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TOPIC 11 – THE PROGRESSIVE ERA (1865-1920)

Lesson 11.2 – Urbanization (Vocabulary& Notes)

Key Terms (Vocabulary):

1. urbanization - a movement of population from farms to

cities

2. tenement - a small apartment in a city slum building

3. building code - a standard set by the government for

building construction and safety

4. Social Gospel - movement within American Protestantism

in the late 1800’s that attempted to apply biblical teachings to society’s problems

5. Salvation Army - an international charitable organization

6. Young Men’s Hebrew Association-(YMHA) organization founded in

Baltimore in 1854 to provide community services to Jewish neighborhoods

7. settlement house - a community center organized, beginning in

the late 1800s to offer services to the poor

8. Hull House - settlement house founded by Progressive

reformed Jane Addams in Chicago in 1889

9. Young Men’s Christian Association-(YMCA) an organization begun in

Boston in 1851 to provide services, such as fellowship affordable housing and recreation, to young men

10. Young Women’s Christian Association-(YWCA) an organization begun by

the Ladies’ Christian Association in 1858 to meet the needs of young women, including safe affordable housing, employment assistance, and recreation.

11. Jane Addams - (1860-1935) was a reformer who opened

Hull House, a settlement house to the Chicago area

Lesson 11.2 – Urbanization

Obj: to explain why cities grew rapidly in the late 1800s; to describe the relationship between social class and cities’ geographies; and the causes and effects of the settlement house and other urban reform movements

“We cannot all live in cities,” declared newspaper publisher Horace Greeley, “yet nearly all seem determined to do so.”

Urbanization, the movement of population from farms to urban areas, or cities, began slowly in the early 1800s.

As the nation industrialized, the pace quickened.

In 1860, only one American in five lived in an urban area.

By 1890, one in three did.

Cities Expand Rapidly

Jobs drew people to cities.

Industries grew and needed workers.

New city dwellers took jobs in:

• Steel mills

• Meatpacking plants

• Garment factories

Others worked as:

• Salesclerks

• Waiters

• Barbers

• Bank tellers

• Secretaries

Immigration and Domestic Migration

The flood of immigration made city populations grow

So did migrations from farm to cities.

As the frontier closed, fewer pioneers went west to homestead.

Actually, many Americans left farms and migrated to cities for a better life.

African American Migration

African Americans also sought a better life in the cities.

Most lived in the rural South, but moved to the northern cities, when:

• Hard times hit

• Prejudice led to violence

1890s – south side of Chicago, thriving African American community.

Other cities with growing African American neighborhoods were:

• Detroit

• New York

• Philadelphia

• And others

After 1915, the migration increased rapidly.

As with most immigration (even European), it began with one family member moving north and later relatives and friends followed.

Also like European immigrants, many African Americans faced the challenges of adjusting to urban life. (pg 592 in TB)

CITY NEIGHBORHOODS DEFINED BY STATUS

Cities grew outward from their old downtown sections.

Before long, many cities too on a similar shape.

The Poor

Often clustered near the city’s center, the oldest section.

• Struggled to survive in crowded slums

• Streets jammed with people, horses, pushcarts and garbage

• Space was limited

o Builders devised a new kind of house to hold more people

▪ They built up

▪ Six or seven story buildings

▪ Divided buildings into small apartments

• Tenements

o Many had no windows

o No heat

o No indoor bathrooms

o Often, 10 people shared a single room

• Crowding increased as businesses built factories near the city centers to take advantage of good rail connections and cheap labor.

o Forced more and more people into fewer and fewer apartments.

o Typhoid and cholera raged through the tenements

o Tuberculosis, a lung disease, was the biggest killer

▪ Thousands of deaths each year, babies especially

• Despite poor conditions, the populations of slums grew rapidly

The Middle Class

Beyond the slums stood the homes of the new middle class.

Including:

• Doctors

• Lawyers

• Business managers

• Technicians

• Office workers

Rows of neat, spacious houses lined tree-shaded streets.

• Here, disease broke out less frequently than in the slums.

Leisurely activities gave the middle-class people a sense of community and purpose.

• They joined:

o Clubs

o Singing societies

o Bowling leagues

o Charitable organizations

The Wealthy

Beyond the slums lay the mansions of the very rich protected by iron gates or brick walls.

In New York:

• Huge homes dotted upper Fifth Avenue (then considered on the outskirts of the city)

In Chicago:

• 200 millionaires lived along the exclusive lakefront by the 1880s

In San Francisco:

• Wealthy residents built their mansions nearer the center of the city in the exclusive Nob Hill area.

