America Moves to the City, 1865-1900
Chapter 25: America Moves to the City, 1865-1900
I. The Urban Frontier
Growth of American Cities
The growth of American metropolises was spectacular, fueled by both internal migration from rural areas and massive immigration from abroad.
Population Statistics:
In 1860, no city in the USA had a million inhabitants, reflecting a predominantly rural nation.
By 1890, the rapid urbanization era saw cities such as New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia surpass the million mark, becoming major economic and cultural hubs.
By 1900, New York, with 3.5 million people, had become the second largest city in the world, outranked only by London, showcasing an unprecedented demographic shift.
Between 1850 and 1900, world cities doubled or tripled in population; examples include: London, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Moscow, Mexico City, Calcutta, and Shanghai, indicating a global trend of urbanization. (Map 25.1)
Developments in Urban Structure
American cities grew both vertically and horizontally, responding to increased population density and the demands of modern commerce.
Skyscrapers rose as a revolutionary solution for limited land space and high property values; the first true skyscraper, a ten-story building with a steel skeleton, was introduced in Chicago in 1885, a feat greatly facilitated by the perfecting of the electric elevator by Elisha Otis.
Architect Louis Sullivan (1856-1924), a pioneer of modern architecture, contributed significantly to early skyscraper design with his famous principle: "form follows function," meaning that the purpose of a building should determine its design.
New steel-skeleton high-rises allowed urban Americans to become modern cliff dwellers, creating dense residential and commercial areas in the heart of cities.
Emergence of Commuting
The rise of mass transit fundamentally changed urban life, enabling cities to expand outward. Electric trolleys, introduced in the 1880s, encouraged the rapid growth of suburbs by making it feasible for people to live farther from their workplaces.
By the century’s end, America’s first subway system opened in Boston in 1897, further revolutionizing urban transportation and reducing surface congestion.
This period marked a significant transition from compact walking cities, where most daily activities were within walking distance, to sprawling, impersonal megalopolises, necessitating new forms of infrastructure and social organization.
Cities became increasingly segmented into distinct districts for business (e.g., financial districts), industry (e.g., factory zones), and residential neighborhoods, leading to marked segregation by race, ethnicity, and class.
Population Growth and Attractions of Urban Life
Rural life increasingly faced challenges competing with the city's powerful attractions, which promised economic opportunity and a more liberated lifestyle.
Industrial jobs in burgeoning factories drew millions from American farms and from abroad, providing steady (though often difficult) employment.
Urban life was appealing for its vibrant nightlife, including illuminated streets that made evening activities safe and accessible, and modern amenities like electricity, indoor plumbing, and the telephone, which offered conveniences unimaginable in rural settings.
Monumental engineering feats, such as the Brooklyn Bridge (completed 1883), which connected Manhattan and Brooklyn, contributed to the allure of cities as symbols of progress and innovation.
Consumer Culture and Social Changes
The rise of massive department stores like Macy's in New York and Marshall Field's in Chicago created new, standardized shopping experiences, attracting middle-class shoppers with a wide array of goods and fixed prices. These stores also provided numerous urban jobs, particularly for women, in sales and clerical roles.
These establishments contributed significantly to a burgeoning consumer culture, where leisure and purchasing became central to identity, a phenomenon vividly highlighted in Theodore Dreiser's novel "Sister Carrie" (1900), which depicted a young woman's journey through the temptations of urban materialism.
Goods in cities increasingly arrived in easily disposable containers, fostering a cultural shift towards convenience over traditional thrift and reuse.
A new waste disposal dilemma emerged due to these urban consumer habits and the sheer density of population, with cities struggling to manage mounting quantities of garbage.
The rapid growth also led to poor city conditions: inadequate sanitary facilities, often contaminated water supplies, and uncollected garbage enveloped cities with foul odors and posed severe public health risks, leading to outbreaks of diseases like cholera and typhoid.
