Chapter 25 America Move to the City
The Urban Frontier
· By 1900 US population doubled to level of 40 million.
o Population of American cities tripled.
o By end, 4/10 Americans were in city.
· By 1890 New York, Chicago, Philadelphia went pass million people.
o 1900 NY second largest city in world.
· Skyscrapers made possible by electric elevator.
o Louis Sullivan Chicago architect.
§ “form follows function”
o City organization: w/ commuters on mass-transit lines, electric trolleys that removed the “walking city”, carved it into distinct districts for business, industry, residential neighborhoods divided by race, ethnicity, social class.
· Industrial jobs drew most country folks off farms and into factories.
o Exponential growth of electricity, indoor plumbing, and telephones.
o New York’s Brooklyn Bridge 1883.
o Macy’s in New York and Marshall Field’s.
§ Carrie Meeber the hero in Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie, wants to be rich because of department stores.
· Effects of moving to city.
o A lot of household waste
§ Rural had recycling, amending and reusing.
o Sears and Montgomery Ward mail-order houses replaced rural “general stores”
o Increased use of throwaway things.
o Cheap ready-to-wear clothing
· Flaws of the new city
o Criminals increase
o Sanitary facilities fail
o Impure water, uncollected garbage = stench.
o Everyone, rich and poor combined.
§ Human pigsties were slums which became more crowded after 1879 “dumbbell tenement” reconstruction.
§ Led to New York’s “Lung Block” where many coughed away their lives.
o Had Flophouses where bums can sleep overnight for few cents. \
· Rich went over to “bedroom communities”
The New Immigration
· 1850s to 1870s, 2 mil + migrants to America.
o By 1880s 5 mil immigrants.
· Previous immigrants mostly Protestant, from British.
o High literacy, accustomed to democracy.
· By 1880s New Immigrants from southern and eastern Europe.
o Italians, Croats, Slovaks, Greeks and Poles.
o Worshipped in orthodox churches and synagogues.
o Little history with democratic governments.
o Largely illiterate.
§ 19% of immigration in 1880s but 66% of total inflow.
Southern Europe Uprooted
· New Immigrants left because of no room in Europe, Old World population doubled after 1800 due to American fish and food.
o 60 mil left Europe, half moved to US.
· “American Fever” – US painted as land of opportunity and freedom.
o Profit-seeking industrialists > low wage labor, railroads wanted buyers, states wanted more population, etc.
o Also 1880s Russians violent against Jews.
§ Most Jews to New York.
o Jews brought new tailoring and shopkeeping skills.
· Most were “birds of passage”
o Single men who worked for several months, years then returned.
o 25% were these.
· Those who stayed attempted to preserve culture
o Catholics > expand parochial school system
o Jews – Hebrew schools
Reactions to the New Immigration
· Minimal checking in immigration, only to weed ou criminals and insane.
o State governments by rural representatives did less.
o Power fell to “boss machines”.
· Led to nation’s social conscience awakening.
o Protestant clergymen Walter Rauschenbusch 1886 sought to apply lessons of Christianity to slums and factories.
o Washington Gladden took over Congregational Church and both preached the “social gospel”.
§ Insisted that church tackle issues of day.
o The “Christian socialists” appealed to middle class.
· Jane Addams
o Middle-class woman dedicated to uplifting urban mass.
o Established the Hull House most prominent settlement house.
o Condemned war and poverty and won Nobel Peace Prize.
§ Opposition from Daughters of the American Revolution who was against her antiwar views.
o Hull House in poor immigrant neighborhoods and offers instruction in English.
· Followed was Lillian Wald’s Henry Street Settlement.
· Settlement houses centers of women’s activism.
o Hull House successfully lobbied for an anti-sweatshop law in IL.
o Led by Florence Kelley guerilla warrior who fought for welfare of women, children, blacks, consumers.
§ Later served 3 decades as general secretary of National Consumers League
· Addams, Walt, Kelley prominent women’s rights fighters of the age.
· Women in the work force
o 1 million + women joined work force in 1890s alone.
o B/c employment for married = taboo, vast majority of working women single.
§ White-colalr jobs i.e. telephone operators reserved for native-born women.
