5 14 new problems new solutions

Many people worked and many organizations were started and to help solve problems during the late 1800s and early 1900s.. Opener: ©Corbis 3 ©Getty Images 5 ©Corbis 6 ©The Granger Collect

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Scott Foresman Social Studies

• Political Cartoon

• Time Line

ISBN 0-328-14904-7

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Fascinating Facts

doubled This contributed to immigration to

America’s cities

contributed to the continuing growth of traffic problems

in cities In 1901 New York State became the first state

to require automobile license plates

receive the Nobel Peace Prize

Scott Foresman Social Studies

• Political Cartoon

• Time Line

ISBN 0-328-14904-7

ì<(sk$m)=bejaej< +^-Ä-U-Ä-U

Fascinating Facts

doubled This contributed to immigration to

America’s cities

contributed to the continuing growth of traffic problems

in cities In 1901 New York State became the first state

to require automobile license plates

receive the Nobel Peace Prize

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urbanization mechanization tenement epidemic settlement house suspend

Write to It!

Many people worked and many organizations were started and to help solve problems during the late 1800s and early 1900s Of the people and organizations mentioned in this book that were involved in solving the problems, pick one and find out more about that person or organization Write two or three paragraphs about what you learn

Write your ideas on a separate sheet of paper.

ISBN: 0-328-14904-7

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Glenview, Illinois 60025.

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Photographs

Every effort has been made to secure permission and provide appropriate credit for photographic material

The publisher deeply regrets any omission and pledges to correct errors called to its attention in subsequent editions

Unless otherwise acknowledged, all photographs are the property of Scott Foresman, a division of Pearson Education

Photo locators denoted as follows: Top (T), Center (C), Bottom (B), Left (L), Right (R), Background (Bkgd).

Opener: ©Corbis

3 ©Getty Images

5 ©Corbis

6 ©The Granger Collection, NY

8 ©Bettmann/Corbis

9 ©National Cancer Institute

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12 ©Corbis

14 ©Bettmann/ Corbis

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, more and more people crowded into cities in the United States

People were moving away from rural areas, and there was a dramatic rise in immigration In this book you will learn about the problems this created and what solutions were offered to try to overcome the problems

Editorial Offices: Glenview, Illinois • Parsippany, New Jersey • New York, New York Sales Offices: Needham, Massachusetts • Duluth, Georgia • Glenview, Illinois Coppell, Texas • Sacramento, California • Mesa, Arizona

BY KRISTIN CASHORE

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Moving to the Cities

The United States grew all through the 1800s However, in the

late 1800s, while the number of people continued to increase,

where and how people lived began to change too

During its early history, the United States was largely a rural,

agricultural nation Most Americans—at least 85 percent of

them—lived on farms or in rural communities near those farms in

1850 Farms were small, and most people could only raise enough

food for themselves It took a lot of work, and a lot of workers, to

raise enough crops to provide food for nearby towns

In the late 1800s people who had lived in the country all

their lives started moving to the city This move from rural

areas to cities, or urbanization, would change the United States

dramatically The country was becoming a nation of city dwellers

Almost all cities in the United States saw growth during this period, but some cities grew dramatically.

3

People from rural areas were moving to the cities to find jobs In the 1800s mechanization had revolutionized farming

Machines now did much of the work that people once did by hand Mechanical plows, reapers, and milking machines made it unnecessary for farmers to hire so many workers Farmers could plant many more acres and milk more cows with fewer people to help They could now feed far more people than ever before

This meant that there were suddenly a lot of farm workers without jobs

Cities were where jobs could be found Factories were hiring hundreds of workers, and the growing populations needed services, from selling groceries to making clothes to sweeping streets

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, urbanization contributed to the rapid growth of cities in the United States.

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People in other countries also heard about the jobs in America’s

cities Between 1890 and 1910, more than 10 million immigrants

flooded into the country Never before had so many come to

the United States in such a short period of time This burst of

immigration contributed further to the rapid growth of the cities

Unfortunately, there were not enough jobs for everyone

Immigrants were often willing to work for lower wages, which meant

they took jobs away from American workers This angered many

workers Labor organizations and other groups often tried to keep

immigrants from entering the country The Know-Nothing Party

was powerful in American politics in the early 1850s This group

protested angrily against cheap labor from other countries

Job shortages and protestors were not the only problems in the

cities People would soon have to face a wide range of issues as

populations continued to grow

1852

Elisha Graves Otis creates the first safety elevator.

