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The Gilded Age • Mark Twain called the late 19th century the "Gilded Age." By this, he meant that the period was glittering on the surface but corrupt underneath. In the popular view, the late 19th century was a period of greed and guile: of rapacious Robber Barons, unscrupulous speculators, and corporate buccaneers, of shady business practices, scandal-plagued politics, and vulgar display.
The New Colossus-Emma Lazarus What is this poem about? What other characters are involved? What message, theme, or ideas does it communicate?
Urbanization • Between 1870 -1900: US urban population soared from 10 million to 30 million • NYC: 800,000 in 1860, 3.5 million in 1900 • Chicago: 109,000 in 1860, 1.6 million in 1900 • Immigrants tended to stay in cities • Many poor farmers moved to cities for better paying jobs • Many freed slaves migrated to northern cities to seek new opportunities
What is the appeal of cities? Why do people migrate into urban areas? Why did I choose to live downtown?
Appeal of Cities • More jobs available • Electric lighting • Running water and sewer • Abundance of goods • Variety of leisure activities
Adult Entertainment • Vaudeville Theater: collection of acts, including dancers, singers, acrobats, comedians, etc. (similar to “America’s Got Talent” but without judges) • Dance Halls: large venues with live bands playing dance music • Cabarets: bars or nightclubs which offered musical entertainment • Saloons: neighborhood bars where working men ate, drank, talked politics and discussed current events
Family Entertainment • Museums • Libraries • Amusement Parks: NYC’s Coney Island became a resort area after Civil War, first “attraction” was a carousel that opened in 1876 • Spectator sports: Boxing, horse racing, wrestling, professional baseball
Skyscrapers • As cities became more crowded, space became more valuable • Inventions like high-quality steel and the Otis elevator made going higher the most practical solution • Chicago architect Louis Sullivan generally credited with pioneering the “skyscraper”
Home Insurance Building • Chicago • Built in 1885 • First to have a steel frame • 10 stories (138 ft.) • 2 floors added later • Designed by William LeBaron Jenney (who trained Louis Sullivan) • Demolished in 1931 because it was too small and wasted space!
Frederick Law Olmstead • 1822 – 1903 • Landscape architect • Designed many major urban green-spaces, including Central Park in NYC and parks in Chicago, Washington DC, and other cities • Also designed the grounds at Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC
Mass transit • Horsecars: railroad car pulled along tracks by horses • Cable cars: railroad car pulled along tracks by underground cables (San Francisco, 1873) • Electric trolley car: developed in 1887 by Frank J. Sprague, first used in Richmond, VA • Elevated railroads: Used in Chicago starting in 1892 • Subways: Boston in 1897, NYC in 1904 • Major bridges, such as NYC’s Brooklyn Bridge (1883)
Changes in Shopping • Bold new forms of advertising products, using large, illustrated ads in newspapers & magazines • Department stores: John Wannamaker’s Grand Depot in Philadelphia • Chain stores: Woolworth’s (1879) • Mail-order catalogs: Montgomery Ward, Sears Roebuck
Upper Class • “High Society” • Wealthiest families, primarily industrialists like the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts • Built palatial houses, clustered in downtown districts
Middle-Class • Doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, managers, teachers • Lived in “streetcar suburbs” on edges of cities • “White Collar” Workers • Average salary = $1100/year
The Working Class • 75% of urban population • Lived in tenement housing within easy walking distance of the industrial district • “Blue Collar” Workers • Average salary = $445/year
Urban problems • Violent crime: murder rate jumped 400% between 1880 and 1900; rate today is about ½ the rate of US in 1900 • Pollution: especially of drinking water, but also of land and air • Disease: cholera, typhoid • Fire: Chicago (1871), Boston (1872), Baltimore (1904), San Francisco (1906, caused by earthquake)
Tenements • Small, extremely crowded apartment buildings • Whole families often lived in just one room, sometimes with only a single window for air • Up to a dozen families might share a single bathroom • Buildings were unsafe – hard to escape in a fire, little fresh air and close quarters led to spread of disease
Jacob Riis • 1849 – 1914 • Danish immigrant, social reformer, journalist, photographer • Wrote How the Other Half Lives (1890) • Documented horrors of life in the slums & tenements • Blamed alcohol for many of society’s ills
Jane Addams & the Social Gospel • 1860 – 1935 • Founded Hull House, a settlement house in Chicago • First woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize • “Social Gospel”: idea that Christians have a moral responsibility to fix society’s problems & help the less fortunate
Settlement Houses • Most famous settlement house = Chicago’s Hull House • Middle class “settlers” moved into working class neighborhoods to help provide education, meals, childcare, medical care, and general advice to immigrants and poor workers
“How the Other Half Lives”-Jacob Riis (Analysis) • 1. What does Riis call “Poverty’s Honest Badge” and why? • 2. Name three sounds Riis describes in the tenements? • 3. What hardships do tenement dwellers face? • 4. In your own words, describe what life was like for those living in tenements?
