• no turn-of-the-century change was more profound than the growing size and influence of American cities

• having begun its life as an agrarian, farm-based republic, the United States in the late 19th century was a fully urbanising
nation, mostly through unprecedented waves of European immigration
o some people came from Canada, Latin America, and China, but many more came from Southern and Eastern Europe
 where old German and Scandinavian immigrants had arrived with enough money to move west, many new
immigrants lacked the capital and education to do more than find work in the cities where they landed
 their experience mirrored earlier waves of poor Irish immigrants
 by 1890, 87% of Chicago and 80% of New York were immigrants
o most of these arrivals were rural people, and their adjustment to city life was hard
 they clumped together in urban neighbourhoods and often faced hostility from earlier immigrants
o over time, some immigrant groups used their overwhelming numbers to eventually exert political power in their new
American cities
• the immigrants arrived with romantic visions of the New World
o despite its hardships, they usually retained the dream of becoming true "Americans"
o second-generation immigrants typically assimilated well
 old-stock Americans encouraged it by teaching English in public schools
• businesses saw huge benefits from the cheap and plentiful labour the immigrants supplied
o efforts to tax or restrict most immigration made little progress in Congress
• new American cities were places of remarkable contrast
o homes of almost unimaginable size and grandeur and hovels of indescribable squalor
o conveniences unknown to earlier generations and problems that seemed beyond the capacity of society to solve
o reformers, planners, architects, and others began to call for more ordered visions of American cities
 tried to create urban antidotes to the congestion of cities with public parks, libraries, art galleries, museums,
theatres, and concert halls
• as the size and aspirations of great cities increased, urban leaders launched monumental projects to remake them
o cleared away older neighbourhoods
o created things like the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago
 celebrated American progress on the 400th anniversary of Columbus' first voyage to America
• housing was an urban problem of paramount importance, especially as thousands of immigrants moved into cities each day
o the wealthy could afford to settle on less expensive land on the edges of cities and commute by train and rail
o most of city dwellers could not afford land and rented in city centres, where landlords crammed as many people into
apartment buildings as they possibly could
• the word "tenement" came to represent miserable slums without plumbing or heat
o Jacob Riis took pictures of tenement housing and famously published them in his book How the Other Half Lives
o it was not just immigrants moving to American cities
 newly freed black men and women fled to cities to try to escape poverty, violence, and oppression in the Jim
Crow South
• the Gospel of Wealth held sway despite the desperate conditions of the cities
o it was believed widely that "the true antidote for the temporary unequal distribution of wealth" was the moral
obligation by choice of those who had earned their wealth to support private and religious charity
• as cities grew, they:
o experimented with subways, cable cars, and steam-powered trains
o built great suspension bridges (the Brooklyn Bridge) and permanent roads capable of handling mass transit
o grew upward with the first skyscrapers, stacked on top of new kinds of girders and relying on new elevator
technologies
• wood was replaced by steel, and the constant threat of urban fire began to abate, while the first sparks of Thomas Edison's
experimental electricity-powered incandescent bulbs were illuminated
• despite the promise of a coming second industrial Revolution, crime, fire, disease, drunkenness, air pollution, and homelessness
placed strains on the capacities of metropolitan institutions
o both government and charity groups were poorly equipped to respond
 few officials recognised the relationship between improper sewage disposal and water contamination
 cities lacked adequate systems for disposing of human waste well into the 20th century
✓ even when cities adopted indoor plumbing, the sewage continued to flow into open ditches and
streams, polluting city water supplies
o despite the seriousness of the environmental costs of industrialisation and rapid urbanisation, desperate poverty was
the biggest scourge of the American city
 poverty and overcrowding bred crime and violence
✓ the murder rate rose rapidly in the late 19th century, which reflected increased rogue lynchings of
free blacks in the South + the violence of western boomtowns
 the big cities contributed their share to the increase as well
✓ the city was a place of strong allure and excitement, but it was a place of alienating impersonality
and, to many, degradation and exploitation
• in most respects, the United States in the late 19th century was a society without a modern national government
o presidents were symbolically important but unable to do much except grant favours
  even a small change, civil service reform (making federal jobs merit-based instead of payback for political
support) took the combined efforts of Presidents Hayes, Garfield, and Arthur
✓ these men embodied an era in which few Americans believed the federal government could, or
should, try to accomplish very much
• many immigrants turned to political machines for their principal source of help in times of need
o the urban machine owed its existence to the power vacuum that the chaotic growth of cities had created
o urban bosses curried favour with large groups of immigrants by paying favours to them as their constituents
 finding a job for someone
 buying a family some groceries
 dropping off a bag of coal for a freezing tenement apartment
o political machines were also corrupt, money-making organisations that took kickbacks and fixed elections to grow and
hold onto power
• in the last decades of the 19th century, despite the poverty of the cities, a distinctive middle-class culture began to exert
influence over the whole of American life
o rising incomes among all classes of Americans created new markets for consumer goods, which were now available to a
mass market for the first time, as a result of technological innovations
 in the 19th century, Americans made their own clothing
 by the 20th century, almost all Americans were wearing ready-made clothing bought in department stores
o much larger numbers of people became concerned with personal style