Contradictions of Urban Life
Cities depicted stark contradictions, embodying both the promise and peril of modern American life.
Metropolises showcased both dazzling prosperity and abject poverty; contrasting stately banks and luxurious mansions with dark, dangerous factories, green, spacious suburbs with lifeless, squalid ghettos, and towering skyscrapers with wretched, overcrowded tenements.
Slums emerged as areas of extreme poverty, characterized by overcrowding, filth, and rat-infested environments, particularly exacerbated after the introduction of the “dumbbell tenement” in New York City in 1879, designed to comply with new ventilation laws but often failing to provide adequate living conditions.
Example of Living Conditions in Dumbbell Tenements
Named for their distinctive dumbbell shape, these tenements typically had seven to eight stories, featuring air shafts that rarely provided adequate ventilation or light, and shared toilets located in hallways for multiple families, leading to unsanitary conditions.
In notorious places such as New York's "Lung Block" on the Lower East Side, many suffered from widespread respiratory diseases like tuberculosis due to the lack of fresh air, sunlight, and proper sanitation.
“Flophouses” provided temporary, cheap lodging for the most impoverished and transient populations, highlighting the desperate state of inner cities and the stark reality of homelessness during this period.
Investments and Urban Planning
To prevent devastating urban disasters like the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which left 90,000 homeless, destroyed over 15,000 structures, and caused immense economic damage, cities began enforcing stricter building regulations mandating stone and iron construction over wood, leading to the development of early urban fire codes.
Wealthy populations increasingly began to migrate to safer, more spacious suburban areas, which were cleaner and offered better services, leaving inner cities in a state of compounded decline and concentrating poverty.
II. The New Immigration
The powerful pull of urban centers, driven by economic opportunities and the promise of a better life, was felt across Europe and beyond, leading to significant mass immigration trends towards the United States.
Mass Migration Statistics:
From the 1850s to 1870s, over 2 million immigrants arrived in America, predominantly from older Western European sources.
In the 1880s, this number dramatically increased to more than 5 million immigrants, peaking in 1882 with a daily average of 2,100 arrivals, primarily processed through Ellis Island in New York.
Demographics of Immigrants
Until the 1880s, prevalent immigrants were primarily from the British Isles and Western Europe, particularly Germany and Ireland, who often assimilated relatively easily due to cultural similarities. This period also saw over 300,000 Chinese immigrants, who frequently faced intense nativism and racial discrimination, particularly on the West Coast.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 legally barred them from entering the country and denied citizenship to those already residing here, marking the first significant federal restriction on immigration based on nationality.
By the end of the century, older immigrants had often integrated successfully into American society, contributing to the establishment of vibrant ethnic organizations, churches, and thriving rural communities, particularly for Germans and Scandinavians in the Midwest.
Shift in Immigration Patterns
By the 1880s, the character of immigration changed dramatically, ushering in the era of the “New Immigration.”
New immigrants primarily came from Southern and Eastern Europe, including Italians, Jews (many fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe), Croats, Slovaks, Greeks, and Poles, who often spoke different languages, practiced different religions (Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish), and had cultural backgrounds distinct from earlier immigrant waves.
This group represented only 19% of immigrants in the 1880s but grew rapidly to constitute 66% of new arrivals in the early 1900s, fundamentally altering the demographic landscape of American cities.
They often congregated in tight-knit, self-contained neighborhoods such as "Little Italy," "Little Poland," or the Jewish Lower East Side of New York within urban centers like New York, Chicago, and Boston, preserving their cultural heritage and providing mutual support.
Reasons for Immigration
Many left Europe due to severe overcrowding, as a "push" factor: rapid population growth in Europe outstripped economic opportunities, creating a vast unemployed and impoverished demographic across the continent.
A historical context of massive global migration arises, as about 60 million Europeans departed for the Americas in the 19th and 20th centuries, driven by economic hardships, religious/political persecution, and tales of opportunity ("America letters") relayed through correspondence from earlier immigrants.
