young women still married, their education offered them new opportunities to work

outside the home, most frequently as teachers, professors, or in the aforementioned settlement house

environments created by Jane Addams and others.

Education and the Middle Class

Since the children of the professional class did not have to leave school and _nd work to support their families,

they had opportunities for education and advancement that would solidify their position in the middle class.

They also bene_ted from the presence of stay-at-home mothers, unlike working-class children, whose mothers

typically worked the same long hours as their fathers. Public school enrollment exploded at this time, with the

number of students attending public school tripling from seven million in 1870 to twenty-one million in 1920.

Unlike the old-fashioned one-room schoolhouses, larger schools slowly began the practice of employing

different teachers for each grade, and some even began hiring discipline-speci_c instructors. High schools

also grew at this time, from one hundred high schools nationally in 1860 to over six thousand by 1900.

The federal government supported the growth of higher education with the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890.

These laws set aside public land and federal funds to create land-grant colleges that were affordable to middle-

class families, offering courses and degrees useful in the professions, but also in trade, commerce, industry,

and agriculture (Figure 19.14). Land-grant colleges stood in contrast to the expensive, private Ivy League

universities such as Harvard and Yale, which still catered to the elite. Iowa became the _rst state to accept the

provisions of the original Morrill Act, creating what later became Iowa State University. Other states soon

followed suit, and the availability of an affordable college education encouraged a boost in enrollment, from

50,000 students nationwide in 1870 to over 600,000 students by 1920.

FIGURE 19.14 This rendering of Kansas State University in 1878 shows an early land-grant college, created by the

Morrill Act. These newly created schools allowed many more students to attend college than the elite Ivy League

system, and focused more on preparing them for professional careers in business, medicine, and law, as well as

business, agriculture, and other trades.

College curricula also changed at this time. Students grew less likely to take traditional liberal arts classes in

rhetoric, philosophy, and foreign language, and instead focused on preparing for the modern work world.

Professional schools for the study of medicine, law, and business also developed. In short, education for the

children of middle-class parents catered to class-speci_c interests and helped ensure that parents could

establish their children comfortably in the middle class as well.

19.3 • Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life 509

“CITY BEAUTIFUL”

While the working poor lived in the worst of it and the wealthy elite sought to avoid it, all city dwellers at the

time had to deal with the harsh realities of urban sprawl. Skyscrapers rose and _lled the air, streets were

crowded with pedestrians of all sorts, and, as developers worked to meet the always-increasing demand for

space, the few remaining green spaces in the city quickly disappeared. As the U.S. population became

increasingly centered in urban areas while the century drew to a close, questions about the quality of city

life—particularly with regard to issues of aesthetics, crime, and poverty—quickly consumed many reformers’

minds. Those middle-class and wealthier urbanites who enjoyed the costlier amenities presented by city

life—including theaters, restaurants, and shopping—were free to escape to the suburbs, leaving behind the

poorer working classes living in squalor and unsanitary conditions. Through the City Beautiful movement,

leaders such as Frederick Law Olmsted and Daniel Burnham sought to champion middle- and upper-class

progressive reforms. They improved the quality of life for city dwellers, but also cultivated middle-class-

dominated urban spaces in which Americans of different ethnicities, racial origins, and classes worked and

lived.

Olmsted, one of the earliest and most in`uential designers of urban green space, and the original designer of

Central Park in New York, worked with Burnham to introduce the idea of the City Beautiful movement at the

Columbian Exposition in 1893. There, they helped to design and construct the “White City”—so named for the

plaster of Paris construction of several buildings that were subsequently painted a bright white—an example of

landscaping and architecture that shone as an example of perfect city planning. From wide-open green spaces

to brightly painted white buildings, connected with modern transportation services and appropriate

sanitation, the “White City” set the stage for American urban city planning for the next generation, beginning

in 1901 with the modernization of Washington, DC. This model encouraged city planners to consider three

principal tenets: First, create larger park areas inside cities; second, build wider boulevards to decrease traf_c

congestion and allow for lines of trees and other greenery between lanes; and third, add more suburbs in order

to mitigate congested living in the city itself (Figure 19.15). As each city adapted these principles in various

ways, the City Beautiful movement became a cornerstone of urban development well into the twentieth

century.