Narrowing the Welcome Mat
· Nativism sparked by Irish and German arrivals in 1840s
o New Immigrants come for similar reasons as old – escape poverty, new opportunities in America.
o Nativists alarmed – high birthrate, low standard of living and high numbers of immigrants. Feared to be mixed w/ “inferior” southern European genes.
o Blamed immigrants for degradation of urban government.
§ Attacked for willingness to work for “starvation” wages. \
· Immigrants revived previous antiforeign organizations like the “Know-Nothings” of the antebellum days.
o American Protective Association (APA) created in 1887 voted against Roman Catholic candidates for office.
o Organized labor against immigrant workers. Frequently used as strikebreakers, immigrants hard to unionize b/c of language barrier.
· Congress est. laws against immigrants
o 1882 first restrictive law, closed gates on paupers, criminals, convicts.
o 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.
o 1885 prohibited importation of foreign workers under contract – these usually worked for low wages.
§ Would increase list of undesirables later.
o Proposed literacy test not enacted until 1917.
· 1886 Statue of Liberty from France and inscribed was saying America welcomed the undesirables of Europe.
Churches Confront the Urban Challenge
· Shift to city makes Protestant churches suffer most
· Traditional approaches appear irrelevant.
· Old churches slow to raise voice against economic vices.
§ John D. Rockefeller pillar of Baptist Church, JP Morgan pillar of the Episcopal Church
· Trinity Episcopal Church owned some of worst slum property in NY
· Increased emphasis on materialism.
o New Urban Revivalists
§ Dwight Lyman Moody proclaimed gospel of kindness and forgiveness.
§ Contributed to adapting old religion to facts of city life.
· Moody Bible Institute continued his work after death.
o Roman Catholic and Jewish faith gains strength in New Immigration.
§ 1900 Roman Catholics largest single denomination.
· Cardinal Gibbons devoted to Amer. Unity, very popular w/ Roman Catholics and Protestants alike.
· Assisted American labor movement.
o Increased variety – 150 denominations, 2 of them new
§ Salvation Army est. beachhead on street corners.
· Distributed free soup
§ Christian Science Church founded by Mary Baker Eddy.
· Preached true practice of Christianity healed sickness
· Wrote Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.
o Participation in new YMCA and YWCA (Young Men’s/Women’s Christian Associations)
§ Combined physical and other kinds of education w/ religious instruction.
§ Very popular
Darwinism Disrupts the Churches
- Darwin publishes the Origin of Species
o “survival of the fittest”
o Opposition from Fundamentalists who stood by Bible in history.
o Modernists refused to accept Bible completely in history or science.
§ Modernist clergymen and teachers of biology dismissed.
- Rose skeptics including Robert G. Ingersoll who lectured in “Some Mistakes of Moses” against orthodox religion.
The Lust for Learning
- More tax-supposed schools and states making grade-school education compulsory.
o Checked growth of child labor
- 1880s 1890s great growth of high schools.
o From 100 to birthright of every citizen.
o 1900 6000 schools.
§ Free textbooks by taxpayers of states.
- Teacher training schools, “normal schools” from 12 in 1860 to 300+ in 1910.
- Kindergartens from Germany grew.
o New Immigration strengthened private Catholic parochial schools.
- Education also focused on adults through Chautauqua movement which had nationwide public lectures w/ well-known speakers, had courses for home-study.
- Crowded cities generally better than old lonely places.
- Literacy rate 20% in 1870 to 10.7 % in 1900.
Booker T. Washington and Education for Black People
- 44% of nonwhites illiterate in 1900.
- Booker T. Washington est. Tuskegee institute.
o Accommodationer.
§ Avoided issue of social equality, only economic equality.
o His Tuskegee Institute made slave-born George Washington Carver to teach and research.
§ Carver became internationally famous agricultural chemist and invented shampoo axle grease, vinegar, paint, etc.
- WEB Du Bois attacked Washington as “Unkle Tom”
o PHD in Harvard
o Helped found NAACP
o Demanded that talented tenth of black community be given immediate access to Amer. Life.
