section 6-2
DESCRIPTION
Section 6-2. Urbanization. Urban Opportunities. Urbanization - growth of cities, mostly in the regions of the Northeast and Midwest. Americanization Movement- designed to assimilate people of wide-ranging cultures into the dominant culture. Americans Migrate to the Cities. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Section 6-2
Urbanization
Urban Opportunities
• Urbanization- growth of cities, mostly in the regions of the Northeast and Midwest.
• Americanization Movement- designed to assimilate people of wide-ranging cultures into the dominant culture.
Americans Migrate to the Cities
• Skyscrapers- Tall steel framed buildings. The Home Insurance Building in Chicago was built in 1885 (ten stories). First Skyscraper in America.
• Louis Sullivan- No one contributed more to the design of skyscrapers. (Chicago)
Urban Problems
Six Major Urban Problems• Housing
• Transportation• Water
• Sanitation• Crime• Fire
Urban Problems
• Housing:-row houses- single family dwellings that shared side walls with other
similar houses. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu9A7zUE_fU
-Tenements- multi-family urban dwellings.
City Life• Poor families
struggled to survive in crowded slums living in tenements.
Hine, Lewis W. NYC tenement 1910
• Tenements were overcrowded, dirty and oftentimes had no windows, heat, or indoor bathrooms.
Jacob Riis, 1889 “Lodgers in a Bayard Street
Tenement, Five Cents a Spot"
Urban Problems
• Transportation:-Mass Transit- Transportation
systems designed to move large numbers of people along fixed routes.
-Streetcars-San Francisco (1873)-Subway-Boston (1897)
Urban Problem
• Water:-As late as the 1860’s many cities
had grossly inadequate piped water.-Disease- Typhoid Fever, Cholera-Filtration (1870’s)-Chlorination (1908)
Urban Problems
• Sanitation:-Manure piled up on the streets-Sewage flowed through open gutters-Factories polluted the air and water-Scavengers- private contractors
hired to sweep the streets.-Sewer lines and sanitation
departments (By 1900)
Urban Problems
Crime:-First full-time police force- NYC
(1844)-To small to impact crime.
Fire:-First paid fire department- Cincinnati (1853).-Automatic sprinkler (1874).
Machine Politics
• Political Machine- an informal political group designed to gain and keep power in the cities. Came about partly because cities had grown much faster than their governments.
• Party bosses- (City Boss) Those in charge of their respected political machine.
Machine Politics
• Graft- getting money through dishonest or questionable means.
• George Plunkitt- One of NYC’s most powerful party bosses; defended honest graft. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bnN9SZlLkg
• William “Boss” Tweed- Leader of Tammany Hall, the NYC Democratic political machine. Very corrupt!