American industrialists, seeking cheap labor for their burgeoning factories, and railroads, needing settlers for their vast land grants, actively recruited labor in Europe, acting as a significant "pull" factor.
Experiences and Reception in America
New immigrants frequently faced hostility and a lack of organized government support, leading to their reliance on self-sustained communities and mutual aid societies.
Ethnic enclaves were common where immigrants maintained their cultural practices, languages, and religious traditions, providing a sense of familiarity and belonging in a foreign land.
Many new immigrants, particularly single men, had no intention to settle permanently; approximately 25% were "birds of passage" who returned to their home countries after earning enough money to buy land or support their families.
Immigrant children typically adapted quickly, learning English in schools and often becoming cultural intermediaries for their parents, while navigating the tension between traditional customs and American ways.
Role of Political Machines
The federal government largely neglected the resettlement and integration of immigrants, creating a vacuum that was filled by other entities.
Urban political machines, led by ward bosses and figures such as "Boss" William M. Tweed of Tammany Hall in New York, emerged to fill this void, trading jobs, housing, and social services (like legal advice or food baskets) for votes and unwavering political loyalty among immigrant populations.
These bosses, while often corrupt, provided essential services to newcomers that the fragmented urban governments failed to offer, becoming de facto welfare agencies and helping immigrants navigate the complexities of city life.
Religious and Social Awakening
An awakening to the dire urban challenges and the plight of immigrants empowered many Protestant clergymen to address social issues directly, moving beyond individual salvation to communal responsibility.
Figures like Walter Rauschenbusch, a German Baptist theologian in New York, and Washington Gladden, a Congregationalist minister in Ohio, preached "social gospel" concepts, arguing that Christians had a responsibility to confront social problems like poverty and injustice, advocating for better working conditions and housing.
Reform movements, inspired by these religious ideals, began gaining significant traction within the cities, addressing not only the spiritual but also the material needs of the urban poor.
III. Parties and Social Reformers Reach Out
The assimilation of immigrants was a key societal challenge, but the U.S. government largely failed to provide necessary support, leaving local government and political machines as primary (and often exploitative) sources of assistance.
As cities evolved and the scale of urban poverty and social breakdown became undeniable, reformers emerged out of a national conscience awakening to the cities and immigrants' plight, driving the push for significant social reforms.
Jane Addams and Settlement Houses
Jane Addams dedicated her life to helping the urban masses, particularly immigrants, and founded Hull House in Chicago in 1889, one of the most famous and influential settlement houses.
The settlement provided a wide array of critical services:-
English language instruction to aid newcomers in communication and integration.
Counseling for newcomers navigating the bewildering complexities of urban life, including legal and employment advice.
Childcare services for working mothers, allowing them to earn an income while knowing their children were safe and supervised.
Cultural activities, including art classes and lecture series, to enrich the lives of neighborhood residents and preserve immigrant heritage.
Other women, inspired by Addams, established similar settlement houses across the nation, such as Lillian Wald's Henry Street Settlement in New York, which became pivotal centers for women's activism, social scientific research, and advocacy for urban poor.
Legislation and Labor Rights
Women at Hull House were not just service providers but also powerful advocates; they actively lobbied for and helped pass the Illinois anti-sweatshop law in 1893, aimed at improving working conditions for female workers and prohibiting exploitative child labor.
Urban life afforded women unprecedented new opportunities to engage in social reform movements, often driven by a sense of moral responsibility and the desire to improve public welfare, leading many to become pioneers in fields like social work and public health.
IV. Narrowing the Welcome Mat
Nativism, a fierce anti-immigrant sentiment, gained significant traction as local populations viewed new immigrants as culturally, religiously, and racially different, regarding them as a threat due to perceived high birth rates, competition for jobs, and resistance to assimilation.
