America Moves to the City 1865-1900

1. America Moves to the City1865-1900

2. The Urban Frontier • 40% of people lived in cities • Louis Sullivan - perfecting skyscrapers • Commuting by electric trolleys. • Why? • Electricity • Indoor plumbing • Telephones Sullivan’s skyscraper

3. City Life – The Allure DEPARTMENT STORES SISTER CARRIE • Macy’s (in New York) • Marshall Field’s (in Chicago) • working-class jobs • attracted urban middle-class shoppers. • Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie told of a woman’s escapades in the big city and made cities dazzling and attractive.

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

5. City Life - Problems • “Dumbbell tenements” • Gave a bit offresh air down their airshaft • worst since they were dark, cramped, and had little sanitation or ventilation. • Flophouses - half-starved and unemployed could sleep for a few cents • To escape, the wealthy of the city-dwellers fled to suburbs. “Dumbbell Tenement”

6. Old v. New Immigration • Old Immigrants • British Isles and Western Europe (Germany and Scandinavia) • quite literate and accustomed to some type of representative government. • New Immigrants • 1880s and 1890s • Baltic and Slavic people of southeastern Europe • Illiterate and not accustomed to having a representative government • Stay in cities (Little Italy, Little Poland)

7. Southern Europe Uprooted • Why did they come? • No room in Europe • Unemployment • People boasted of eating everyday and having freedom and much opportunity • Profit-seeking Americans exaggerated the benefits of America to Europeans • cheap labor and more money. • “Birds of Passage” – returned home quickly • Those that remained (including persecuted Jews, who propagated in New York) tried very hard to retain their own culture and customs. • However, the children of the immigrants sometimes rejected this Old World culture and plunged completely into American life.

8. Immigration to America from 1890-1916

9. Reactions to the New Immigration • Federal government did little to help immigrants assimilate • Immigrants were often controlled by powerful“bosses” (New York’s Boss Tweed) • Provided jobs and shelter in return for political support at the polls. • Walter Rauschenbusch and Washington Gladden began preaching the “Social Gospel,”insisting that churches tackle the burning social issues of the day.

10. Settlement Houses • Jane Addams • Founded Hull House in 1889 • English classes • Counseling – help newcomers cope with big city life • Child-care services for working mothers • Cultural activities

11. Settlement Houses • Florence Kelley fought for protection of women workers and against child labor. • Cities also gave women opportunities to earn money and support themselves • mostly single women A young Florence Kelley

12. Narrowing the welcome mat • “Nativism” • Feared being out-bred and out-voted • Blamed immigrants for the degradation of the urban government • IRONIC!!!!!!!!! • Unionists hated - willingness to work forsuper-low wages

13. Narrowing the Welcome Mat • American Protective Association(APA) - against immigrants • 1882 - Congress passed the first restrictive law againstimmigration, • banned paupers, criminals, and convicts • 1885 - another law was passed banning the importation of foreign workers under usually substandard contracts. • Literacy tests were proposed, but were resisted

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

15. Churches Confront the Urban Challenge • Protestant churches irrelevant in big cities • Urban revivalists - Dwight Lyman Moody, a man who proclaimed the gospel of kindness and forgiveness and adapted the old-time religion to the facts of city life. Dwight Lyman Moody

16. Churches Confront the Urban Challenge • Roman Catholics • New Immigration • Largest denomination • By 1890, America - 150 religions, • Salvation Army, which tried to help the poor and unfortunate. • The Church of Christ, Scientist (Christian Science), founded by Mary Baker Eddy, preached a perversion of Christianity that she claimed healed sickness. • YMCA’s and YWCA’s

17. Darwinism Disrupts the churches • Charles Darwin • On the Origin of Species • Doctrine of evolution and attracted the ire and fury of fundamentalists.

18. A Lust for Learning • Tax supported elementary schools • Grade school and high school education = birthright • Free textbooks • “Normal schools” – teacher training schools • Catholic schools grew in popularity and in number. • Chautauqua movement – help working adults • Americans began to develop a faith in formal education as a solution to poverty.

