HIST 106 2nd Edition Lecture 7 Outline of Last Lecture I Workers II Culture of work III Knights of Labor Outline of Current Lecture I The lure of the city II Tenements and unwashed masses III Strangers in a strange land IV Social and cultural change V Manners and Mores Current Lecture The lure of the city o Intro context At the beginning of the civil war only 1 6 of American people lived in the city by 1900 1 3 of American people lived in the city by 1920 of American people lived in the city The movement to urban life brought explosive growth and in 1900 the US had 6 of the biggest urban cities including New York Chicago and Philadelphia o Skyscrapers and suburbs Context the proverbial chicken and egg question Was the age of steel and glass that built the skyscrapers street cars transportation built the suburbs Does technology change history or does history change technology o Before and after Before buildings were small and were not steady after steel production allowed for buildings to be larger and sturdier than before Building soared higher and higher and the walls were no longer having to hold themselves up and steel frames allowed for windows o Innovators Root and Sullivan Both were attracted to rebuild Chicago after the fire of 1871 The fire had fed fancy exteriors and Root built the blueprints of modern architecture Root believed that the office tower reflected modern society this was a society that leaned more toward business and not really church Buildings were usually simplistic and reflected Roots morals Sullivan conceived the idea of the skyscrapers and his skyscrapers changed the urban skyline forever Form follows function and passed the this idea to his disciple Frank Lloyd Right o Electrified metamorphosis Electrical elevators carried workers upward and street cars carried them outward which allowed for expansion of cities Cities no longer walking cities but had cable lines to allow for mas transit o Shifting demographics As the middle class moved outwards the immigrants moved into the cities The massive amounts of people in the city and the poor conditions made the inner cities the slums There were middle class rings coming outward from a business and working core Tenements and unwashed masses o Context o Population density Hundreds of thousands of people were crammed into tenements Over 1 billion people lived on Manhattan island and there were 334 000 people per square mile Many people lived in dark allies and dark basements o Hell with the lid of In the 1870s and 1880s cities stank of poverty and horse crap due to the amount of horse transit and people crap Cities dumped their waste into mass sources of water and would get their drinking water from the same source Many cities attempted to build purified water sources but could not keep up Factories polluted the air tremendously and Pittsburg at night looked like hell with the lid of o Hoodlums and other social ills Crime was another huge problem in the cities and slum youth formed street gangs and committed crimes In San Francisco the gangs led to the word hoodlums Suicide and alcoholism rates rose tremendously Many drinking establishes made more than grocery stores meat markets and gas stations combined Strangers in a strange land o Demographic makeup Many immigrants moved to America for a fresh start Italians moved to escape a cholera epidemic Jews moved to escape the Brahms Jewish massacre raids 15 of the US population were foreign born and most immigrants were job seekers o Like moths to a flame New urban residents were really surprised by what they saw because they had really never seen anything like what was in America before ex Diferent fruits department stores Word spread back home and American cities were characterized by foreignborn immigrants o The New Immigration By the 1880s the immigration shifted from northern and western Europe to southern and eastern Europe The new immigrants were catholic and Jewish and they often spoke diferent languages Stuck together and held onto their native languages and rituals o American slurred speech Racial slurs became a part of American speech ex Grease balls Greeks Anti Catholism and Semitism made life hard for immigrants A program sent inner city kids to the suburbs fail and in the 1890s many organizations went to stop immigration all together Social and cultural change o Intro context Cities suburbs and factories took new forms and while many people worked harder and harder some people had more leisure time For the first time in history people could read about events in distant lands other countries o Demographic continuity and change over time In 1877 the country had 47million people and in 10 years the population grew to 63 million 9 10 of the population was white under 1 10 black and white Anglo Saxon Protestants dominated America In 1880 nearly 75 of the population lived in communities of less than 2500 people and families had 3 children life expectancy was 43 years For blacks and other minorities living in unsanitary conditions life expectancy was 33 years o Dietary change There were many courses to every meal and food prices were low Packaged breakfast cereals and fresh produce changed eating habits forever o Medical revolution Pasture discovered that germs caused infections and disease and led to the new subset of microbiology TB typhoid and pneumonia were still the leading causes of death Infant mortality declined between 1877 and 1900 o Medical practices There were few hospitals and there wasn t really the idea of hospital insurance Anesthetics came into play and antiseptic practices helped to keep infection away from patients during surgery Laughing gas made going to the dentist better Environment was connected to behavior one of the psychological discoveries of the time Manners and mores o Context o The see saw of policing purity In 1877 children were to be seen not heard speak only when spoken to Older boys and girls were to be chaperoned o Fashion from straightjackets to shirtwaists Men wore suits women wore corsets Styles changed dramatically toward the century s end due to new sporting fads such as golf and tennis Women got into the suit fashion and wore long pants and shirtwaist shirts o The self appointed chief s of the social police One group sought to end corruption and were made up of the upper class Other groups sought to start probation in order to stop drunkenness Women s Christian temperance unit sought to decrease the consumption of
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