 tin cans and refrigerated railroad cars made it possible for even lower classes of Americans to enjoy healthier
diets
 chain and department stores and mail-order catalogues marketed a distinctly American line of products to
consumers across the nation, notably American women
o laws of incorporation protected corporate shareholders from losses, permitting US companies to raise vast sums of
money, experiment with new technical innovations, and dominate corporate competition
• as people's lives became more compartmentalised, with clear distinctions between work and leisure (where the farm had been
both work and home), many Americans began to search for new recreation and entertainment
o mass entertainment occasionally bridged differences of class, race, and gender, but entertainment could also be
sharply divided
 the rise of organised sports in America included the birth of American baseball, which held great appeal to
working-class males
 football originated in universities and colleges and was generally a sport enjoyed by wealthier Americans
 basketball and boxing were born in this era
o other forms of entertainment were developed in American cities
 dime-novels, ethnic theatres, and vaudeville performances coexisted alongside new forms of entertainment
like the movies
✓ the silent epics like the infamous The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance introduced serious plots and
elaborate productions to film-making to audiences across the country
o something unique about American leisure is its publicness
 Central Park attracted the richest and poorest Americans
 moviegoers were entertained both by the plots of the films they sought out and the energy of the audience
itself
 the most striking example of popular public entertainment of the era was Coney Island, the famous
amusement park in Brooklyn, New York
✓ 90,000 people attended during its heyday
✓ people found it appealing because it represented a break from the typical decorum of the old ways
of life (women's skirts flew above their heads as they rode mechanical rides, serious people were
pummelled with water, strangers were forced to come into physical contact with one another on
rides and amusements, ...)
• American journalism professionalised during this era
o newspapers began to separate news from opinion
o the power of the telegraph brought newspaper printers up-to-the-minute stories
o Americans began to buy daily papers with updates from across the world
• the Americans began to use telephones in even greater numbers
• one of the strongest impulses in American art was to recreate urban social reality
o American authors like Upton Sinclair (author of The Jungle) drew on the social issues of the city
o American painters from the Ashcan school painted the social realities of the era in stark detail
• the widespread acceptance of the theories of Darwin pre-empted the accepted theories of human evolution
o initially reluctant scientists, educators, and theologists had converted most members of the educated classes by the
20th century
o a deep schism between the new, cosmopolitan culture of the city and the more traditional, provincial culture of rural
America drew up sharply in response
 the late 19th century saw the rise of a liberal Protestantism and the beginning of an organised Protestant
fundamentalism
o science was quick to adopt Darwin's theories and applied them to their craft
 the scientific method was more rigorously adhered to
 social scientists began to apply the scientific method to their study of history and society
✓ Frederick Jackson Turner and Charles Beard argued that economic factors (more than spiritual ideas)
had been the governing force in historical development
✓ anthropologists began to look more carefully at Native American cultures, entertaining for the first
time the theory that Indians might possess a coherent culture of norms and values worthy of merit
and preservation
• in medicine, practitioners began to separate symptoms from diseases and began to understand the importance of infection in
spreading disease (= germ theory)
 o new technologies like the X-ray, new microscopes, and laboratory tests became official tools in the fight against
diseases like typhoid and dysentery
o pharmaceutical research created aspirin and early chemotherapy at the end of the 19th century
o blood transfusions revolutionised surgery
o by the early 20th century, American physicians were the best in the world, and public health and sanitation became a
priority in cities previously overwhelmed by illness
• time for rapid expansion of compulsory education in America
o while far from universal, 31 states made schooling mandatory for some groups of boys
 in the South, public education was denied to African Americans
 education reforms attempted to "civilise" Indians in parts of the North and Northeast through public
education
o among adults, colleges and universities proliferated rapidly in the late 19th century
 the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 allowed the federal government to give land to states for the creation of
sixty-nine land-grant universities across the country
✓ these schools were chartered to advance knowledge in agriculture and mechanics and were
committed at the outset to help advance industry and commerce
 private schools like Harvard and Yale benefited from millions of dollars from business and financial titans
such as Rockefeller and Carnegie
 women's colleges became an important part of a phenomenon in the history of modern women (the
emergence of distinctive women's communities outside the family structure)
✓ nothing like sororities had ever existed before
✓ while many female college graduates ultimately married, they married later
✓ many women devoted themselves to their careers after college
✓ the growth of female higher education became a liberating experience, persuading them that they
had roles in life other than those of wives and mothers to perform in their rapidly changing urban-
industrial society
• concerned about the effects of city life and the steady feminisation of the public sphere, Christians turned to the belief that
young men ought to evolve as civilization evolved, advancing from primitive nature-dwelling to modern industrial
enlightenment
o muscular Christianity was about even more than building strong bodies and minds at new summer camps and through
competitive sports
 many advocates also ardently championed Western imperialism, cheering on attempts to civilise non-Western
peoples
 Gilded Age men were encouraged to embrace a new, robust, cosmopolitan vision of masculinity connected
intimately with the rising tides of nationalism, militarism, and imperialism now spilling across the nation's
politics