Rich Americans modeled their lives on those of European royalty.

• Filled their mansions with priceless artwork and gave lavish parties

o At one party, the host handed out cigarettes rolled in hundred dollar bills

EFFECTS OF RAPID URBANIZATION

As more and more people crowded into the cities, problems grew.

• Garbage rotted in the streets

• Factories polluted the air

• Crime flourished

• Thieves and pickpockets haunted lonely alleys, especially at night

Tenement buildings were death traps if a fire broke out.

• Jacob Riis – a news reporter

o Brought the problems faced with those living in tenements to readers in a startling books called “How The Other Half Lives”

(pg 594 in TB)

Government Intervention

By the late 1880s – reformers pressured city governments for change

• Building Codes

o Set standards for construction and safety

▪ New buildings required to have

• Fire escapes

• Decent plumbing

• Cities hired workers to

o Collect garbage

o Sweep the streets

• To reduce pollution

o Zoning laws

▪ Kept factories out of neighborhoods where people lived

• Safety improved when cities set up

o Professional fire companies and police forces

o Gas, and later electric, lights made streets less dangerous at night

• Many cities also built new systems of public transportation

Pushed by reformers, city governments hired engineers and architects to design new water systems.

• For example: NYC:

o Dug underground tunnels to the Catskill Mountains

▪ 100 miles to the north

o The tunnels brought a clean water supply to the city every day

Religious Intervention

Religious groups worked to ease the problems of the poor.

• The Catholic Church ministered to the needs of the Irish, Polish and Italian immigrants.

o An Italian-born nun, Mother Cabrini, helped found dozens of hospitals for the poor.

▪ She would be canonized later

• In cities, Protest ministers began preaching a new Social Gospel

o Called on well-to-do members to do their duty as Christians by helping society’s poor.

▪ One minister urged:

• Merchants and industrialists to pay their workers enough to enable them to marry and have families

• Proposed that they grant their workers a half day off on Saturdays in additions to their day off on Sunday

o 1865 – William Booth – a Methodist minister

▪ Created the Salvation Army in London

▪ Expanded to the US by 1880

• It spread Christian teachings

• Offered food and shelter to the poor

o Jewish neighborhoods – religious organizations provided commjnity services

▪ 1854 – YMHA – began in Baltimore

• Provided social activities

• Encouraged good citizenship

• Helped Jewish families preserve their culture

▪ 1880s – YWHA – grew out of the YMHA

o Like the Salvation Army, the YMCA had its start in London and expanded to the US later.

▪ 1851 – Old South Church in Boston

• Thomas Valentine, missionary established the first YMCA in the US

▪ 1860s – became more than a meeting place

• Began offering to young men

o Affordable rooms for rent

o Recreation activities

o Gymnasiums

o At that time, YMCA was exclusively for men only

▪ Women formed their own association to meet the needs of female residents and factory workers

▪ 1858 - The first YWCA was formed in NYC

▪ 1860 – it opened its first boarding house

▪ 1866 – Changes its name from Ladies’ Christian Association to Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA)

• Continued to provide assistance to young women in the form of:

o Low-cost housing

o Employment bureaus

o Medical services

THE SETTLEMENT HOUSE MOVEMENT

Some people looked for ways to help the poor.

Late 1800s – individuals began to organize settlement houses.

• Jane Addams, a Chicago woman, was a leading figure of this movement

A Social Leader Emerges (pgs 595 & 596 in TB)

Jane Addams:

• Came from a well-to-do family

• Strong convictions about helping the poor

• After college, moved to one of the poorest slums in Chicago

• 1889 – in an old mansion, opened Hull House

Other young women soon joined Addams

• Lived in Hull House to get first-hand experience of hardships of the slum community

• These women dedicated their lives to service and to sacrifice

Hull House volunteers offered a wide variety of services:

• To help immigrants:

o Taught classes in American government and the English language

• To working mothers:

o Gave instruction in health care

o Operated day nurseries for children

• Provided recreational activities for young people:

o Sports

o Choral group

o Theater

The settlement house movement spread quickly

By 1990s – about 100 such centers had opened in American cities.

Promoting Reform

Addams and her staff helped bring about reform legislation

• Studied slum neighborhoods where they worked

• Realized that the problems were too big for any one person or group

• Urged the government to act

Alice Hamilton – Hull House doctor

• Campaigned for better health laws

Florence Kelley –

• Worked to ban child labor

Jane Addams herself –

• Believed that reform legislation would be speeded if women were allowed to vote

• She joined the continuing campaign for women’s suffrage

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