The Hallowed Halls of Ivy
- College education increase.
o Vassar – wopmen’s colleges
o Midwest more universities opening
- 1900 ¼ college graduate woman.
o Howard University, Hampton Institute, Atlanta University had higher education for blacks.
- Morill Act 1862 = generous grant of public land to states for support of education.
o Had “land grant colleges” most > state universities.
o Bound themselves for certain services incl. military training.
- Hatch Act 1887 extended Morill Act and provided federal funds for est. of agricultural experiment stations
- Philanthropists donated millions
o “One who steals privately and gives publicly”
o 1878 – 1898 money barons gave %150 million.
§ Incl. among new private universities were Cornell and Stanford.
§ University of Chicago from donations of Rockefeller.
o Rockefeller had donated $550 mil for philanthropy.
- Increase in professional and technical schools.
o John Hopkins University = nation’s first high-grade graduate school.
§ Carried on German tradition
o Scholars no longer had to go abroad.
o Woodrow Wilson got PHD from Johns Hopkins
The March of the Mind
- Elective system created which permitted students to choose own courses.
o Championed by Dr. Charles W. Eliot in educational statesmanship.
- Rise of medicines
o Louis Pasteur and English physician Joseph Lister
§ Pasteur = pasteurize, lister = Listerine.
o New health promoting precautions taken.
- William James accomplishments in psychology.
o Principles of Psychology est. modern behavioral psychology.
o Will to Believe and Varieties of Religious Experience explored philogophy and psychology of religion.
o MOST FAMOUS WORK Pragmatism described pragmatism, which was that truth was to be tested by practical consequences of idea, by action rather than theories.
The Appeal of the Press
- Books for enjoyment of young and old
o Favorites were David Copperfield and Ivanhoe.
- Well-stocked public libraries esp. in Boston and New York.
o Library of Congress opened in 1897 thanks to Andrew Carnegie
§ Carnegie would contribute $60 mil to construction of public libs.
o 1900 9000 free circulating libraries.
- Busy newspaper presses by invention of Linotype = faster typing.
o Heavy investment in machinery = growing fear of offending advertisers b/c editorials often matched w/ noncontroversial syndicated material.
§ Age of hardcore editorials like Horace Greeley passing.
- Sensationalism the new taste and literature, w/ sex, scandal and other stories in headlines.
o Journalism giants Joseph Pulitzer leader in sensationalism through New York World.
§ Colored comics = “Yellow Kid” > “yellow journalism” as the name to his sheets
o Competitor William Randolph Hearst powerful chain of newspapers = San Francisco Examiner.
- Pulitzer and Hearst championed for worthy causes, but offset by introduction of syndicated material and by strengthening of Associated Press.
Apostles of Reform
- Most influential journal was Nation read largely by educated people.
o Launched by Edwin L. Godkin critic and champion of civil-service reform, honesty in government and moderate tariff.
§ Moderate circulation but Godkin believed would make difference if they reached the right leaders.
o Journalist author Henry George idealist after seeing poverty in India and wrote Progress and Poverty to solve the “great enigma of our times”.
§ Supported single tax on the owners who earned windfall profits from property values going up.
§ Controversial ideas, but eventually 3 mil copies sold.
o Edward Bellamy published Looking Backward where hero wakes up and sees that social and economic injustices of 1887 melted away under idyllic government which nationalized big businesses to serve public interest.
§ Bellamy Clubs went up.
Postwar Writing
- “dime novels” popular after Civil War
o Most popular of these were by Harlan F. Halsey.
- General Lewis Wallace fought in Civil War and compacted Darwinism skepticism through Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
o Very popular
o Was the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of anti-Darwinists.
- Even more popular was Horatio Alger wrote for young fiction
o Over a million copies
o Based on virtue, honesty, and industry that was rewarded by success, wealth and honor.
- Walt Whitman wrote Leaves of Grass one of few prominent “luminaries of yesteryear”
- Emily Dickinson gifted lyric poets, female.
o Many short lyrics on scraps of paper
o Only two published during lifetime and was without consent.
