Growth of the City

Lure of the City

Migration – jobs, transportation, conveniences, entertainment, cultural experiences

-women no longer needed on farm

-blacks took low paying jobs and were pushed out of the South

Ethnicity – ghettos, culture vs. progress, mostly rural society living in city

-”Old World” people from Europe

-tried to re-create old world with newspapers, food, etc...

-focus on political power (Irish/Boston, German/Milwaukee)

Lure of the City

Assimilation – Moody, Addams, Social Gospel Movement, YMCA, Cardinal Gibbons, Rerum Novarum, Salvation Army, Christian Science (Mary Baker Eddy)

-preach American unity

-religious social doctrine

Americanization – schools, marriage, stores, religion

Exclusion – American Protective Society, Nativism, xenophobia

-Chinese, taxes, undesirables

-Comstock Laws – Anti-Vice

-Anti-Catholic (Henry Bowers)

City Design

Public Space – orderly design, parks

-Central Park, Mall in D.C.

Great White City – philanthropy, museums, concert halls, libraries

-Rockefeller/Carnegie

-Metropolitan Museum of Art

-Centers of learning

Reclamation Projects – Back Bay

-drain swamps and build

-annex nearby land - megalopolis

Suburbia and the City

Tenements – Dumbbell Tenements, Florence Kelley, Hull House, street Arabs, Jacob Riis

-crappy neighborhoods

-women & child care

-”How the Other Half Lives”

Urban Transportation – electric Trolley, bridges

-Statue of Liberty

-Boston has 1st Subway

-Brooklyn Bridge

Skyscrapers – Otis, Louis Sullivan, Daniel Burnham

-Renting becomes mass demand

-triple-decker homes (poor construction)

-sleek design of skyscrapers/large windows/limit ornaments

-City Beautiful Movement – City Reclamation

Problems of the City

Fire & Disease – great fires, rebuilding (order out of disorder), fire departments

Environmental – poop, respertory infection (coal), typhoid, sewage issues

Crime – pickpockets, con artists, murder rate, gangs, organized police (patronage), discriminatory practices (profiling)

Fear of the City – “Sister Carrie”, Gilded Age Politics, loss of identity, Alice Hamilton (doctor who detected lead poisoning, chemical waste, & ceramic dust as deadly along with TB and Carbon Monoxide)

Mass Consumption

Rising Income – 1/3 pay increase, more family members work

Chain Stores/Mail Order/Department Stores – Montgomery Ward, Sears & roebuck, A & P, Woolworths, 5 & 10, Macy’s, Filenes's

Women as “New” Consumers – better products, new styles, new employment, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (day care allows women to work)

-canned food (Borden), refrigerated rail cars, iceboxes, improved diet, clothes closets, mass wardrobes, secretaries, waitresses

Leisure “Rest on the Sabbath….no more”

Less Hours & More Money

Coney Island

Spectator Sports – Baseball, Boxing, Basketball

Leisure Sports – dancing, bicycling, parks (wealthy – quiet/poor-play)

Music & Theatre – Vaudeville, Ziegfield Follies

Movies – D.W. Griffith “Birth of a Nation”

4th of July – separate celebration by ethnic groups

Private Leisure – Dime Store Novel, Parlor Instruments, Ragtime, Snobby Sports

Shopping

Saloons & Pubs – ethnic, very “working class” & political, male dominated, Anti-Saloon League, WCTU, Carrie Nation

Circus – Barnum & Bailey

Mass Communication

Press – Hearst, Pulitzer, Yellow

Journalism, Ladies Home Journal

Magazines – Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s

Weekly, Progress & Poverty (Henry

George promotes single tax and

graduated tax)

High Culture

Literature – Twain, Stephen Crane (Maggie, Girl of the Streets), Henry James (The American), Jack London (Call of the Wild), Frank Norris (The Octopus), Horatio Alger

Art – Whistler, Ashcan School of Art (Realism, realistic scenes of ordinary life)

Education – philanthropy, Morrill Act, Chautauqua Movement, Carlisle Indian School (kill the Indian, save the man)

Philosophy – pragmatism (find truth through experimentation), Henry George, Josiah Strong (Our Country, cities are centers of anarchy)

Science – Pasteur, Lister, Darwin

Social – higher divorce rate