Antiforeign Organizations:
Groups like the American Protective Association (APA), founded in 1887, revived nativist sentiments, actively advocating against Catholic voters and perpetuating negative stereotypes about immigrants, spreading propaganda and fear-mongering.
Legislative Actions
The U.S. Congress, responding to nativist pressures, instituted increasingly restrictive immigration laws beginning in 1882, marking a departure from earlier open-door policies.
These laws banned various groups deemed undesirable, including paupers (the extremely poor), criminals, and entire ethnic groups such as the Chinese, through acts like the Chinese Exclusion Act.
The Contract Labor Law (or Foran Act) of 1885 restricted employment opportunities for certain immigrant groups by prohibiting the importation of contract laborers who had signed agreements to work for specific employers before arriving, often to undercut American wages.
A proposed literacy test for immigrants met strong opposition from liberals and some business interests due to perceptions that literacy was not an indicator of a person's value or potential, but merely reflected lack of opportunity. This test was ultimately enacted only in 1917, over a presidential veto, becoming a significant barrier for many Southern and Eastern European immigrants.
V. Churches Confront the Urban Challenge
Traditional churches faced numerous challenges in adapting to the scale and nature of urban migration and the social problems it created.
Many conservative Protestant churches lost relevance in the bustling, diverse urban environment, becoming seen as mere social distractions rather than providing meaningful solutions to pressing urban issues like poverty and labor exploitation.
New liberal Protestant movements, such as the Social Gospel, emerged, attempting to align religious teachings with contemporary social and economic issues, often clashing with more fundamentalist perspectives that focused heavily on individual salvation and biblical literalism.
Catholic Church's Significance
By 1900, the Catholic Church, bolstered by waves of Irish, Italian, and Polish immigrants, became the largest single denomination in the U.S., becoming a powerful social and political force.
Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore played a significant role in Americanizing the Catholic Church, promoting its engagement in social reform movements and advocating vigorously for labor rights, seeking to bridge the gap between Catholicism and American democratic ideals.
Salvation Army created during this time period; it sought to provide social services and spiritual support to the urban poor, emphasizing charity and community service as fundamental components of its mission. Also YMCA and YWCA denominations
The influence of the Church faded in densely populated areas, such as urban centers, where a mix of immigrant groups and secular ideologies began to challenge traditional religious authority. However, in smaller communities and rural areas, the Church continued to serve as a crucial support system, providing essential services like education and healthcare while maintaining cultural identity among immigrant populations.
VI. Darwin Disrupts the Churches
Charles Darwin's groundbreaking work, On the Origin of Species (1859), introduced the theory of evolution through natural selection, profoundly destabilizing traditional religious beliefs and sparking a major intellectual conflict.
His work propagated ideas of gradual biological evolution and "survival of the fittest" that directly contradicted the biblical account of instantaneous creation and divine design, challenging the literal interpretation of scripture.
This intellectual upheaval led to a significant split among theologians and the public—some fervently rejected Darwinism outright as an attack on faith, while others, often called "modernists," sought to reconcile evolution with religious faith, interpreting biblical stories allegorically rather than literally.
VII. The Lust for Learning
There was a marked increase in public education, seen as essential for both democratic citizenship and industrial progress; many states mandated compulsory education for children, extending the school year and requiring attendance up to a certain age.
High schools became more common and accessible than ever before, offering expanded curricula and significantly increasing national literacy rates, with public tax dollars increasingly supporting secondary education.
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, the government curbed child labor numbers primarily through the implementation of compulsory education laws. Many states mandated education for children, extending the school year and requiring attendance up to a certain age, which inherently reduced the availability of children for factory work. Additionally, reforms driven by social movements led to specific legislative actions at the state level. For example, women at Hull House actively lobbied for and helped pass the Illinois anti-sweatshop law in 1893, which explicitly aimed at prohibiting exploitative child labor, thus improving working conditions and limiting child employment.
