2. Toward an Urban Society, 1877‒1900
The Lure of the City
Why did cities in the United States grow
between 1880 and 1900?
Social and Cultural Change, 1877‒1900
How did growth of American cities affect
social, cultural, and political life?
19.1
19.2
3. Toward an Urban Society, 1877‒1900
The Spread of Jim Crow
Why did Jim Crow laws spread across the
South after the end of Reconstruction?
The Stirrings of Reform
How did life in the growing cities lead to
ideas of reform?
19.3
19.4
4. Video Series:
Key Topics in U.S. History
1. An Urban Society
2. The New American City
3. Boss Tweed
4. Plessy v. Ferguson
Home
5. The Overcrowded City
• Cities grew
• People lured by glitter and excitement,
friends and relatives already there, and
jobs and higher wages
• Size increased sevenfold, compared to rural
growth, which doubled
• Became center of American economic,
social, and cultural life
Home
7. The Lure of the City
• Skyscrapers and Suburbs
• Tenements and the Problems of
Overcrowding
• Strangers in a New Land
• Immigrants and the City
• Urban Political Machines
Home
8. The Lure of the City
• City - symbol of the new America
between 1870–1900
• Similar to the symbol of the factory
• Explosive urban growth
• Sources included immigration, movement
from countryside
• Six cities over 500,000 by 1900
• One third of American population by 1900
The Lure of the City
9. Skyscrapers and Suburbs
• Skyscrapers
• Replaced small buildings – twelve or fewer
stories
• Design changes
• Streetcars
• Allowed growth of suburbs
• More fragmented and stratified city
The Lure of the City
11. Tenements and the Problems of
Overcrowding
• Tenements housed working class
• James Ware and dumbbell design
• City problems
• Overcrowding
• Inadequate sanitation
• Poor ventilation
• Polluted water
• Crime
• Street gangs The Lure of the City
12. What Characterized U.S. Population
Patterns in 1900?
• What were the population densities of
various U.S. regions?
• Where had members of major
immigrant communities settled by
1900?
• In what parts of the United States were
African Americans concentrated at this
point?
The Lure of the City
14. Strangers in a New Land
• Immigrant rates grew
• From Europe
• New immigrants
• Demographics
• Port of entry
• Increasing percentages
• Resurgence of anti-Catholicism and
anti-Semitism
The Lure of the City
17. Immigrants and the City
• Immigrant families
• Family structure similar to native-born
• Growing families
• Immigrant associations
• Preserved old-country language and
customs
• Aided the process of adjustment
The Lure of the City
18. Urban Political Machines
• Urban political party machines
• Provided services for cities
• Headed by “bosses”
• Model: William Tweed, New York City
• Role of political bosses
• Why bosses stayed in power
• Role of bosses can be overemphasized
• Many people and institutions involved in
governing cities
The Lure of the City
20. Discussion Question
• Why did cities in the United States grow
between 1880 and 1900?