FIGURE 19.15 This blueprint shows Burnham’s vision for Chicago, an example of the City Beautiful movement. His

goal was to preserve much of the green space along the city’s lakefront, and to ensure that all city dwellers had

access to green space.

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19.4 Change Reflected in Thought and Writing

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain how American writers, both [ction and non[ction, helped Americans to better understand the changes

they faced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

• Identify some of the influential women and African American writers of the era

In the late nineteenth century, Americans were living in a world characterized by rapid change. Western

expansion, dramatic new technologies, and the rise of big business drastically in`uenced society in a matter of

a few decades. For those living in the fast-growing urban areas, the pace of change was even faster and harder

to ignore. One result of this time of transformation was the emergence of a series of notable authors, who,

whether writing _ction or non_ction, offered a lens through which to better understand the shifts in American

society.

UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL PROGRESS

One key idea of the nineteenth century that moved from the realm of science to the murkier ground of social

and economic success was Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Darwin was a British naturalist who, in his

1859 work

On the Origin of Species

, made the case that species develop and evolve through natural selection,

not through divine intervention. The idea quickly drew _re from the Anglican Church (although a liberal

branch of Anglicans embraced the notion of natural selection being part of God’s plan) and later from many

others, both in England and abroad, who felt that the theory directly contradicted the role of God in the earth’s

creation. Although biologists, botanists, and most of the scienti_c establishment widely accepted the theory of

evolution at the time of Darwin’s publication, which they felt synthesized much of the previous work in the

_eld, the theory remained controversial in the public realm for decades.

Political philosopher Herbert Spencer took Darwin’s theory of evolution further, coining the actual phrase

“survival of the _ttest,” and later helping to popularize the phrase social Darwinism to posit that society

evolved much like a natural organism, wherein some individuals will succeed due to racially and ethnically

inherent traits, and their ability to adapt. This model allowed that a collection of traits and skills, which could

include intelligence, inherited wealth, and so on, mixed with the ability to adapt, would let all Americans rise

or fall of their own accord, so long as the road to success was accessible to all. William Graham Sumner, a

sociologist at Yale, became the most vocal proponent of social Darwinism. Not surprisingly, this ideology,

which Darwin himself would have rejected as a gross misreading of his scienti_c discoveries, drew great praise

from those who made their wealth at this time. They saw their success as proof of biological _tness, although

critics of this theory were quick to point out that those who did not succeed often did not have the same

opportunities or equal playing _eld that the ideology of social Darwinism purported. Eventually, the concept

fell into disrepute in the 1930s and 1940s, as eugenicists began to utilize it in conjunction with their racial

theories of genetic superiority.

Other thinkers of the day took Charles Darwin’s theories in a more nuanced direction, focusing on different

theories of realism that sought to understand the truth underlying the changes in the United States. These

thinkers believed that ideas and social constructs must be proven to work before they could be accepted.

Philosopher William James was one of the key proponents of the closely related concept of pragmatism, which

held that Americans needed to experiment with different ideas and perspectives to _nd the truth about

American society, rather than assuming that there was truth in old, previously accepted models. Only by tying

ideas, thoughts, and statements to actual objects and occurrences could one begin to identify a coherent truth,

according to James. His work strongly in`uenced the subsequent avant-garde and modernist movements in

literature and art, especially in understanding the role of the observer, artist, or writer in shaping the society

they attempted to observe. John Dewey built on the idea of pragmatism to create a theory of instrumentalism,

which advocated the use of education in the search for truth. Dewey believed that education, speci_cally

observation and change through the scienti_c method, was the best tool by which to reform and improve

19.4 • Change Reflected in Thought and Writing 511

American society as it continued to grow ever more complex. To that end, Dewey strongly encouraged

educational reforms designed to create an informed American citizenry that could then form the basis for

other, much-needed progressive reforms in society.

