Download - City Life & Immigration
City Life
Age of Immigration
How was life for Immigrants in the city?
City Life
• The city was broken into sections– Rich in one part– Poor in the others
• Very different lives for these two groups of people.
WEALTHY UPPER CLASS
• Located: Outside the inner city• Housing: Mansions in gated communities– Examples: 5th Avenue NYC, Lake Front Chicago and
Nob Hill San Francisco
• Employment: Owners of business– Very rich [millionaires]
WEALTHY UPPER CLASS
• Lifestyle: NEVER spent time with poor– Had outlandish parties– Spent money easily, on theme parties, artwork,
vacation homes, etc…
MIDDLE CLASS
• Located: Close to inner city• Housing: Row Houses– Newer apartments; with trees, yards and
sidewalks.
• Employment: Managers– Skilled machinists and office workers
MIDDLE CLASS
• Lifestyle: Had strong community bonds• Life had a purpose, a good life!– Bowling leagues, charities and singing societies
POOR LOWER CLASS
• Located: Lived in the inner city– Near the factories and docks
• Housing: Lived in slums, in tenements– Ghetto
• Employment: Cheap, unskilled labor
POOR LOWER CLASS
• Lifestyle: Lived in very tight communities• Ethnic Neighborhoods– Had very little possessions– Had language issues, problems assimilating– Very Poor: Hard Life– Diseases: Typhoid, Cholera and Tuberculosis
PROBLEMS & REFORMS
Housing & Buildings
• PROBLEMS:• Shortage of homes/buildings: Not enough• Corruption: Corrupt builders build cheap
buildings.• Create slums and tenements
• Wood: Buildings made of wood burned easily [Chicago Fire]
• NO Safety Precautions: Many deaths at workplace [Triangle Shirtwaist Fire].
Housing & Buildings
• SOLUTIONS: • Building Codes: Forced builders to use– Good materials– Correct building techniques– Fire escapes– Indoor plumbing– Steel girders
Housing & Buildings
• SOLUTIONS: • 1st Fire Department: Created in NYC– 1905: Engine Co. #1 NYC– Paid to put out fires quickly so they would spread
and destroy the city
Overcrowding
• PROBLEMS: • Diseases spread• Garbage & Sewage in streets• Unemployment & Homelessness• Crime – New York City: The Bowery. The “Five Points”
neighborhood, was known for a murder a night!
Overcrowding
• SOLUTIONS: • Sanitation Department: Garbage gets picked
up• Police Department: Arrests criminals• Settlement Houses: Helped the poor and
homeless• Public Transportation: People could move
away from cities
Pollution
• PROBLEMS: • Factories: Running all day and all night– Caused water and air pollution. – Workers lived near these factories, suffered
through the pollution
Pollution
• SOLUTIONS: • Zoning Codes: Forced factories outside the
city limits• Public Water System: Made drinking water
safer• Gas & Electric Company: Made power cleaner
and safer.
END
INVENTIONS & TECHNOLOGY
Skyscrapers
• New Buildings: No more room in city, so they built up!
• Skyscraper: A building of 10-20 stories in the air was known as “elevator buildings”– Home Insurance Building [Chicago]– Woolworth Building [New York City]– Wainright Building [St. Louis]
Skyscrapers
• Inventions:– Steel girders– Central Heating– Electrical Plumbing Pumps– Telephones– Elevators: Built by Elias Otis
Public Transportation
• People could move away from inner city and still get to work• Suburb: Towns outside inner city
• Subways, Horse-drawn carriages and carts, electric trolley cars and steam passenger trains• 1897: Tremont Street Subway [Boston] first
subway in America [Green Line]• 1904: New York City subway built
Bridges
• 1883: Bridge opened and charged a 1cent toll! • This bridge linked Brooklyn to Manhattan
Island– Very impressive structure
Open Spaces
• To preserve “open space” for the public– Remind the immigrants of their homelands
• Examples: Parks, gardens, public zoos, and local grassy areas with trees within the city– Central Park [New York City]– The Fens [Boston].
Reform Movement
• Settlement Houses: Places where people could get help
• Hull House: [Chicago] Created by Jane Addams– Alice Hamilton: Doctor at the Hull House
Reform Movement
• Florence Kelly: Fought to stop Child Labor• Mother Cabrini: Founded many hospitals for
the poor• Salvation Army: Helped feed and clothe the
poor• YMCA: Local groups for poor kids– Swimming, Athletics, etc…
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ENTERTAINMENT
Circus
• Ringling Bros. & Barnum Bailey: New amazing circus show– Fun for families
Acting Companies
• Wild West Shows• Buffalo Bill: Stories written by William Cody
Music
• Phonograph: Could play music in the home• Ragtime: Singer Scott Joplin recorded the
biggest hit, “The Maple Leaf Rag”• Marching Band Music: John Philip Sousa was a
famous band leader
Variety Shows
• Vaudeville: A was very popular with Americans.
• Performers:– George Cohen– Roy Rogers– The Marx Brothers– Will Rogers
Sports & Leisure
• Basketball: Created in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith• Springfield, MA
• College Football: Very Popular sport• Red Grange: University of Illinois “The Galloping
Ghost”• Dangerous: 44 people died for injuries in the game.
• Baseball: “National Pastime” and the most popular sport in America
END
EDUCATION REFORM
Education Reform
• The Three R’s of Education– Readin’– Ritin’– Rithmetic
Public Education
• 1870: Less than half of the school-age children attended school
• Schools: – Little supplies– Few qualified teachers– Small one-room schoolhouses
Public Education
• 1st Kindergarten: 1873 in St. Louis, MO.• 1900: Over 4,000 kindergartens/elementary
programs in America
Public Education
• Reforms:– New laws requiring kids to attend school– More High Schools built– Adult Education programs created– Colleges & Universities created
New Reading Habits
• Better educated people=Better reading habits• Magazines: – Ladies Home Journal– Harper’s Monthly– The Nation
New Reading Habits
• Dime Novels: Written by Horatio Alger– Popular adventure stories about a poor boy who
becomes rich through hard work, luck and honesty
New Reading Habits
• Realist Novels: True/Harsh stories about real life issues– Stephen Crane: Civil War stories. “Red Badge of
Courage”– Hamlin Garland: Farming stories– Jack London: Mining and Sailing stories– Paul Laurence Dunbar: African-American life
New Reading Habits
• Realist Novels:– Kate Chopin: Women’s stories– Mark Twain: An American Icon. Used “local color.”
Wrote famous books; Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Gilded Age
Newspapers
• Helped immigrants assimilate:– Learn English– Follow politics– Current events– Sports– Popular Culture/Entertainment
Newspapers
• Joseph Pulitzer: Hungarian immigrant• New York World – Used scare tactics– Cartoons, crime stories, gossip and political
scandals
Newspapers
• William Randolph Hearst: American• New York Journal– Yellow Journalism– Stories about crime, politics, gossip and scandals
Newspapers
• Nellie Bly: Women Investigative reporter– Worked for New York World
• Women’s Lunatic Asylum [Blackwell’s Island]– She pretended to be insane, got committed and
lived there doing her research for story!
Realism in Art
• Winslow Homer: Civil War paintings• Thomas Eakins: Medical anatomy paintings• Henry Tanner: Paintings of African-American
life.– Sand Dunes at Sunset: 1st African-American
painting ever hung in the White House collection
END
For Quiz• Florence Kelly Vaudeville• Jane Addams Central Park • Red Grange Salvation Army• Skyscrapers Tenements• Tremont Street Subway Brooklyn Bridge• James Naismith YMCA• Scott Joplin [THREE MOVIES]• Building Codes • Sanitation