The Lure of the City
21. Social and Cultural Change,
1877‒1900
• Manners and Mores
• Leisure and Entertainment
• Changes in Family Life
• Changing Views: A Growing
Assertiveness Among Women
• Educating the Masses
• Higher Education
Home
22. Social and Cultural Change,
1877‒1900
• Industry and cities brought change
• Cultural changes
• Population growth
• Rural population still higher than urban
• Changing eating habits
• Medical science
Social and Cultural Change,
1877‒1900
23. Manners and Mores
• Victorian morality
• Dictated dress, manners, sexual behavior
• Children to be seen and not heard
• Uniformity in middle-class clothing
• Strong patriotic and religious values
• New moral and political issues
• Mugwumps
• Women’s Christian Temperance Union
(WCTU) Social and Cultural Change,
1877‒1900
24. Leisure and Entertainment
• Domestic leisure
• Gathered in the “second parlor”
• Games popular
• Music – ballads, ragtime, classical
• Entertainment outside home
• Fairs, horse races, balloon ascensions,
bicycle tournaments
• Organized spectator sports
• Street lights and streetcars Social and Cultural Change,
1877‒1900
25. Changes in Family Life
• Working-class families
• Work life changed
• On farm, worked together
• In city, worked separately for long hours
• Lived in complex units
• Relatives and boarders taken in to help with
rent
• Retained strong family ties
• Fostered by need to survive in industrial
economy Social and Cultural Change,
1877‒1900
26. Changes in Family Life (continued)
• Middle-class families
• Women and children grew isolated
• Suburban commute took fathers from
middle-class homes
• Formal schooling lengthened
• Domesticity encouraged
• White middle-class birth rates declined
Social and Cultural Change,
1877‒1900
27. Changing Views: A Growing
Assertiveness Among Women
• “New women”
• Seen as corruption of ideal vision
• Changes in legal codes
• Demand for changes
• Fight for vote and equal payment
• Wanted self-fulfillment
• Supported by psychology and medicine
• National American Woman Suffrage
Association Social and Cultural Change,
1877‒1900
28. Educating the Masses
• Trend toward universal education
• Grew from changing role of children
• Purpose of education
• To train people for life and work in
industrializing society
• Variations in schooling
• Boys and girls - differences
• North and South - differences
Social and Cultural Change,
1877‒1900
29. Educating the Masses (continued)
• Segregation in education
• 1883 - Civil Rights Cases
• 1896 - Plessy v. Ferguson
• 1899 – Cumming v. County Board of
Education
Social and Cultural Change,
1877‒1900
30. Higher Education
• Colleges and universities flourished
• Greater emphasis on professions and
research
• More women achieved college education
• African Americans usually confined to all-
black institutions
• Tuskegee Institute in Alabama
Social and Cultural Change,
1877‒1900
31. Higher Education (continued)
• Booker T. Washington
• Atlanta Compromise
• W.E.B. DuBois
• Studied sociology
• Disagreed with Atlanta Compromise
• Demanded quality, integrated education
• Trend toward careers in professions
• Medicine, dentistry, law
Social and Cultural Change,
1877‒1900
34. Discussion Question
• How did the growth of American cities
affect social, cultural, and political life?
Social and Cultural Change,
1877‒1900
35. The Spread of Jim Crow
• Segregation and disfranchisement grew
• Voting, education, housing, jobs
• North and federal government did little to
stem the tide
• Jim Crow laws - all aspects of the South
• Violence also spread
• Lynching increased
• Convict lease system
• Racism also in North
• Blacks called it James Crow
Home
36. Table 19.1 Supreme Court Decisions
Affecting Black Civil Rights, 1875–1900
The Spread of Jim Crow
38. Discussion Question
• Why did Jim Crow laws spread across
the South after the end of
Reconstruction?
The Spread of Jim Crow
39. The Stirrings of Reform
• Progress and Poverty
• New Currents in Social Thought
• The Settlement Houses
• A Crisis in Social Welfare
Home
40. The Stirrings of Reform
• Social Darwinism
• Argued against usefulness of reform
• Applied natural selection to society
• Influential followers
• Came under increasing attack
The Stirrings of Reform
41. Progress and Poverty
• Henry George’s Progress and Poverty
• Saw modern society as flawed
• Proposed solution: Tax the land, as it is
source of wealth
• Analysis had more impact than solution
• Raised questions for next generation
The Stirrings of Reform
42. New Currents in Social Thought
• Clarence Darrow
• Rejected Social Darwinism
• Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward
• Socialist utopia
• Social Gospel
• Challenged traditional doctrines that poor
to blame for own poverty
• Focused on improving living conditions as
well as saving souls
The Stirrings of Reform
44. The Settlement Houses
• Settlement houses
• Social workers provided community services
in slum areas
• Famous houses
• Characteristics
• Many workers women
• Classical and practical education for the poor
• Social services
• Limits - resentment
• Black settlement houses
The Stirrings of Reform
46. A Crisis in Social Welfare
• Depression of 1893 revealed
insufficiency of private charity
• New professionalism in social work
• New efforts to understand poverty’s sources
• Increasing calls for government
intervention
The Stirrings of Reform
47. Discussion Question
• How did life in the growing cities lead to
ideas of reform?