Teacher training institutions (normal schools) grew rapidly in number, professionalizing the teaching force, and home-study courses emerged through populist educational movements like Chautauqua, which brought lectures, concerts, and adult education to rural areas and small towns.
VIII. Booker T. Washington and Education for Black People
Booker T. Washington, born into slavery, became a leading advocate for black education and economic advancement in the face of significant illiteracy and pervasive economic disparity in the post-Reconstruction South.
He promoted a strategy of self-reliance and vocational training (industrial education) at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, which he founded. Washington emphasized economic independence through practical skills and hard work as a pathway to demonstrating the value of Black Americans to white society, rather than directly confronting racial segregation or demanding immediate social equality. His approach was often termed the "Atlanta Compromise."
Contrasting Views:
Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, a highly educated northern intellectual and the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard, sharply opposed Washington's gradualist and accommodationist approach. DuBois advocated for immediate social and political equality and co-founded the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) in 1909, emphasizing higher education for the "Talented Tenth"—the top tier of black citizens who would lead the fight for civil rights and intellectual advancement.
IX. The Hallowed Halls of Ivy
Higher education expanded significantly, offering more opportunities to women and African Americans, though often in segregated or specialized institutions.
The Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890 fostered the growth of land-grant universities by providing federal land grants to states for establishing colleges focused on agricultural and mechanical arts, including military training, making higher education more practical and accessible to the working classes.
Sharp increase in professional and technical schools with modern laboratories: John Hopkins, Stanford, UChicago, etc
Influences of modern American university: antebellum universities stressed “unity of truth”
Advances in medical fields: new scientific gains reflected in improved public health and health promoting precautions
William James: Harvard faculty and prominent philosopher and psychologist who contributed to the pragmatic movement and emphasized the importance of experiential learning in education.
X. The Appeal of the Press
Books become a major source of edification and enjoyment: libraries, “poor person’s university”, made encouraging process
Andrew Carnegie contributed $60 million to build 1,700 public libraries across the United States, which helped to provide access to knowledge and literature for millions of Americans, promoting literacy and education among the working class.
Library Progress:
Well-stocked public libraries began flourishing in cities and towns, often generously funded by philanthropists like Andrew Carnegie, who contributed significantly to the establishment of numerous libraries across America, seeing them as essential for societal uplift and access to knowledge.
Linotype: allowed double sided printing, newspapers spurred by it; growing fear of offending advertisers and subscribers led to fewer bare knuckled editorials, supplanted by feature articles and non-controversial syndicated material, day of slashing journalistic grants like Horace Greeley
Journalism also evolved into more sensational and commercialized forms, known as "yellow journalism," characterized by exaggerated stories, bold headlines, and extensive use of illustrations, aimed at increasing circulation and attracting mass readership. This was exemplified by powerful newspaper magnates such as Joseph Pulitzer (New York World) and William Randolph Hearst (New York Journal), leading to a decline in traditional journalistic integrity in favor of dramatic narratives and human interest stories.
Overall influence of Pulitzer and Hearst not altogether wholesome: although they championed worthy causes, both prostituted press in struggle for increased circulation. Both “stooped, snooped, and scooped to conquer”; their flair for scandal and sensational rumor offset by introduction of syndicated material and strengthening of news-gathering Associated Press
Today: Epstein files (meant to gather your attention)
XI. Apostles of Reform
Magazines and journals like The Nation, founded by Edwin L. Godkin, became influential platforms for intellectual discourse, advocating for civil service reform, honest government, and progressive movements more broadly.
High-profile works of social critique emerged, such as Henry George's Progress and Poverty (1879), which proposed a single tax on land to solve economic inequality, and Edward Bellamy's utopian novel Looking Backward (1888), which envisioned a future American society free of class divisions and capitalism, endorseding radical economic reforms, stressing social justice, and opposing monopolistic practices.
XII. The New Morality
The discourse around sexuality and women's rights was profoundly transformed by figures like Victoria Woodhull, a radical feminist and spiritualist who publicly challenged conventional moral boundaries and advocated for "free love" and women's suffrage.
