Chapter 7 Section 2

City Life

Don’t copy anything in blue!!!!

The Growth of Cities

• 1850 – only 6 cities with a population over 100,000

• 1870 – 14 cities

• 1900 – more than 35 cities

• African Americans began moving north in the 1890s to seek better econ. opportunities

Cities grew b/c of….

1. Natural increase – 21%

2. Annexation (politically adding land to the city) – 8%

3. Immigration from rural areas – 30%

4. Urbanization – 41%

• Walking city – all functions via walking– i.e. Pittsburgh 1860 49,000

1900 322,000

• by the 1890s, every large city looked like rings on a tree

Lower class

Upper/middle class

downtown

Rural area

Factories/warehouses

Grid System – first seen in PhiladelphiaStreets @ 90°

What a GREAT city….don’t you agree???

The Changing Look of the City

• Skyscrapers– Typical buildings in cities were only 5 stories tall

– Growing cities put strain on downtown space

– Louis Sullivan – architect credited w/ early skyscrapers in Chicago

– Availability of steel made this possible

– Elisha Otis – steam-powered elevators

– 1900 – tallest building in the US 435 ft tall Park Row Building in NYC

Public Transportation

• City planners tried to ease congestion through mass transit (aka public transportation)

• 1888 – electric street car– By 1902 the US had a total of 22,000 miles of track

• 1897 – Boston has 1st subway system

• 1904 – NYC opens much larger subway

• Suburbs – residential neighborhoods outside the city– New mass transit allowed people to commute to the cities

– Primarily middle-class

New Places for the Public

• 1857 – Frederick Olmsted designed NYC’s Central Park

• Public libraries became commonplace in most towns/cities– Andrew Carnegie

• Department stores – large retail shops that provided a variety of goods in one location– Designed to impress the public – window shopping

– Sears and Roebuck

– Wanamakers

Urban Problems• Housing problems included overcrowding, sanitation, fire,

crime• African American groups emerged as a powerful force to

aid urban communities

Settlement Houses• Settlement houses – neighborhood centers in poor areas

– Offered education and social activities

• Hull House – most famous settlement house– founded by Jane Addams and Elle Starr (upper class women)– Focused on helping immigrant families (taught English and US

Gov’t to help immigrants become citizens)

Chapter 7 Sec 3Society and Culture

Mass Culture

• Leisure and cultural activities shared by large numbers of people– World’s Fairs

– Barnum and Bailey’s Circus

– Coney Island Amusement Park

Chicago Worlds Fair 1893

The Rise of Sports• 1896 – first modern Olympic games

• 1876 – baseball has the first national professional sports league– Philadelphia Athletics

– New York Mutuals

– Chicago White Stockings

The Rise of Sports (cont)

• Football became increasingly popular as a collegiate sport

• African Americans were excluded from playing in early leagues– Led to creation of Negro Leagues in the 1900s

• More Americans began exercising for fun and health– Boating, hiking, swimming, tennis, golf

• Late 1800s – first modern bicycle– Very popular with women

Which would you rather ride???

OR

Nice outfit buddy!!!

Late 1800s Marketing

• American Tobacco Company – introduced marketing techniques– Billboards, free samples/gifts

– By 1889, James B Duke spent $800,000 on marketing• Net earnings were only $400,000

The Growth of Publishing• 1884 – linotype reduced time and cost of printing• By 1900, there were more than 2000 newspapers in the US• Late 1890s – Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst

began to use color printing

Popular American Literature• New printing methods made books more affordable• Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain• Louisa May Alcott – Little Women

Art• Realism – writing/artistic style that concentrated on

presenting accurate images of American society

• American artists painted real life using different types of imagery

• Mary Cassatt

• James McNeill Whistler

Almost done….

Just one more slide…..

Here it comes…..

A New Art Form

• In the 1880s, wet-plates in cameras were replaced by a more conventional type of camera film

• George Eastman created the box camera in 1888– His company Kodak sold cameras that people mailed back to get

developed• “You Press the Button—We Do the Rest.”