In addition to the new medium of photography, popularized by Riis, novelists and other artists also embraced

realism in their work. They sought to portray vignettes from real life in their stories, partly in response to the

more sentimental works of their predecessors. Visual artists such as George Bellows, Edward Hopper, and

Robert Henri, among others, formed the Ashcan School of Art, which was interested primarily in depicting the

urban lifestyle that was quickly gripping the United States at the turn of the century. Their works typically

focused on working-class city life, including the slums and tenement houses, as well as working-class forms of

leisure and entertainment (Figure 19.16).

FIGURE 19.16 Like most examples of works by Ashcan artists,

The Cliff Dwellers

, by George Wesley Bellows,

depicts the crowd of urban life realistically. (credit: Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

Novelists and journalists also popularized realism in literary works. Authors such as Stephen Crane, who wrote

stark stories about life in the slums or during the Civil War, and Rebecca Harding Davis, who in 1861 published

Life in the Iron Mills

, embodied this popular style. Mark Twain also sought realism in his books, whether it was

the reality of the pioneer spirit, seen in

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

, published in 1884, or the issue of

corruption in

The Gilded Age

, co-authored with Charles Dudley Warner in 1873. The narratives and visual arts

of these realists could nonetheless be highly stylized, crafted, and even fabricated, since their goal was the

effective portrayal of social realities they thought required reform. Some authors, such as Jack London, who

wrote

The Call of the Wild

, embraced a school of thought called naturalism, which concluded that the laws of

nature and the natural world were the only truly relevant laws governing humanity (Figure 19.17).

512 19 • The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

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FIGURE 19.17 Jack London poses with his dog Rollo in 1885 (a). The cover of Jack London’s

The Call of the Wild

(b)

shows the dogs in the brutal environment of the Klondike. The book tells the story of Buck, a dog living happily in

California until he is sold to be a sled dog in Canada. There, he must survive harsh conditions and brutal behavior,

but his innate animal nature takes over and he prevails. The story clari[es the struggle between humanity’s nature

versus the nurturing forces of society.

Kate Chopin, widely regarded as the foremost woman short story writer and novelist of her day, sought to

portray a realistic view of women’s lives in late nineteenth-century America, thus paving the way for more

explicit feminist literature in generations to come. Although Chopin never described herself as a feminist per

se, her re`ective works on her experiences as a southern woman introduced a form of creative non_ction that

captured the struggles of women in the United States through their own individual experiences. She also was

among the _rst authors to openly address the race issue of miscegenation, a term referring to interracial

relations, which usually has negative associations. In her work

Desiree’s Baby

, Chopin speci_cally explores the

Creole community of her native Louisiana in depths that exposed the reality of racism in a manner seldom

seen in literature of the time.

African American poet, playwright, and novelist of the realist period, Paul Laurence Dunbar dealt with issues

of race at a time when most reform-minded Americans preferred to focus on other issues. Through his

combination of writing in both standard English and Black dialect, Dunbar delighted readers with his rich

portrayals of the successes and struggles associated with African American life. Although he initially struggled

to _nd the patronage and _nancial support required to develop a full-time literary career, Dunbar’s

subsequent professional relationship with literary critic and

Atlantic Monthly

editor William Dean Howells

helped to _rmly cement his literary credentials as the foremost African American writer of his generation. As

with Chopin and Harding Davis, Dunbar’s writing highlighted parts of the American experience that were not

well understood by the dominant demographic of the country. In their work, these authors provided readers

with insights into a world that was not necessarily familiar to them and also gave hidden communities—be it

iron mill workers, southern women, or African American men—a sense of voice.

CLICK AND EXPLORE

Mark Twain’s lampoon of author Horatio Alger (http://openstax.org/l/twain1) demonstrates Twain’s

commitment to realism by mocking the myth set out by Alger, whose stories followed a common theme in

which a poor but honest boy goes from rags to riches through a combination of “luck and pluck.” See how

19.4 • Change Reflected in Thought and Writing 513

Twain twists Alger’s hugely popular storyline in this piece of satire.

Kate Chopin: An Awakening in an Unpopular Time

Author Kate Chopin grew up in the American South and later moved to St. Louis, where she began writing stories

to make a living after the death of her husband. She published her works throughout the late 1890s, with stories

appearing in literary magazines and local papers. It was her second novel,

The Awakening

, which gained her

notoriety and criticism in her lifetime, and ongoing literary fame after her death (Figure 19.18).