19. Booker T. Washington v. W.E.B Du Bois • Booker T. Washington - ex-slave • Tuskegee Institute • black normal (teacher) and industrial school • useful skills and trades. • Avoided the issue of social equality • Believed in Blacks helping themselves first before gaining more rights. • One of Washington’s students was George Washington Carver,who later discovered hundreds of new uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes,and soybeans. • Du Bois - the first Black to get a Ph.D. from Harvard University • Demanded complete equality for Blacks • Founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1910

20. Ivy Leagues • Colleges and universities sprouted after the Civil War • Morrill Act of 1862 - grant of the public lands to the states for support of education • Hatch Act of 1887- provided federal funds for the establishment of agricultural experiment stations in connection with the land-grant colleges.

21. Newspaper growth • Libraries such as the Library of Congress also opened across America, bringing literature into people’s homes. • “Yellow journalism,” – newspapers reported on wild and fantastic stories that often were false or quiteexaggerated: sex, scandal, and other human-interest stories. • Journalistic tycoons emerged • Joseph Pulitzer (New YorkWorld) • William Randolph Hearst (San Francisco Examiner)

22. Postwar Writing • “Dime-novels” - depicted the Wild West and other romantic and adventurous settings. • Harland F. Halsey – king of Dime Novels (650) • General Lewis Wallace wrote Ben Hur: reaffirmed thetraditional Christian faith • Horatio Alger - rags-to-riches books • Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass. • Emily Dickinson -poet whose poems were published after her death.

23. Literary Landmarks • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) • TheAdventures of Tom Sawyer, • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, • The Gilded Age • Stephen Crane • The Red Badge of Courage • Theodore Dreiser • Sister Carrie

24. The New Morality • Victoria Woodhull • proclaimed free love, and • with her sister, Tennessee Claflin, wrote Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly • Comstock Law - made it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, and/or lascivious" materials through the mail, including contraceptive devices and information. • The “new morality” reflected sexual freedom in theincrease of birth control, divorces, and frank discussion of sexualtopics. Ms. Woodhull

25. Families and Women in the City • Urban life stressful on families • Fathers, mothers, and children worked • Charlotte Perkins Gilman • Women and Economics • called for women tobecome independent • She also advocated day-care centers and centralized nurseries and kitchens.

26. Feminist Activism • NationalAmerican Woman Suffrage Association • led by Elizabeth Cady Stantonand Susan B. Anthony. Ms. Stanton

27. Feminist Activism • Carrie Chapman Catt • Woman’s suffrage • The Wyoming Territory was the first to offer women unrestricted suffrage in 1869. • Ida B. Wells • rallied toward better treatment for Blacks a • formed the National Association of Colored Women in 1896. Ms. Wells

28. Temperance and Prohibition • National Prohibition Party in 1869. • Women’s Christian Temperance Union • Called for a national prohibition of the beverage. • Leaders included Frances E. Willard and Carrie A. Nation who literally wielded a hatchet and hacked up bars.

29. Social Progress • The American Red Cross, formed by Clara Barton, a Civil War nurse, wasformed in 1881.

30. Artistic Triumphs • Art was largely suppressed • James Whistler and John Singer Sargentto go to Europe to study art. • Mary Cassatt - painted sensitive portraits of women and children • George Inness - America’s leading landscapist. • Thomas Eakins - great realist painter • Winslow Homer - most famous and the greatest of all. • painted scenes of typical New England • Augustus Saint-Gaudens- sculptor

31. Artistic Triumphs • Music reached new heights • Erection of opera houses and the emergence of jazz. • Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, which allowed the reproduction of sounds that could be heard by listeners.

32. Amusements • PhineasT. Barnum and James A. Bailey • “There’s a sucker born every minute,” and “People love to be humbugged.” • “Greatest Show on Earth” • “Wild West” shows, like those of “Buffalo Bill” Cody • baseball and football

33. National Pastime • Baseball emerged as America’s national pastime. • Wrestling gained popularity and respectability. • In 1891, James Naismith invented basketball.