The Challenges of Urbanization & Urban Life

Essential Question:What were the challenges facing

immigrants in urban areas, and how did these challenges improve city dwelling

over time?

Debating the Immigration Issue

• Read through the Immigration Anticipation Guide and provide your response to the statements on a separate sheet of paper

• After you have done so, we will discuss the class responses – Debate if Needed

• THERE WILL BE NO DORAGATORY REMARKS MADE DURING THIS PROCESS

• CHECK YOUR BIGOTRY AT THE DOOR!

Urbanization

• The technology boom in the 19t century gave way to rapid urbanization, or growth of cities

• Most immigrants settled in cities . . . Why?– Cheap living– Convenient location to industry jobs– Offer of work to unskilled laborers

• By 1890, there were twice as many Irish residents living in New York City as in Dublin, Ireland!

Americanization Movement• The Americanization Movement was designed

to assimilate people of wide-ranging cultures into one dominant culture– School created to teach English, and other skills

needed for citizenship– Taught cooking and social etiquette

• Helped some, but most remained true to their culture

• In fact, areas of neighborhoods became culture specific and remain the same today

• http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/23/nyregion/20110123-nyc-ethnic-neighborhoods-map.html?_r=0

Migration from Country to City• Improvements in farming in late 19th century – The steel plow – Why would it be Good for some

and Bad for others?• made farming more efficient but meant that fewer

laborers were needed to work the land• As more farms merged into large commercial farms,

more and more farmers moved to cities to find work

Problems Facing Population Influx into the Cities

1. Housing2. Transportation3. Water4. Sanitation5. Crime6. Fire

Housing in the Cities

• Three housing options:1. Buy a house on outskirts of town but worry

about transportation problems2. Rent a cramped room in a boardinghouse in the

city3. Tenement – stacked row houses on blocks that

housed multiple families in one-family dwellings – kind of like apartments

Jacob Riis

• Wrote “How the Other Half Lives”

• Photo Journalist/Muckraker• Read the excerpt from his

work and create an APPARTS analysis

• http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma01/davis/photography/images/riisphotos/slideshow1.html

Transportation• Innovations in mass transit, transportation

systems designed to move large numbers of people along fixed routes, enabled workers to go to and from jobs more easily– Street cars were introduced in San Francisco in

1873– Electric subways in Boston in 1897

Water• As the urban population increase, the issue of

supplying safe drinking water to the masses was an utmost concern

• In some cities, public waterworks were built to handle the demand

• But . . . Many residents’ dwellings did not have pipes or plumbing

• Water was collected from faucets on the streets• There was a high rate of cholera and typhoid

fever• Filtration was introduced in 1870s and

chlorinated in 1908

Sanitation

• Imagine:– city streets full of horses instead of cars– Little plumbing and open gutters– Factories spewing foul smoke into air– No trash collection

• What are some problems you can think of that would arise?

• How would you fix the problem?

Crime

• Although New York City organized the first full-time, salaried police force in 1844, the law enforcement units were too small to have much impact on crime

• What are some problems you think law enforcement officers faced during this time?

Fire

• The limited water supply and poor evacuation routes in housing brought about another problem – FIRES

• The Great Chicago Fire, Oct. 8-10, 1871• The San Francisco Earthquake, April 18, 1906

The Great Chicago Fire

• Burned for over 24 hours• Estimated 300 died• 100,000 were left

homeless• More than 3 square

miles of the city center was destroyed

• Property loss was estimated at $200 million

• 17,500 buildings were destroyed

The San Francisco Earthquake

• Quake lasted 28 seconds, fire burned 4 days

• 1,000 dead• 200,000 homeless• Covered 5 square

miles of city• $500 million property

loss• 28,000 buildings

destroyed

The Settlement House MovementAttempts to Find Solutions

• Social Gospel movement – preached salvation through service to the poor

• Settlement Houses – community centers in slum neighborhoods that provided assistance to people in the area, especially immigrants– Run by middle-class, college educated women who

provided educational classes for those who wanted to learn life skills

• Jane Addams founded the Hull House in 1889– She was one of the most influential members of the

movement

Jane Addams Speaks• Perhaps the Power to See Life as a Whole is more need in the immigrant

quarter of a large city than anywhere else, but this power has to be cultivated quite as seriously and persistently as is the ability to understand and utilize a new language, for instance. The task of this power is perhaps the most fruitful source of misunderstanding between the immigrants and the first generation of children born in America, and does much to deepen that chasm between fathers and sons which is ready to yawn; between each generation and its successors, but which may be unnecessarily cruel and impassible.

• I Recall a Certain Italian Girl, who came every Saturday evening to a cooking class in the same building in which her mother spun in the Labor Museum exhibit, and yet the daughter always left her mother at the front door while she herself went around to a side door because she did not wish to be too closely identified in the eyes of the rest of the cooking class with an Italian woman who wore a kerchief over her head, uncouth boots, and short petticoats. One evening, however, this girl, Angelina, saw her mother surrounded by a group of visitors from the School of Education, who openly admired her work, and Angelina concluded from their conversation that her mother was “the best stick-spindle spinner in America.”

Technology and City Life

• In 1870, only 25 American cities had populations of 50,000 or more

• By 1890, 58 cities did• Science and Technology had to improve to meet

all the demands of urbanization• Ways in which these needs were met:– Skyscrapers– Electric Transit– Engineering and Urban/City Planning

Skyscrapers

• Two developments lead to skyscrapers: elevators and internal steel skeletons

• Louis Sullivan designed the ten-story Wainwright building in St. Louis

• They solved the problem of making more room for limited space

Electric Transit

• Just as the skyscrapers allowed people to expand upwards, electric transit allowed expansion outwards from the center of the city

• Streetcars or “trolley cars” and Railroads helped business to spread

• Suburbs began popping up on the outskirts of large cities

Engineering and Urban Planning

• With all the overcrowding in cities, people wanted somewhere open where they could relax, play leisure activities, and enjoy some scenery other than buildings

• Urban Planners like Frederick Law Olmsted spearheaded this movement– In 1857, he drew up a plan to convert an area of New

York into “Greensward” (Central Park)– In the 70s he planned for St. Louis and the D.C. area

Olmsted and The Biltmore Estate

New Technologies• A Revolution in printing– By 1890, the US literacy rate had risen to nearly

90%– Publishers were turning out thousands of copies

of books, magazines, newspapers to meet the growing demand of readers

– New innovations to also help:• Production of paper from wood pulp• Electrically powered web-perfecting press printed on

both sides of the paper, then cut, folded, and counted the pages

Web-perfecting Press

• Photography before 1880s:– Professional activity– Because of the weight of equipment and time required

to take a picture, moving objects could not be shot• George Eastman and new techniques:– New flexible film coated with gelatin emulsions, instead

of large glass plates, could be sent to a studio for later processing

– He introduced his Kodak camera - $25 including 100 picture roll of film – for $10 pictures were developed

– Now anyone could own a camera and take amature photos of major events – like the Kitty Hawk launch . . .

Photography Explosion

Airplanes• In the early 20th century, two brother, Orville and

Wilbur Wright, experimented with new engines powerful enough to keep aircraft aloft

The Challenges of Urbanization & Urban Life

Answer the Essential Question:What were the challenges facing

immigrants in urban areas, and how did these challenges improve city dwelling

over time?