FIGURE 19.18 Critics railed against Kate Chopin, the author of the 1899 novel

The Awakening

, criticizing its

stark portrayal of a woman struggling with societal con[nes and her own desires. In the twentieth century,

scholars rediscovered Chopin’s work and

The Awakening

is now considered part of the canon of American

literature.

The Awakening

, set in the New Orleans society that Chopin knew well, tells the story of a woman struggling with

the constraints of marriage who ultimately seeks her own ful[llment over the needs of her family. The book deals

far more openly than most novels of the day with questions of women’s sexual desires. It also flouted

nineteenth-century conventions by looking at the protagonist’s struggles with the traditional role expected of

women.

While a few contemporary reviewers saw merit in the book, most criticized it as immoral and unseemly. It was

censored, called “pure poison,” and critics railed against Chopin herself. While Chopin wrote squarely in the

tradition of realism that was popular at this time, her work covered ground that was considered “too real” for

comfort. After the negative reception of the novel, Chopin retreated from public life and discontinued writing. She

died [ve years after its publication. After her death, Chopin’s work was largely ignored, until scholars

rediscovered it in the late twentieth century, and her books and stories came back into print.

The Awakening

in

particular has been recognized as vital to the earliest edges of the modern feminist movement.

DEFINING AMERICAN

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CLICK AND EXPLORE

Excerpts from interviews (http:///l/katechopin) with David Chopin, Kate Chopin’s grandson, and a

scholar who studies her work provide interesting perspectives on the author and her views.

CRITICS OF MODERN AMERICA

While many Americans at this time, both everyday working people and theorists, felt the changes of the era

would lead to improvements and opportunities, there were critics of the emerging social shifts as well.

Although less popular than Twain and London, authors such as Edward Bellamy, Henry George, and Thorstein

Veblen were also in`uential in spreading critiques of the industrial age. While their critiques were quite

distinct from each other, all three believed that the industrial age was a step in the wrong direction for the

country.

In the 1888 novel

Looking Backward, 2000-1887

, Edward Bellamy portrays a utopian America in the year

2000, with the country living in peace and harmony after abandoning the capitalist model and moving to a

socialist state. In the book, Bellamy predicts the future advent of credit cards, cable entertainment, and

“super-store” cooperatives that resemble a modern day Wal-Mart.

Looking Backward

proved to be a popular

bestseller (third only to

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

and

Ben Hur

among late nineteenth-century publications) and

appealed to those who felt the industrial age of big business was sending the country in the wrong direction.

Eugene Debs, who led the national Pullman Railroad Strike in 1894, later commented on how Bellamy’s work

in`uenced him to adopt socialism as the answer to the exploitative industrial capitalist model. In addition,

Bellamy’s work spurred the publication of no fewer than thirty-six additional books or articles by other writers,

either supporting Bellamy’s outlook or directly criticizing it. In 1897, Bellamy felt compelled to publish a

sequel, entitled

Equality

, in which he further explained ideas he had previously introduced concerning

educational reform and women’s equality, as well as a world of vegetarians who speak a universal language.

Another author whose work illustrated the criticisms of the day was non_ction writer Henry George, an

economist best known for his 1879 work

Progress and Poverty

, which criticized the inequality found in an

industrial economy. He suggested that, while people should own that which they create, all land and natural

resources should belong to all equally, and should be taxed through a “single land tax” in order to

disincentivize private land ownership. His thoughts in`uenced many economic progressive reformers, as well

as led directly to the creation of the now-popular board game, Monopoly.

Another critique of late nineteenth-century American capitalism was Thorstein Veblen, who lamented in

The

Theory of the Leisure Class

(1899) that capitalism created a middle class more preoccupied with its own

comfort and consumption than with maximizing production. In coining the phrase “conspicuous

consumption,” Veblen identi_ed the means by which one class of nonproducers exploited the working class

that produced the goods for their consumption. Such practices, including the creation of business trusts,

served only to create a greater divide between the haves and have-nots in American society, and resulted in

economic inef_ciencies that required correction or reform.

