1. Urbanization
the process of moving to the
cities
During the three decades following
the Civil War, the US transformed
rapidly from a rural nation to a more
urban nation.
The urban population grew from
about 10 million in 1870 to over 30
million by 1900

2. By 1890, most of the population of
some major urban areas consisited of
foreign born immigrants :
• 87% of Chicago
• 80% of New York
• 84% of Detroit
• New York had more Irish than Dublin
• New York had more Germans than Hamburg
• Chicago had more Poles than Warsaw

3. Most of the immigrants who poured
into the US lacked money and
education. They remained in the
nations growing cities, where they
toiled long hours for little pay. Despite
the harshness of their new lives most
still improved their standard of living.
In the US they had a chance at social
mobility—moving up in society-unlike
in Europe.

4. As city populations grew, demand
raised the price of land, giving owners
greater incentive to grow upward
rather outward.
2 Major inventions helped with this
problem:
-Bessemer Steel process
-Safety Elevator

5. The Brooklyn Bridge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsi95z1Nmhg&feature=related

6. Bessemer Steel Process-a way to blow
air into iron ore and make steel
cheaply
Andrew Carnegie
Between the new steel process and
the invention of the safety
elevator, new buildings began to
appear on American skylines:

7. The skyscrapers
The Flatiron Building
At 21 stories and 307
ft (93 meter), it was
one of the city‘s most
interesting buildings

8. The Empire State Building
--one year and 45 days to build
--There are 102 floors
--There are 1,860 steps from street
level to 102nd floor.
--only five workers were
killed

9. The Chrysler Building
Built from 1929 to 1930
Constructed of steel with
brick and stainless steel on
the exterior
Height: 1046 ft
Number of Floors: 77
Height Record: Tallest building in the world at
completion, overtaken by the Empire State Building just
one year later. Currently the third tallest building in New
York City.

10. The Brooklyn Bridge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsi95z1Nmhg&feature=related

11. The Brooklyn Bridge
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WA47Y6
em8M&feature=player_detailpage

12. Separation by Class
• 3 Distinct classes developed
• High Society—consisted of Robber Barons-or
capitalist—people with large amounts of
wealth.
• Middle Class- (white collar)-consisted of the
doctors, lawyer, engineers, managers
• Working Class-immigrants (blue collar) who
came and worked long hours for very little pay

13. Ellis Island
• Most immigrants passed through Ellis Island in
about a day. Crowds of immigrants' filed past
the doctor for an initial inspection. A mark on
a shirt might indicate isolation or worst
deportation.

14. These were not W.A.S.P

15. Once in the cities, immigrants lived in
neighborhoods that were often
separated into ethnic groups, such as
Little Italy in lower New York City. They
spoke their native languages and re-
created the appearance of their
homeland.
How well immigrants adjusted
depended partly on how quickly they
learned English and adapted to
American culture--Assimilated

16. Tenements-large multi-family
apartments

20. Jacab Riis documented the slum life in
his now famous book
• “How the Other Half Lives”

21. Urban Problems
• City living posed threats such as
crime, violence, fire, diseases and pollution.
• Many native-born Americans often blamed
immigrants for the increase in crime and
violence.
• A feeling of nativism-preference for native
born people-began to set in.

24. • Many native born Americans desired to limit
immigration.
• In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese
Exclusion Act—it barred Chinese for coming to
America and prevented the ones here from
becoming citizens.
• The only ethnic group to be barred
• The Act was renewed every 10 years until
1943.

25. Urban Politics
The new immigrant needed
jobs, housing, heat and police
protection.
• A new kind of political system developed to
meet the needs of the new urban immigrant.
• The Political Machine—a political group
designed to gain and keep power
• Party Bosses-those who ran them
• In exchange for votes, party bosses provided
the immigrant with necessities.

26. Tammany Hall was the most famous of
the Political machines and William M.
“Boss” Tweed was the most notorious
of the Party Bosses.

27. • Despite the corruption of the system, political
machines did provide necessary services and
they helped to assimilate the masses of new
city dwellers

28. The Rise of Big Business
• Before the Civil War, the personal wealth of a
few people operating in partnership financed
most businesses, including many early
factories. Most manufacturing enterprises
were very small. By 1900 everything had
changed. Big businesses dominated the
economy, operating vast complexes of
factories, warehouses, offices, and
distribution facilities.

