Urban America

1865-1896

CHAPTER 4

• Section 1: Immigration

• Section 2: Urbanization

• Section 3: The Gilded Age

• Section 4: The Rebirth of Reform

Section 1: Immigration

Why did Europeans come to the U.S.?

Push Factors

Farm poverty and worker uncertainty

Wars and conscription

Political tyranny

Religious oppression

Pull Factors

Plenty of land and work

Higher standard of living

Democratic political system

Opportunity for social advancement

The Atlantic Voyage • Steerage: the cheapest and basic way to

travel on a steamship

• Arrived at Ellis Island

– K= hernia

– X= mental disabilities

– H= heart problems

– Sc= scalp problems

• “Old” Immigrants: Northern & Western Europe

• “New” Immigrants: Southern & Eastern Europe

Ethnic Cities • Jacob Riis

– Journalist called population map of NYC striped

like a zebra

• Ghetto: a section of a city occupied by a minority

group who live there because of social,

economic, or legal pressure

• Jewish immigrants

– Lower East Side

• Italian immigrants

– Little Italy

• A place to continue their languages,

religious, clubs, newspapers

Angel Island

• Chinese Immigrants

– Taiping Rebellion

– Central Pacific Railroad

• Japanese Immigrants

– Economic hardships

• Over 200,000 Chinese and Japanese

immigrants arrived on the West Coast

during the late 1800s

Resurgence of Nativism – Nativism: extreme dislike for immigrants by native-

born people and a desire to limit immigration

• Prejudice Against Newcomers

– Prejudice: an adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand without knowledge of the facts; an irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race or religion

– Discrimination: Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit; partiality or prejudice

– American Protective Association • Henry Bowers

– Anti-Catholic & Foreigners

– Wanted to stop all immigration

• Impact on the Anti-Immigrant Movement

– Workingman’s Party of California

• Dennis Kearney

– Fighting Chinese immigration

– Chinese Exclusion Act

• Barred Chinese immigration for 10 years

• Barred Chinese immigrants already in the

country from becoming citizens

• Even after Chinese protests became a

permanent act in 1902

• Act was repealed in 1943

Section 2: Urbanization

• Americans Migrate to the Cities

• The New Urban Environment

– Skyscrapers • Louis Sullivan

– Mass Transit • Frank J. Sprague

• Separation by Class

– High Society

– Middle-Class Gentility

– The Working Class • Tenements

– Average annual income $445.00

• Urban Problems

– How the Other Half Lives, Jacob Riis • Saloons “breed poverty”, corruption of politics,

bringing suffering to women and children

– Typhoid Fever

• Urban Politics

– The Political Machine and the Party Boss • George Plunkitt, NYC’s most powerful party

boss

– Graft and Fraud • Graft: getting money through dishonest or

questionable means

– Tammany Hall • William M. “Boss” Tweed

The Gilded Age

• A Changing Culture • Gilded Age

– Mark Twain and Charles Wagner

– The Idea of Individualism

– Horatio Alger

• Brave and Bold

• Rags to Riches stories

• Social Darwinism:

– Herbert Spencer

• Survival of the fittest

– Darwinism and the Church

• Rejection of “creation”

• Rejection of “evolution”

– Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth

• Gospel of Wealth, philosophy

• Philanthropy: providing money to support

humanitarian or social goals

• Realism

– Realism in Art

• Thomas Eakins, painter of everything

– Realism of Literature

• William Dean Howells

– The Rise of Silas Lapham

• Mark Twain

– Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

• Henry James

– Portrait of a Lady

• Edith Wharton

– The Age of Innocence

» Pulitzer Prize

• Popular Culture

– The Saloon • “Free Lunch”

– Amusement Parks and Sports • Coney Island

– Vaudeville and Ragtime • vaudeville

– Animal acts

– Acrobats

– Gymnasts

– Dancers

– And more…

• Ragtime – Scott Joplin

» “King of Ragtime”

» Signature piece “The Maple Leaf Rag”

Section 4: The Rebirth of Reform

• Social Criticism • Disagreements

– Individualism

– Social Darwinism

– Henry George on Progress and Poverty

• Land is basis of wealth

– Reform Darwinism

• Lester Frank Ward

– Dynamic Sociology

– Looking Backward

• Edward Bellamy

– Perfect society

• Naturalism in Literature • Stephen Crane, Maggie, A Girl of the Streets

– Story of prostitution and death

• Frank Norris, McTeague

– Story of a dentist and his wife driven mad by greed

and violence

• Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie

– Sin without punishment

– Pursuit of wealth and power destroyed character

• Helping the Urban Poor

– The Social Gospel

• Washington Gladden, minister

– “Christian law” to fix problems

• Walter Rauschenbusch

– Baptist minister

– The Salvation Army and the YMCA

• Salvation Army- William Booth

• Young Men’s Christian Association

– Revivalism and Dwight L. Moody

• President of Chicago’s YMCA

• Moody Memorial Church

• The Settlement House Movement

– Jane Addams

• Hull House, Chicago, Illinois

– Lillian Wald

• Henry Street Settlement House, New York City

• Still runs today under the name “Visiting

Nurses Association”

– Medical care

– Recreation programs

– English classes

– Hot lunches

• Public Education

– The Spread of Schools

• Americanization of Immigrants

– English language

– American history

– Citizenship

– Discipline

– Work ethic

– National values

• African Americans

– Limited educational opportunities

– Booker T. Washington

» Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, 1881

– Education for the workplace • Assimilation: absorbing a group into the culture of

a larger population

• Job preparation

• Grammar School – Timely attendance

– Neatness

– Efficiency

• Vocational and technical education in high schools

– Expanding Higher Education • Morrill Land Grant

– Agricultural and mechanical colleges

– Women’s colleges: Vassar, Wellesley, Smith

– Public Libraries • Andrew Carnegie

Review Questions: • Where did the immigrants come from?

• Why did labor unions oppose immigration?

• What was the most common form of “mass transit”?

• Who lived in the streetcar suburbs?

• Who was William Tweed?

• Who believed that those who are more fortunate should assist those who are not?

• In the cities, what functioned as a community and political center for men?

• What helped immigrants adjust to American life?

• Where did the immigrants come into the U.S.?

• What is nativism?

• Why do we have subways?

• What was Tammany Hall?

• What is graft?

• What is individualism?

• What was the first baseball team to be salaried?

• What is “survival of the fittest”? What is the name of the philosophy connected with it?