19.4 • Change Reflected in Thought and Writing 515

Key Terms

City Beautiful a movement begun by Daniel Burnham and Fredrick Law Olmsted, who believed that cities

should be built with three core tenets in mind: the inclusion of parks within city limits, the creation of wide

boulevards, and the expansion of more suburbs

graft the _nancial kickback provided to city bosses in exchange for political favors

Great Migration the name for the large wave of African Americans who left the South after the Civil War,

mostly moving to cities in the Northeast and Upper Midwest

instrumentalism a theory promoted by John Dewey, who believed that education was key to the search for

the truth about ideals and institutions

machine politics the process by which citizens of a city used their local ward alderman to work the

“machine” of local politics to meet local needs within a neighborhood

naturalism a theory of realism that states that the laws of nature and the natural world were the only

relevant laws governing humanity

pragmatism a doctrine supported by philosopher William James, which held that Americans needed to

experiment and _nd the truth behind underlying institutions, religions, and ideas in American life, rather

than accepting them on faith

realism a collection of theories and ideas that sought to understand the underlying changes in the United

States during the late nineteenth century

settlement house movement an early progressive reform movement, largely spearheaded by women,

which sought to offer services such as childcare and free healthcare to help the working poor

social gospel the belief that the church should be as concerned about the conditions of people in the secular

world as it was with their afterlife

Social Register

a de facto directory of the wealthy socialites in each city, _rst published by Louis Keller in

1886

Tammany Hall a political machine in New York, run by machine boss William Tweed with assistance from

George Washington Plunkitt

Summary

19.1 Urbanization and Its Challenges

Urbanization spread rapidly in the mid-nineteenth century due to a con`uence of factors. New technologies,

such as electricity and steam engines, transformed factory work, allowing factories to move closer to urban

centers and away from the rivers that had previously been vital sources of both water power and

transportation. The growth of factories—as well as innovations such as electric lighting, which allowed them to

run at all hours of the day and night—created a massive need for workers, who poured in from both rural areas

of the United States and from eastern and southern Europe. As cities grew, they were unable to cope with this

rapid in`ux of workers, and the living conditions for the working class were terrible. Tight living quarters, with

inadequate plumbing and sanitation, led to widespread illness. Churches, civic organizations, and the secular

settlement house movement all sought to provide some relief to the urban working class, but conditions

remained brutal for many new city dwellers.

19.2 The African American “Great Migration” and New European Immigration

For both African Americans migrating from the postwar South and immigrants arriving from southeastern

Europe, a combination of “push” and “pull” factors in`uenced their migration to America’s urban centers.

African Americans moved away from the racial violence and limited opportunities that existed in the rural

South, seeking wages and steady work, as well as the opportunity to vote safely as free men; however, they

quickly learned that racial discrimination and violence were not limited to the South. For European

immigrants, famine and persecution led them to seek a new life in the United States, where, the stories said,

the streets were paved in gold. Of course, in northeastern and midwestern cities, both groups found a more

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challenging welcome than they had anticipated. City residents blamed recent arrivals for the ills of the cities,

from overcrowding to a rise in crime. Activist groups pushed for anti-immigration legislation, seeking to limit

the waves of immigrants that sought a better future in the United States.

19.3 Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life

The burgeoning cities brought together both rich and poor, working class and upper class; however, the

realities of urban dwellers’ lives varied dramatically based on where they fell in the social chain.

Entertainment and leisure-time activities were heavily dependent on one’s status and wealth. For the working

poor, amusement parks and baseball games offered inexpensive entertainment and a brief break from the

squalor of the tenements. For the emerging middle class of salaried professionals, an escape to the suburbs

kept them removed from the city’s chaos outside of working hours. And for the wealthy, immersion in arts and

culture, as well as inclusion in the

Social Register

, allowed them to socialize exclusively with those they felt

were of the same social status. The City Beautiful movement bene_tted all city dwellers, with its emphasis on

public green spaces, and more beautiful and practical city boulevards. In all, these different opportunities for

leisure and pleasure made city life manageable for the citizens who lived there.