1845

World’s first modern

suspension bridge

completed in

Pittsburgh, PA.

1856

English inventor Henry Bessemer invents a new way

of producing strong steel at affordable prices.

Some Events that Changed City Life

in the United States

5

The Know-Nothing Party held meetings to try to stop immigrants from taking American jobs.

1882

First power station opened

in New York.

1885

First skyscraper completed in Chicago.

1897

Country’s first successful subway system opened in Boston, MA.

1887

Joseph Kinyoun builds a laboratory that is the foundation of the National Institutes of Health.

1871

Great Chicago Fire

1889

Jane Addams opens Hull House.

1891

James Naismith invents basketball.

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Opportunity and Hardship

The United States was seen as the land of promise

Because of increased opportunities, many poor people, both

Americans and immigrants, improved their lives during this

period They worked hard, and many succeeded Some even

became very wealthy

With more people earning and spending money, more

opportunities opened up America became the most productive

nation in the world However, not every story was a success story,

and people faced growing problems created by the increasing

size of the cities

Many immigrants and rural poor who had come to the city

worked endlessly but could not escape poverty A lack of skills

or education trapped many in low-paying jobs As more people

arrived, housing became difficult to find Buildings were divided

into smaller and smaller apartments, and large families often

crowded into these tiny tenements

New tenement buildings were built rapidly, as the need for

housing continued to increase Some were badly constructed

Some lacked heat, and some even lacked windows

This image shows what a New York City tenement looked liked around 1910.

7

Cities were growing so fast that there were few services in place to take care of such things as garbage removal Soon streets and rivers were filthy and unsafe There were also few parks and few places children could play, and there were not enough police or firefighters The cities were becoming dangerous

Because so many people were living so closely together, diseases spread quickly The tenement buildings were the worst places, but disease soon affected everyone Epidemics, or rapid spreading, of polio, tuberculosis, smallpox, cholera, and typhoid fever killed thousands of people In the South thousands died from yellow fever Influenza killed over 500,000 Americans in

1918 Clearly, something had to be done

One problem of rapid urban growth was a lack of facilities for children, both for play and for school.

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Help Is on the Way

Individuals, organizations, and city and federal governments

worked hard trying to solve the problems Organizations such as

the YMCA, YWCA, and the Salvation Army—still well-known today—

got started during this time Immigrants who had succeeded

offered help to others coming from their respective homelands

The idea of public health was introduced City governments

began cleaning up the streets In 1870 Congress created a

national health agency New immigrants arriving in the late 1800s

were checked for contagious diseases Authorities treated those

who were sick before letting them move into the cities In New

York City, Dr Joseph Kinyoun set up a laboratory in 1887, so he

James Naismith invented the game

of basketball to give city children

something they could play

indoors during the winter.

Scoring Points for Health

James Naismith worked at the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts

and later taught college He believed that exercise was important for

health, but he also thought it should be fun He was worried about

the lack of opportunity for physical exercise for city children during

the winter So in 1891, with a leather ball and two peach baskets, he

created a new game—basketball It was an instant success It spread

across the country and around the world

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could study the contagious diseases that were killing so many people In 1891 Kinyoun moved his laboratory to Washington, D.C Congress funded research and new facilities, and in time the small laboratory grew into the National Institutes of Health

Jane Addams started her famous settlement house, Hull House, in Chicago in 1889 Many people admired her efforts to help poor immigrants and imitated her work

In 1890 Jacob Riis, an immigrant from Denmark, published a

book of photographs titled How the Other Half Lives The book’s

shocking pictures of the urban poor had a powerful effect The work of Riis and other reformers resulted in New York State’s Tenement House Act of 1901 This law required much stronger safety and health standards for tenements

This laboratory was set up by 27-year-old Joseph Kinyoun, a doctor who wanted to study diseases that were epidemic in the United States.

