Reading 1.

America Moves
to the Cities

Learning Target:

Analyze the causes for and effects of urbanization.

During the Gilded Age, the urban population of the United States had greatly
increased when workers moved towards manufacturing jobs in an effort to achieve
the American Dream. American farmers migrated to the cities as agricultural jobs
became less common. Cities also offered other benefits, such as running water,
libraries, and theaters which were not available in most rural areas. Immigrants
also remained in the cities to work in factories because they lacked the money to
move west to buy farms. This shift from rural to urban areas and the ways in which
societies adapt to change, is known as urbanization.
Becoming an industrialized nation requires a
large amount of food to feed laborers in the cities.
Inventions like the McCormick Reaper led to bigger
harvests allowing farmers to feed a growing urban
population. However, the McCormick Reaper was
thought to do the work of a hundred men decreasing
America’s need for farm workers. This forced those
out-of-work to look for jobs in urban areas.
As city populations grew, homes were in great demand.
Land was limited, so builders began to build up instead of out.
Tall, steel framed buildings called skyscrapers began to appear.
To handle the increasing numbers of families in need of
housing, cities constructed row houses. Much like a duplex, a
row house was a single-family dwelling that shared sidewalls
with another similar house packing several
family residences onto a single block.
Immigrants also found it difficult to find housing. Often two or three
ventilation: to
provide fresh
families would live in an older single-family home. These homes
air were overcrowded and unsanitary. To improve poor living
conditions long narrow, five or six story apartment buildings were
constructed with improved plumbing and ventilation.

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Reading 1.2

To move around in a city, different kinds of

transportation developed. At first, railroad cars pulled
by horses were common. Then, San Francisco and
other cities began using cars pulled by underground
cables. Other cities began using electric trolley cars.
When streets became crowded, cities built elevated
railroads or subway systems. Other subway systems
were built below ground.
People living in overcrowded city
neighborhoods faced several problems, including
clean drinking water, diseases, and pollution. For
most homes, indoor plumbing was rare. People had
to collect water in pails from water pumps in the
street. Another problem was the improper disposal
of sewage. Trash and horse manure piled up on city
streets. Sewage flowed through open
gutters contaminating city drinking water. Cities tried to create a
contaminated: dependable system of trash removal and to build new sewer lines to
to be unclean, clean up the cities. To control water borne diseases such as cholera
bad, harmful
and typhoid, cities introduced chlorination in 1893 and water filtration
systems in 1908. However, the task of providing healthy urban living
conditions would be an ongoing challenge.
Chimney ash from coal and wood fires spread everywhere. With large
numbers of wooden buildings and a limited water supply fire in urban areas was a
real threat. Major fires occurred in almost
every large American city during the 1870s
and 1880s. The invention of the automatic
fire sprinkler system in 1874 and the
increased use of brick made cities safer. By
1900, most cities also had a full-time
professional fire department.
“[The blaze] was devouring the most stately and massive buildings as though
they had been the cardboard play things of a child . . . One after another they
dissolved, like snow on a mountain.” John R. Chapin, Chicago Fire of 1871
As the population of cities grew so did crime. Robbery and murder were
common on the crowded urban streets. New York City organized the first full-time,
paid police force in 1844. Police also started collecting mug shots of criminals in
1888. The original purpose of the mug shot was to allow law enforcement to have
a photographic record of an arrested individual to allow for identification by victims
and investigators.

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