The Stirrings of Reform
48. Conclusion: The Pluralistic Society
• Immigration and urban growth reshaped
American politics and culture
• By 1920, most Americans lived in cities
• Culturally pluralistic society emerging
• Society experienced a crisis between
1870 and 1900
• Reformers turned to state and federal
government for remedies to social ills
Editor's Notes
Lecture Outline:
Cities grew
People lured by glitter and excitement, friends and relatives already there, and jobs and higher wages
Size increased sevenfold, compared to rural growth, which doubled
Not from natural growth
High rates of infant mortality
Declining fertility rate
High death rate from injury and disease
Many newcomers came from rural America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia
1880s - migration of African Americans from rural South to northern cities
Became center of American economic, social, and cultural life
Learning Objective:
Why did cities in the United States grow between 1880 and 1900?
Lecture Outline:
City - symbol of the new America between 1870–1900
Similar to the symbol of the factory
Explosive urban growth
Sources included immigration, movement from countryside
Six cities over 500,000 by 1900
New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia had populations over one million
One third of American population by 1900
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Lecture Outline:
Image: The Wainwright Building (1890) in St. Louis, Missouri, was designed by Chicago architect Louis Sullivan. The 10-story red brick office building was one of the first skyscrapers in the world and had many of the modern design features found in Sullivan’s buildings of this period.
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Lecture Outline:
Image: A group of passengers on deck of USS Amsterdam.
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Lecture Outline:
Image: Map 19.1 Foreign-Born Population, 1890 - Immigrants tended to settle in regions where jobs were relatively plentiful or conditions were similar to those in their homelands. Cities of the Northeast, Midwest, and West offered job opportunities, while land available for cultivation drew immigrant farmers to the plains and prairies of the nation’s midsection.
Lecture Outline:
Image: Figure 19.1 Immigration to the United States, 1870–1900 - Note: For purposes of classification, “Northern and Western Europe” includes Great Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, France, and Germany. “Southern and Eastern Europe” includes Poland, Austria–Hungary, Russia and the Baltic States, Romania, Bulgaria, European Turkey, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece. “Asia, Africa, and America” includes Asian Turkey, China, Japan, India, Canada, the Caribbean, Latin America, and all of Africa. Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Bicentennial Edition, Washington, D.C., 1975
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Link to MyHistoryLab asset:
Watch the Video, “Democracy and Corruption: The Rise of Political Machines” http://media.pearsoncmg.com/ph/hss/SSA_SHARED_MEDIA_1/history/MHL/US/videos2/odonnell_political.html
Lecture Outline:
Image: This political cartoon skewers the success of political bosses, such as the depicted Boss (William) Tweed of New York, to manipulate the political process and use patronage to enrich themselves and retain political power in various cities during this period.
Lecture Outline:
American cities grew by leaps and bounds in the two decades after 1880. Among the reasons for the growth were the needs of an industrializing society; technological change in the form of electricity, elevators, steel beams, and other advances; and the arrival of millions of immigrants. Politically, city bosses responded to the needs of immigrants and other urban voters, keeping themselves in power.
Learning Objective:
How did growth of American cities affect social, cultural, and political life?
Lecture Outline:
Industry and cities brought change
Cultural changes
More leisure time
Consumerism
Decline of illiteracy
Increased life expectancy
Population growth
1877: 47 million
1900: 76 million
1900: population more diverse
Rural population still higher than urban
Changing eating habits
Food was cheap
Packaged and canned food
Fresh fruit and vegetables from West and South
Icebox
Medical science
Louis Pasteur – germs cause infection
Vaccines
Tuberculosis, typhoid, diphtheria, and pneumonia still leading causes of death
Few hospitals and no hospital insurance
Most patients stayed at home
Surgery expanded
Anesthetics and antiseptics
Psychology developed
Behavioral psychology – importance of environment
Lecture Outline:
Victorian morality
Dictated dress, manners, sexual behavior
Children to be seen and not heard
Older children - minor misbehaviors
Played spin the bottle, snuck cigarettes
Counterbalanced by pride in virtue and self-control
Uniformity in middle-class clothing
Gentlemen – black suits, derby hats, white shirts with paper collars
Women – tight corsets, long dark dresses, black shoes
New sporting fads brought changes in styles
Golf, tennis, bicycling – looser clothing
Strong patriotic and religious values
Church was center of community life
1880s – Eight out of ten were Protestants
New moral and political issues
Mugwumps
Worked to end political corruption
Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)
Campaigned to end sale of liquor
Frances E. Willard – president of group
Key Terms:
Mugwumps: Educated and upper-class reformers who crusaded for lower tariffs, limited federal government, and civil service reform. They were best known for helping elect Grover Cleveland president in 1884.
Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU): This organization campaigned to end drunkenness and the social ills that accompanied it. By 1898, it had 10,000 branches and 500,000 members. The WCTU illustrated the role women played in politics and reform long before they won the right to vote.
Lecture Outline:
Domestic leisure
Gathered in the “second parlor”
Children did lessons, played games, sang around piano, listened to daily Bible verse
Games and educational activities popular
Cards, dominoes, backgammon, chess, and checkers
Author cards
Required knowledge of books, authors, quotations
Stereopticon
Three-dimensional pictures related to art, history, and nature
Music – ballads, ragtime, classical
Sentimental ballads most popular, but ragtime reflected urban influence
Scott Joplin – Maple Leaf Rag
Critics complained it was vulgar
Classical music flourished
Metropolitan Opera, New England Conservatory, Cincinnati College of Music
Symphony orchestras in major cities
Entertainment outside home
Fairs, horse races, balloon ascensions, bicycle tournaments
Organized spectator sports
Baseball, football, basketball
First professional baseball team – Cincinnati Red Stockings in 1869
1869 – first intercollegiate football game between Princeton and Rutgers
Street lights and streetcars
Made evening a time for entertainment and pleasure
Theatre, vaudeville shows, dance halls, strolls around town
People stayed home less often
Lecture Outline:
Working-class families
Work life changed
On farm, worked together
In city, worked separately for long hours
Lived in complex units
Relatives and boarders taken in to help with rent
Retained strong family ties
Fostered by need to survive in industrial economy
Lecture Outline:
Middle-class families
Women and children grew isolated
Suburban commute took fathers from middle-class homes
Formal schooling lengthened
Domesticity encouraged
Women housebound, child-oriented consumers
Ladies’ Home Journal – magazines glorified motherhood and home
White middle-class birth rates declined
Marrying later and having fewer children
Contraceptives not widely available
Abstinence and conscious decision to postpone or limit families
Lecture Outline:
“New women”
Seen as corruption of ideal vision
Innocent, helpless, and good
Changes in legal codes
Femme couverte changed
Traditional view - wives were husbands’ chattel
Could not control earnings, property, or children unless had a contract outside of marriage
Woman controls earnings and inherited property
Divorce rights
Custody or joint custody of children
Divorce still not socially acceptable
Demand for changes
Fight for vote and equal payment
Wanted self-fulfillment
Supported by psychology and medicine
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Innocence means ignorance
Spoke openly about once-forbidden topics
Menstruation, sexual intercourse, and childbirth
National American Woman Suffrage Association
Susan B. Anthony
Worked for enfranchisement of women
Key Terms:
National American Woman Suffrage Association: Founded by Susan B. Anthony in 1890, this organization worked to secure women the right to vote. It stressed careful organization and peaceful lobbying.
Lecture Outline:
Trend toward universal education
Grew from changing role of children
Childhood becoming more distinct time of life
Children to be valued for more than financial gain
1900 - 31 states and territories made school compulsory
Most required attendance only until age 14
Average adult still had only five years of schooling
Purpose of education
To train people for life and work in industrializing society
Focus on basic skills (reading, math) and values (obedience and attentiveness to clock)
Built around discipline and routine
Variations in schooling
Boys and girls - differences
Girls often stayed home after lunch; thought to need less learning
Both often dropped out of school from dislike or to earn money
North and South - differences
South lagged behind: family size twice as large, more rural population, shorter school year
Segregated school systems
Lecture Outline:
Segregation in education
1883 - Civil Rights Cases
Supreme Court ruling that Fourteenth Amendment barred state governments, but not private individuals or organizations, from discriminating based on race
1896 - Plessy v. Ferguson
An 1896 Supreme Court ruling
Established “separate but equal” doctrine
1899 -Cumming v. County Board of Education
Supreme Court applied Plessy to schools
Approved creation of separate schools for whites even without comparable schools for blacks
Key Terms:
Civil Rights Cases: A group of cases in 1883 in which the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment barred state governments from discriminating on the basis of race but did not prevent private individuals or organizations from doing so. The ruling dealt a major blow to efforts to protect African Americans.