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Political Machines Are Created

Improvements were being made, but cities still needed better

streets, more housing, and better sewage disposal Because

of workers who worried that immigrants were taking jobs away

from Americans, immigrants often needed help finding jobs City

governments struggled to meet these needs, but change was not

happening as fast as the cities were growing

Some people took advantage of the situation, and political

machines were formed A political machine is an organization of

people who control votes to gain political power Members of the

political machines wanted to get candidates they had chosen

elected to city offices, so they promised immigrants that they

would help them if the immigrants would vote for the candidates

the political machine had chosen Once elected, the

machine-picked candidates did what the political machine told them to do

They helped other members of their political machine gain power

and wealth

A powerful political machine in New York City was Tammany

Hall Perhaps the most famous Tammany leader was “Boss”

William M Tweed He was known for bribing leaders and cheating

people out of money However, when he stole millions of dollars

from the city, he finally went to jail

Political machines also arose in Boston, Philadelphia,

Pittsburgh, Chicago, and other cities Although most political

machines were dishonest and influenced by bribes, many

immigrants wanted their help They were glad that someone

seemed to be taking their side And some political machines did

work to improve things They may have hired only members of the

political machine, or accepted bribes for contracts, but streets

did get built, services were expanded, and jobs were created But

these things happened more slowly, and at greater cost, because

of the corruption of the political machines

11

This political cartoon shows “Boss” Tweed welcoming a cholera epidemic Political machines benefited from the suffering of others.

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Too Many People, Too Little Space

Efforts were being made to improve health and education

Many people were working to make life better for the poor and

to create cleaner, prettier cities But cities were still running

out of space

People needed more than buildings to live in They needed

water, sewers, and garbage collection They needed stores,

doctors, and post offices

Cities had a limited amount of land on which to build As

urban populations increased, space became a real problem

What could be done?

13

Moving Up, Moving Out

Two things came together to help cities create more space

The first was the invention of the safety elevator Elevators were not new, but initially there was no way to stop them if they fell

So elevators were used to move products, not people Then Elisha Graves Otis invented a braking system for elevators If the elevator cable broke, his system would grip the tracks on either side of the elevator, bringing the elevator to a stop People could now ride safely Otis installed the first passenger elevator in a five-story department store in New York City in 1857

The second part of the solution was affordable steel The Bessemer process for producing steel had been brought to the United States by Andrew Carnegie in the 1870s, so good steel was suddenly widely available A building supported by a steel frame could grow very tall Steel and elevators made it possible

to build taller buildings A city could now expand upward

Otis developed the safety elevator, an elevator that would stop if the cable broke Here you can see the patented brake attached to the cable that holds the elevator.

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In 1871 the Great Chicago Fire destroyed

Chicago’s downtown area, so Chicago seemed

like a good place to start experimenting with

taller buildings, or “skyscrapers.” The first

skyscraper, the Home Insurance Building, was

completed in Chicago in 1885 At ten stories tall,

it was the tallest building in the country Taller

buildings were soon being constructed

Rivers posed another problem Being near

water transportation was a key reason for the location of many

big cities Many cities had rivers running either through or

alongside them It was hard to build bridges without making it

even harder to use the river

Suspension bridges—bridges that are suspended, or hung,

from massive overhead cables—were a relatively new idea It

was a challenge to create stable, strong suspension bridges that

could survive heavy traffic John Roebling, a German immigrant

and building engineer, solved the problem by combining new

building methods with a strong, steel cable he had developed

After he built the first successful steel suspension bridges, New

York State asked him to design the Brooklyn Bridge Sadly, he

died before this bridge was completed His son, Washington,

finished the bridge After he became ill, Washington was assisted

in his work by his wife, Emily When it opened in 1883, the

Brooklyn Bridge was the longest bridge in the world

Subways made it possible to move people through the city beneath the crowded streets.

15

Cities also began to create new forms of public transportation

Some cities built elevated trains, trains that were supported by steel structures that held them one or two stories above street level New York’s elevated train opened in 1870 and Chicago’s

in 1892

Next, engineers began to consider going down, under the streets Many cities began experimenting with this idea, but it was Boston, Massachusetts that, in 1897, opened the country’s first successful underground train system, or subway

The late 1800s through early 1900s was the period that gave us much of what we consider normal for big cities today, from traffic jams to skyscrapers to subways And today, city governments still struggle to keep up with city growth—and immigrants continue to arrive, looking for opportunities

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epidemic the rapid spread of a disease, so that many

people have it at the same time

mechanization the use of machines to do work

settlement house a place that provides help for

immigrants and the poor

suspend to hang by fastening to something above

tenement a building divided into many small apartments

urbanization the movement of people from rural areas

to the city

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Vocabulary