5 14 the urbanization of america

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by Kristin Cashore

Scott Foresman Social Studies

Genre Comprehension Skill Text Features

Nonfi ction Sequence • Time Line

• Graph

• Political Cartoon

ISBN 0-328-14905-5

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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

Genre Comprehension Skill Text Features

Nonfi ction Sequence • Time Line

• Graph

• Political Cartoon

ISBN 0-328-14905-5

ì<(sk$m)=bejafg< +^-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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Write to It!

At every point in its history, America has faced problems

of some sort What problems does America face today? Focus on one problem, then write two or more paragraphs in which you describe the problem and discuss ways in which individuals might contribute to solving the problem

Write your ideas on a separate sheet of paper.

ISBN: 0-328-14905-5

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8 ©Bettmann/Corbis

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10 ©Getty Images

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14 ©Bettmann/Corbis

Vocabulary

urbanization mechanization tenement epidemic settlement house suspend

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the United States

began to change from being largely a nation of farmers

to being a nation of city dwellers This period also saw a

dramatic rise in immigration In this book you will learn

how problems arose as more and more people crowded

into the cities, and how solutions to these problems were

soon being offered

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Growing Cities

The population of the United States grew throughout the

1800s However, in the late 1800s, the changes that were

occurring were not just greater numbers of people—where

and how people lived began to change too

Throughout its early history, the United States was largely

a rural, agricultural nation In 1850, at least 85 percent of

Americans lived either on farms or in rural communities near

those farms 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 supply nearby towns

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

all their lives started moving to the city This moving from

rural areas to cities, or urbanization, would change the

United States dramatically The country was becoming a

nation of city dwellers But why were people moving?

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

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.

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

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People were moving to the cities for jobs In the 1800s

mechanization revolutionized farming Machines now

did the work that people once did by hand Mechanical

plows, reapers, and milking machines made it unnecessary

for farmers to hire as many workers Farmers could plant

more acres and milk more cows with less 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 great numbers of workers, and the growing

populations needed services, from selling groceries to

making clothes to sweeping streets

The availability of jobs in America’s cities was noticed

overseas too Between 1890 and 1910 more than 10 million

immigrants flooded into the country Never before had so

many come to the United States in so short a period of time

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

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Many who came from Europe and Asia were homeless or unemployed Some were the victims of religious persecution, while others simply could not improve their lives because of rigid class systems This burst of immigration contributed further to the rapid growth of the cities

There were jobs in the cities, but not an unlimited number Immigrants were often willing to work for lower wages, which meant they often took jobs away from American workers This angered many workers, and labor organizations and other groups often tried to keep immigrants from getting jobs or even from entering the country The Know-Nothing Party was a strong anti-immigrant force in American politics in the early 1850s

But job shortages and protestors were not the only problems in the expanding cities People would soon have to face a wide range of issues as populations continued to grow

The Know-Nothing Party held rallies, such as this one in 1855,

to try to stop immigrants from taking American jobs.

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Promises and Problems

The United States was seen as the land of promise

by most immigrants Because of increased industrial

output and greater opportunities, many poor people,

both Americans and immigrants, improved their lives

dramatically during this period They worked hard, and

many succeeded, some even becoming very wealthy

With more people earning and spending money, more

opportunities opened up Stores expanded and more

products became available, creating more demand and more

jobs 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

One problem of rapid urban growth was a lack of facilities

for children, both for play and for school.

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Many immigrants and rural poor who had come to the city worked endlessly, but could not escape poverty Many did not have the skills or education to escape low-paying jobs As more and more immigrants arrived, housing became difficult to find Buildings were divided into smaller and smaller apartments, and large families often

crowded into these tiny tenements In the cities, people

had to take what was available

New tenement buildings were built rapidly, as the need for housing continued to increase Many were poorly constructed Some lacked heat, and some even lacked windows

Cities were growing so fast that there were few services

in place to take care of such things as garbage removal, and soon city 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 close together, diseases spread quickly The tenement buildings were the worst places for disease, but because of the filth in the streets, disease soon affected everyone, rich and poor alike

Epidemics, or rapid spreading, of polio, tuberculosis,

smallpox, cholera, and typhoid fever killed thousands of people In the South thousands died from yellow fever In

1918 an outbreak of influenza killed more than 500,000 Americans Clearly, something had to be done

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People Helping People

Individuals, organizations, and city and federal

governments worked hard trying to solve the problems as

soon as they arose Well-known organizations such as the

YMCA, YWCA, and the Salvation Army were active in

American cities in the late 1800s Immigrants created “mutual

aid societies,” where those who had succeeded welcomed and

aided others coming from their respective homelands

Public health was a concept that was growing along with

the cities City governments began working to clean up the

James Naismith invented the game of basketball to give city children something they could play indoors during the winter.