Plessy v. Ferguson: A Supreme Court case in 1896 that established the doctrine of “separate but equal.” The Court applied it to schools in Cumming v. County Board of Education (1899). The doctrine was finally overturned in 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.
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Link to MyHistoryLab asset:
Read the Document, “Morrill Act (1862)” http://media.pearsoncmg.com/ph/hss/SSA_SHARED_MEDIA_1/history/MHL/US/documents/The_Morrill_Act_1862.html
Lecture Outline:
Image: The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 gave large grants of land to the states for the establishment of colleges to teach “agriculture and the mechanic arts.” The act, sponsored by U.S. Representative Justin Smith Morrill of Vermont, facilitated the creation of 69 “land-grant” institutions, including the state universities of California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois.
Link to MyHistoryLab asset:
Read the Document, “W.E.B. du Bois, The Talented Tenth (1903)” http://media.pearsoncmg.com/ph/hss/SSA_SHARED_MEDIA_1/history/MHL/US/documents/Du_Bois_Talented_Tenth_1903.html
Lecture Outline:
Image: Educational Opportunities for African Americans - Booker T. Washington, who served as the first president of Tuskegee Institute, advocated work efficiency and practical skills as keys to advancement for African Americans. Students like these at Tuskegee studied academic subjects and received training in trades and professions.
Lecture Outline:
The rapid growth of cities spawned important changes in the way Americans thought and acted. Cities opened up large new areas of entertainment, employment, and behavior. They reshaped the family, brought women more and more into the workforce, and led to a greater emphasis on education.
Learning Objective:
Why did Jim Crow laws spread across the South after the end of Reconstruction?
Lecture Outline:
Segregation and disfranchisement grew
Voting, education, housing, jobs
North and federal government did little to stem the tide
Lack of motivation
Tired of Civil War issues
Believed in Anglo-Saxon superiority
Acquisition of colonial subjects after Spanish‒American War
Supreme Court decisions
Gutted Reconstruction amendments
Left blacks defenseless against political and social discrimination
Plessy v. Ferguson most well-known
Upheld “separate but equal” accommodations
Jim Crow laws - all aspects of the South
Blacks and whites could not work together, use same bathroom facilities or water
Different textbooks for blacks and whites
Hospitals had separate rooms and nurses
Could not play games together
Violence also spread
Lynching increased
Convict lease system
Convicts forced to work for companies at very low wages to pay off fines
Racism also in North
Blacks called it James Crow
New York public schools banned Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Race riots
Lecture Outline:
Image: Table 19.1 Supreme Court Decisions Affecting Black Civil Rights , 1875–1900
Lecture Outline:
Image: Lynching - Perhaps no event better expresses the cruel and barbaric nature of the racism and white supremacy that swept the South after Reconstruction than lynching. Although lynchings were not confined to the South, most occurred there, and African American men were the most frequent victims. Here two men lean out of a barn window above a black man who is about to be hanged. Others below prepare to set on fire the pile of hay at the victim’s feet. Lynchings were often public events, drawing huge crowds to watch the victim’s agonizing death.
Lecture Outline:
After Reconstruction ended in 1877, northern weariness with Civil War issues, a series of Supreme Court decisions, and growing racism led the federal government to stop trying to uphold civil rights legislation in the South. This enabled southern states and cities to pass and enforce Jim Crow laws that mandated rigid separation between blacks and whites.
Learning Objective:
How did life in the growing cities lead to ideas of reform?