- Less well known was Sidney Lanier oppressed by poverty and ill health.
o Finest poems written w/ high temperatures including “The Marshes of Glynn” inspired by clash b/w Darwinism and orthodox religion
Literary Landmarks
- Previous romantic sentimentality led to rugged realism that reflected materialism in industrial society. Following authors regarding realism.
- Kate Chopin, female, wrote about adultery, suicide, and women’s ambitions in The Awakening.
o Suggested female yearnings beneath the surface of “respectability” in Gilded Age
- Mark Twain first two famous publications The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and The Innocents Abroad.
o Teamed up w/ Charles Dudley Warner in 1873 to write The Gilded Age
§ Satire on post-Civil War politicians and speculators.
o Most famous books were The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
§ During lifetime was about to go to bankruptcy and went to the lecture platform to amuse the “damned human race”
- Bret Harte wrote out of West and achieved temporary fame
o California gold stories including The Luck of Roaring Camp and The Outcasts of Poker Flat
- William Dean Howells editor in chief of prestigious Atlantic Monthly
o Sometimes about controversial themes regarding ordinary people.
- Stephen Crane wrote The Red Badge of Courage stirring story of Civil War recruit.
- Henry James wrote the The Bostonians, one of first novels about rising feminist movement.
o Often made women central characters, explores their inner reactions to things.
- Candid (frank, open, sincere) portrayals of contemporary life and social problems by Jack London through The Call of the Wild to possible fascistic revolution in The Iron Heel.
- Frank Norris wrote The Octopus, saga of power of railroad and corrupt politicians on wheat ranchers.
o Sequel The Pit w/ making and breaking of speculators on Chicago wheat exchange.
- Paul Laurence Dunbar and Charles W. Chesnutt new realism to late 19th century – black authors
o Dunbar through poetry and Lyrics of Lowly Life
o Chesnutt through fiction and short stories in Atlantic Monthly and The Conjure Women using black dialect and folklore.
- Among the “social novelists” was Theodore Dreiser who wrote Sister Carrie of one who strives to make her own career. Had disregard for moral standards.
The New Morality
- Victoria Woodhull publicly prlciamed belief in free love.
o Feminist propagandaist
o W/ sister published Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly.
- Resistance to “immoral” principles through Anthony Comstock who made lifelong war on “immoral”
o Had the “Comstock Law” – self-appointed defender of sexual purity boasted of removing obscene photos.
- Battle between Woodhull sisters and Anthony Comstock exposed battle going on in late 19th century over sexual attitudes and place of women.
o Typewriters tools of women’s liberation.
o Econ freedom = sexual freedom, “new morality” = higher divorce rates, spreading practice of birth control.
Families and Women in the City
- Previously urban families separated from villages, cracked under strain.
o Late 19th century beginning of “divorce revolution” that transformed United States’ social landscape in 20th century.
- Urban life = all members of family worked.
o Children now a burden, so decreasing birthrates and family size.
- Women more independent through Charlotte Perkins Gilman who published Women and Economics.
o Opposed traditional feminine ideals and devoted to vigorous regimen of physical exercise and philosophical meditation.
o Called for productive involvement in economy.
- Women campaigned for vote.
o National Women Suffrage Association foundations incl. Elizabeth Cady Stanton who organized first women’s rights convention in 1848 and Susan B. Anthony.
o By 1900 new command by Carrie Chapman Catt didn’t emphasize women deserved vote b/c of right, but b/c desirability of giving wqomen vote if they were continue to discharge traditional duties.
§ In rural environment, could discharge duties separately. In urban life, needed voice on public health.
o Women increasingly allowed to vote on local elections.
o Wyoming Territory later the “Equality State”, first to grant unrestricted suffrage to women in 1869.
§ Many states followed to allow wives to own property after marriage.
§ City life = women’s organizations, incl. General Federation of Women’s Clubs.
o Restricted membership to blacks, feared it would impede progress
§ National America Women Suffrage Association limited membership to whites.
o Black women created own associations – Ida B. Wells against lynching crusade, est. Assocation of Colored Women.
Prohibition of Alcohol and Social Progress
- Gains against Demon Rum
o Against the opposition was “the poor man’s club”
- Liquor consumption increased during Civil War along with increase in immigration.
o National Prohibition party managed few votes during presidential elections.
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