Conflicts surrounding sexual ethics arose during this period, highlighted by Anthony Comstock's moral crusades: as a zealous crusader for public morality, Comstock led the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and successfully pushed for the Comstock Act of 1873, which outlawed the mailing of "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" material, including information about birth control and abortion.
Distribution of pornography was prominent during this period; this led to debates about censorship and individual freedoms, ultimately fueling the early feminist movements that sought to reclaim women's autonomy over their bodies and sexuality.
XIII. Families and Women in the City
Urban environments dramatically reshaped family structures, transitioning from large, agriculturally-based units to smaller, more nuclear families better suited to city living. This also led to increased independence for women, who found new opportunities in education, employment, and social activism, alongside significant societal transformations in gender roles.
First wave of feminism: militant suffragists formed NAWSA (National American Women Suffrage Association), which
Feminist Movements:
Organizations advocating for women's rights evolved, with leaders like Charlotte Perkins Gilman, whose influential Women and Economics (1898) called for economic independence for women, advocating for communal kitchens and childcare to free women from domestic drudgery and enable their full participation in the workforce.
The suffrage movement gained renewed traction, particularly among women in the West, who secured early voting rights in states like Wyoming and Utah, often as a means to attract stable populations and in recognition of women's contributions to frontier life.
XIV. Prohibiting Alcohol and Promoting Reform
Alarming gains by Demon Rum: spurred temperance reformers to redoubled zeal, especially obnoxious were shutter-doored corner “poor man’s club”s that proliferated in urban areas, drawing in vulnerable populations and perpetuating cycles of poverty and addiction. Reformers argued that these establishments degraded communities and led to family disintegration, thus fueling campaigns for prohibition and the eventual establishment of the Eighteenth Amendment.
The temperance movement, intensified by the influence of powerful organizations like the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and figures like Frances E. Willard (its influential president), sought to combat alcohol abuse, framing it as a major cause of poverty, crime, and domestic violence. Their sustained advocacy and public campaigns eventually led to the national prohibition of alcohol with the 18th Amendment in 1919.
Kansas Cyclone Carrie A. Nation: her husband died of alcohol poisoning, so she went around breaking stuff and advocating for reform, ultimately becoming a prominent figure in the fight for prohibition.
XV. Postwar Fiction, Lowbrow and High
Literature reflected the changing societal landscapes, transitioning towards realism, naturalism, and regionalism, moving away from romantic idealism to depict life more authentically.
Notable authors included Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), celebrated for his American vernacular and satirical critiques in works like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Henry James, known for his psychological depth and contrasting European sophistication with American innocence in novels such as The Portrait of a Lady; and Stephen Crane, a pioneer of naturalism who explored the brutal realities of war and urban poverty in works like The Red Badge of Courage and Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. These authors wrote on social themes of their time while addressing complex issues of morality, identity, and the human condition.
XVI. Artistic Triumphs
The era witnessed a flourish of American art, with movements inspired by realism and regionalism, seeking to capture the everyday lives and landscapes of America.
Artists such as Winslow Homer, renowned for his powerful and realistic depictions of maritime life and American rural scenes; John Singer Sargent, a leading portrait painter of the Gilded Age elite; and Augustus Saint-Gaudens, a prominent sculptor known for his public monuments and bronze statues, contributed significantly to cultural narratives through their work, reflecting a distinct American artistic identity.
XVII. The Business of Amusement
Entertainment diversified dramatically, moving from informal local gatherings to commercialized mass spectacles, with significant growth in stage performances (vaudeville theaters became incredibly popular), circuses (like Barnum & Bailey's "Greatest Show on Earth"), and new professional sports like baseball and basketball (invented in 1891 by James Naismith). These forms of entertainment captured the American imagination, highlighting shifts in leisure habits and the increasing commodification of recreational activities in an evolving urban landscape that was often bustling and crowded.