Section 6-2
Urbanization
Urban Opportunities
• Urbanization- growth of cities, mostly in the regions of the Northeast and Midwest.
• Americanization Movement- designed to assimilate people of wide-ranging cultures into the dominant culture.
Americans Migrate to the Cities
• Skyscrapers- Tall steel framed buildings. The Home Insurance Building in Chicago was built in 1885 (ten stories). First Skyscraper in America.
• Louis Sullivan- No one contributed more to the design of skyscrapers. (Chicago)
Urban Problems
Six Major Urban Problems• Housing
• Transportation• Water
• Sanitation• Crime• Fire
Urban Problems
• Housing:
-row houses- single family dwellings that shared side walls with other
similar houses. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu9A7zUE_fU
-Tenements- multi-family urban dwellings.
Urban Problems
• Transportation:
-Mass Transit- Transportation systems designed to move large numbers of people along fixed routes.
-Streetcars-San Francisco (1873)
-Subway-Boston (1897)
Urban Problem
• Water:
-As late as the 1860’s many cities had grossly inadequate piped water.
-Disease- Typhoid Fever, Cholera
-Filtration (1870’s)
-Chlorination (1908)
Urban Problems
• Sanitation:
-Manure piled up on the streets
-Sewage flowed through open gutters
-Factories polluted the air and water
-Scavengers- private contractors hired to sweep the streets.
-Sewer lines and sanitation departments (By 1900)
Urban Problems
Crime:
-First full-time police force- NYC (1844)
-To small to impact crime.
Fire:
-First paid fire department- Cincinnati (1853).
-Automatic sprinkler (1874).
Machine Politics
• Political Machine- an informal political group designed to gain and keep power in the cities. Came about partly because cities had grown much faster than their governments.
• Party bosses- (City Boss) Those in charge of their respected political machine.
Machine Politics
• Graft- getting money through dishonest or questionable means.
• George Plunkitt- One of NYC’s most powerful party bosses; defended honest graft. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bnN9SZlLkg
• William “Boss” Tweed- Leader of Tammany Hall, the NYC Democratic political machine. Very corrupt!