Lecture Outline:
Social Darwinism
Argued against usefulness of reform
Applied natural selection to society
Social selection – society evolves by adapting to environment
“Survival of the fittest” – coined by Spencer
Influential followers
William Graham Sumner
Professor at Yale, one of best-known academics
Argued government action to help the poor interfered with evolution
Came under increasing attack
Key Terms:
social Darwinism: Adapted by English social philosopher Herbert Spencer from Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, this theory held that the “laws” of evolution applied to human life, that change or reform therefore took centuries, and that the “fittest” would succeed in business and social relationships. It promoted competition and individualism, saw government intervention into human affairs as futile, and was used by the economic and social elite to oppose reform.
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Lecture Outline:
Clarence Darrow
Rejected Social Darwinism
Argued poverty at crime’s root
Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward
Socialist utopia
Government owns means of production
Citizens share material rewards
Cooperation, not competition
Limits to utopia
Regimented and paternalistic
Social Gospel
Challenged traditional doctrines that poor to blame for own poverty
Focused on improving living conditions as well as saving souls
Called on church members to fulfill their social obligations
Established missions in city slums
Churches provided social as well as religious activities
Key Terms:
Social Gospel: Preached by urban Protestant ministers, the Social Gospel focused as much on improving the conditions of life on earth as on saving souls for the hereafter. Its adherents worked for child-labor laws and measures to alleviate poverty.
Link to MyHistoryLab asset:
Read the Document, “Edward Bellamy, from ‘Looking Backward’ (1887)” http://media.pearsoncmg.com/ph/hss/SSA_SHARED_MEDIA_1/history/MHL/US/documents/Bellamy_Looking_Backward_1888.html
Lecture Outline:
Image: Edward Bellamy was the author in 1887 of Looking Backward, 2000–1887. The book envisioned a nation cured of its social problems through the creation of a socialist utopia including the elimination of private competition and government ownership of industry.
Lecture Outline:
Settlement houses
Social workers provided community services in slum areas
Based on Toynbee Hall in London
More than 400 houses by 1910
Famous houses
Stanton Coit’s Neighborhood Guild, New York
Jane Addams’s Hull House, Chicago
Robert A. Woods’s South End House, Boston
Lillian Wald’s Henry Street Settlement, New York
Characteristics
Many workers women
Some college graduates
Classical and practical education for the poor
Classes in English and Shakespeare, history of art
Courses in cooking, sewing, and manual skills
Reading rooms
Social services
Medical clinics
Showers and bathhouses
Limits - resentment
Workers seen as strangers and middle-class authority figures
Immigrants sometimes resented being told by them how to live
Black settlement houses
Most white reformers did not offer programs for blacks
Black reformers opened their own settlements
Offered employment information, medical care, recreational facilities, educational events
As successful as white houses in making important contributions
Key Terms:
settlement houses: Located in poor districts, these community centers tried to soften the impact of urban life for immigrant and other families. Often run by young, educated women, they provided social services and a political voice for their neighborhoods. Chicago’s Hull House, founded by Jane Addams in 1889, was the most famous of them.
Link to MyHistoryLab asset:
Read the Document, “Jane Addams, from Twenty Years at Hull House (1910)” http://media.pearsoncmg.com/ph/hss/SSA_SHARED_MEDIA_1/history/MHL/US/documents/Addams_Twenty_Years_Hull_House.html
Lecture Outline:
Image: The Settlement House, a Revolution and Social Reform - Jane Addams founded Chicago’s Hull House in 1889. The settlement house provided recreational and day-care facilities; offered extension classes in academic, vocational, and artistic subjects; and, above all, sought to bring hope to poverty-stricken slum dwellers.
Lecture Outline:
Depression of 1893 revealed insufficiency of private charity
New professionalism in social work
Not just feed the poor, but study their condition and alleviate it
Collected data on income, housing, jobs, health, and habits of poor
Called themselves “case workers”
New efforts to understand poverty’s sources
Studies of poor published
Increasing calls for government intervention
Civil Federation in Chicago led to National Civil Federation in 1900
Lecture Outline:
Urban life, which forced many people into closer contact, made visible the problems of life to a degree people had rarely experienced. The city could not hide the contrasts between rich and poor, the dirtiness and dangers of factory life, and the woeful lot of millions of immigrants. Reformers emerged to argue for change. Some of them, like Jane Addams, opened settlement houses in the heart of the city, where they lived among the poor.