19.4 Change Reflected in Thought and Writing

Americans were overwhelmed by the rapid pace and scale of change at the close of the nineteenth century.

Authors and thinkers tried to assess the meaning of the country’s seismic shifts in culture and society through

their work. Fiction writers often used realism in an attempt to paint an accurate portrait of how people were

living at the time. Proponents of economic developments and cultural changes cited social Darwinism as an

acceptable model to explain why some people succeeded and others failed, whereas other philosophers looked

more closely at Darwin’s work and sought to apply a model of proof and pragmatism to all ideas and

institutions. Other sociologists and philosophers criticized the changes of the era, citing the inequities found in

the new industrial economy and its negative effects on workers.

Review Questions

1. Which of the following four elements was

not

essential for creating massive urban growth in late

nineteenth-century America?

A. electric lighting

B. communication improvements

C. skyscrapers

D. settlement houses

2. Which of the following did the settlement house movement offer as a means of relief for working-class

women?

A. childcare

B. job opportunities

C. political advocacy

D. relocation services

3. What technological and economic factors combined to lead to the explosive growth of American cities at

this time?

4. Why did African Americans consider moving from the rural South to the urban North following the Civil

War?

A. to be able to buy land

B. to avoid slavery

C. to _nd wage-earning work

D. to further their education

19 • Review Questions 517

5. Which of the following is true of late nineteenth-century southern and eastern European immigrants, as

opposed to their western and northern European predecessors?

A. Southern and eastern European immigrants tended to be wealthier.

B. Southern and eastern European immigrants were, on the whole, more skilled and able to _nd better

paying employment.

C. Many southern and eastern European immigrants acquired land in the West, while western and

northern European immigrants tended to remain in urban centers.

D. Ellis Island was the _rst destination for most southern and eastern Europeans.

6. What made recent European immigrants the ready targets of more established city dwellers? What was the

result of this discrimination?

7. Which of the following was a popular pastime for working-class urban dwellers?

A. football games

B. opera

C. museums

D. amusement parks

8. Which of the following was a disadvantage of machine politics?

A. Immigrants did not have a voice.

B. Taxpayers ultimately paid higher city taxes due to graft.

C. Only wealthy parts of the city received timely responses.

D. Citizens who voiced complaints were at risk for their safety.

9. In what way did education play a crucial role in the emergence of the middle class?

10. Which of the following statements accurately represents Thorstein Veblen’s argument in

The Theory of

the Leisure Class

?

A. All citizens of an industrial society would rise or fall based on their own innate merits.

B. The tenets of naturalism were the only laws through which society should be governed.

C. The middle class was overly focused on its own comfort and consumption.

D. Land and natural resources should belong equally to all citizens.

11. Which of the following was

not

an element of realism?

A. social Darwinism

B. instrumentalism

C. naturalism

D. pragmatism

12. In what ways did writers, photographers, and visual artists begin to embrace more realistic subjects in

their work? How were these responses to the advent of the industrial age and the rise of cities?

Critical Thinking Questions

13. What triumphs did the late nineteenth century witness in the realms of industrial growth, urbanization,

and technological innovation? What challenges did these developments pose for urban dwellers, workers,

and recent immigrants? How did city of_cials and everyday citizens respond to these challenges?

14. What were the effects of urbanization on the working, middle, and elite classes of American society?

Conversely, how did the different social classes and their activities change the scope, character, and use of

urban spaces?

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15. How do you think that different classes of city dwellers would have viewed the City Beautiful movement?

What potential bene_ts and drawbacks of this new direction in urban planning might members of each

class have cited?

16. How was Darwin’s work on the evolution of species exploited by proponents of the industrial age? Why

might they have latched on to this idea in particular?

17. Historians often mine the arts for clues to the social, cultural, political, and intellectual shifts that

characterized a given era. How do the many works of visual art, literature, and social philosophy that

emerged from this period re`ect the massive changes that were taking place? How were Americans—both

those who created these works and those who read or viewed them—struggling to understand the new

reality through art, literature, and scholarship?

19 • Critical Thinking Questions 519

520 19 • Critical Thinking Questions

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