Help Can be Fun

James Naismith was an

athlete and an educator

who 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 in the winter, so in

1891, with a leather ball and

two peach baskets, he created

a new game Basketball was

an instant success It spread

across the country and around

the world.

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streets In 1870 Congress organized a national health agency

Immigrants who passed through the reception center at Ellis Island in New York harbor in the 1890s were checked for contagious diseases Those who were ill received treatment before being allowed to move into the cities In New York City, Dr Joseph Kinyoun set up a laboratory in 1887, so

he could study cholera and other 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 Some criticized her methods, but many people appreciated and imitated her efforts to help poor immigrants

Jacob Riis, an immigrant from Denmark, published a

book of photographs entitled How the Other Half Lives in

1890 The book’s shocking images of conditions endured by the urban poor had a powerful effect The work of Riis and other reformers resulted in the Tenement House Act, which was passed by the New York State Legislature in 1901 This law outlined much stronger safety 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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The Problem of 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?

This photograph shows congested traffic in New York City

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Building Solutions

Two things occurred in the late 1800s that helped cities begin solving the problem of space The first was the invention of the safety elevator Elevators were not new, but they were initially used to move products rather than people because no one knew when they might fall Then Elisha Graves Otis invented a braking system for elevators

If the cable holding an elevator broke, the brake would be activated, gripping the tracks on either side of the elevator

The stop was sudden and jarring, but it was better than dropping several stories! Now it was possible for people to ride safely in elevators Otis invented 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 strong steel had been brought to the United States by Andrew Carnegie in the 1870s, so good steel was suddenly widely available Stone had been used for many large buildings, but stone is heavy and hard to support Steel is stronger and lighter than stone Inexpensive steel, along with elevators, made possible

a new type of building—the skyscraper In a skyscraper, the walls are attached to a giant steel frame Because the frame, not the walls, supports the building, skyscrapers could grow very tall

In 1871 the Great Chicago Fire destroyed Chicago’s downtown area A city that needed an entire new downtown seemed like a great place to build skyscrapers

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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 With the success of this

building, skyscrapers began to appear all over Chicago

Soon they were being built in other cities as well, getting

taller and taller as people became more confident in the

new technology and materials

Water transportation was a key reason for the location and

growth of many cities, but that meant that many cities had

rivers running through or alongside them The ferry boats

carrying people across the rivers were getting crowded

In 1841 a German immigrant named John Roebling

developed a method of weaving steel cables so that they

could carry extremely heavy loads Roebling was an

engineer interested in bridge design, so he started thinking

of ways these cables could be used to build better bridges

Large suspension bridges—bridges that are suspended,

or hung, from massive overhead cables that were attached to

tall towers—were a relatively new idea Simple suspension

bridges for people on foot had long been made with ropes

Before Roebling, no one had succeeded in creating stable,

strong suspension bridges that could survive heavy traffic,

or even bad weather Roebling solved the problem by

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combining his steel cables with new building methods he developed Two of his first successes were bridges across Niagara Gorge at Niagara Falls, New York and across the Ohio River at Cincinnati respectively His great masterpiece was the Brooklyn Bridge in New York Sadly, he was injured

on the building site of his great bridge and died a few days later His son, Washington, completed 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

Bridges helped solve traffic problems, but streets were still crowded, and most people still had to walk to work So cities began to create new forms of public transportation

New York and Chicago 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 ideas, but it was Boston, Massachusetts, that, in 1897, opened the country’s first successful underground train system, or subway

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

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The Rise of Political Machines

Improvements were being made, but cities still needed

better streets, more housing, and better sewage disposal

Immigrants often faced prejudice and needed help finding

jobs City governments struggled to meet these needs, but

change took time

Taking advantage of the situation, 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 certain candidates

elected to city offices, so they promised immigrants that

they would help them if the immigrants would vote for

the candidates selected by the machine Once elected, the

machine-picked candidates did what the political machine

told them to do and helped other members of the machine

gain power and wealth

This political cartoon shows

“Boss” Tweed welcoming a cholera epidemic

Political machines benefited from the suffering of others.

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 It was not until

he stole millions of dollars from the city, however, that 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 organization members, 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

Cities Then and Now

The late 1800s and early 1900s was the period when the United States began to transform itself from a rural nation

to an urbanized nation It was also the period that gave rise

to much of what we consider normal for big cities today, from traffic jams to skyscrapers

Much of what occurred during this time is still with us

The first department stores opened during this period, the first shopping catalogs came out, and street lights began

to line the roads And today city governments still struggle

to keep up with city growth, and immigrants continue to arrive, looking for opportunities

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Glossary

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