29. This could not have happened without the
corporation—an organization owned by
many but treated as though it was a single.
Stockholders own parts of the corporation
by owning shares called stock.
People buy stock – the company can invest
that money with new technologies, or hire
people or expand.In return, the company
pays back to the stockholders part of their
profits (dividends)

30. Andrew Carnegie and Steel
• He became a multi-millionarie by a practice
known as Vertical Integration—a vertically
integrated company owns all of the different
businesses on which it depends for its
operation.
• For example-he bought coal mines, limestone
quarries and iron ore fields.

31. Carnegie

32. John D. Rockefeller--Oil
• Rockefeller made his millions by a practice
called Horizontal Integration-buying up the
same type of business into one.
• He gained control of about 90% of all oil
companies in the US.
• When a single company achieves control of an
entire market, it becomes a monopoly-to have
total control of an industry or company
• What potential problems exist if one large
business buys all its competitors?

33. Standard Oil monopoly

34. Rockefeller

35. Robber Barons

36. J. P. Morgan

38. Laissez- Faire

39. Unions
• Life for workers in industrial America was
difficult. As machines replaced skilled labor, work
became monotonous. Workers performed
repetitive tasks and working conditions were
unhealthy and dangerous.
• Eventually, many workers decided that the only
way to improve their working conditions was to
organize Unions—a group of workers who
worked to improve their working conditions

40. Knights of Labor
• The first nation-wide industrial union
• Called for an 8 hour day
• Equal pay for women
• Abolition of child labor
• They used strikes—stop work
• They supported arbitration-a third party
comes in between labor and management.

41. American Federation of Labor
• A trade union
• Samuel Gompers led
• Believe Unions should stay out of politics
• Fight for small gains—higher wages and better
working conditions
• Preferred arbitration over strikes

42. How did industry and companies
view unions?
Techniques to prevent unions from
forming.
Government was pro
management—always on the side
of industry.

43. The Gilded Age
• Something that is gilded is covered with gold
on the outside because it usually is hiding the
fact that it is made of cheap materials. Mark
Twain called this era of history that we are
studying the Gilded Age because even though
it was a great time of inventions and
innovation, industry, immigration and higher
standard of living—underneath the surface lay
corruption, poverty and crime, as well as a
gulf between the haves and have nots

44. New Ideas for Americans
• Individualism-that no matter how humble your
beginnings, you could rise in society and go as far
as your talents and commitment would take you.
• Social Darwinism- Herbert Spencer took Charles
Darwin’s theory of evolution and argued that
human society also evolved through competition
and natural selection—
• “survival of the fittest” became the catchphrase.
• Gospel of Wealth-Andrew Carnegie believed in
the idea that those who profited from society
owed it something in return—Philanthropy-giving
money back to promote social goods

45. New movements in Art
• Realism: portrayed people realistically instead
of idealizing them
• Thomas Eakins
• He considered no day to day subject beneath
his interest. He painted with realistic detail
young men swimming, surgeons operating
and scientists experimenting. He even painted
President Hayes working in shirtsleeves
instead of in more traditional formal dress.

46. The Gross Clinic

50. Popular Culture
• People had more money so what were they doing?
• Coney Island in NYC
• Boxing
• Baseball
• Going to Vaudeville-a cross between theatre and a
circus
• Listening to Ragtime-a new music that echoed the
hectic pace of the city life. Syncopated rhythms-grew
out of the honky-tonk, salon pianists and banjo players
using the patterns of African American music-Scott
Joplin

51. Scott Joplin The Entertainer
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPmruHc4
S9Q

52. The Rise of Segregation
• Life for African Americans in the South after
the Civil War and Reconstruction was not
good—they were free and that’s all.
• Many resorted to sharecropping—living and
working off the land owned by someone else.
• 13th amendment-abolished slavery
• 14th amendment- defines citizenship
• 15th amendment-extends voting rights

53. • Many in the South found ways to prevent
African Americans from voting:
• Poll Tax- a fee in order to vote
• Grandfather Clause- ‘if your grandfather voted
then you can”
• Literacy Tests- prove you could read and write

54. Legalizing Segregation
• In the South, segregation-separation of the
races, was enforced legally by laws known as
Jim Crow Laws—the term came from the
name of a character popularized by a slavery
era blackface minstrel –a white musical stage
performer who darkened his face with
makeup and crudely imitated supposed
African American behavior.

55. • In 1892 an African American named Homer
Plessy challenged a Louisiana law that forced
him to ride in a separate railroad car from
whites.
• The Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson
upheld the “separate but equal” aspect of the
law.
• The ruling established the legal basis for
discrimination in the South for more than 50
years to come.

56. • http://academic.udayton.edu/race/02rights/jc
row02.htm

59. • Even worse than the Jim Crow laws was the
brutality leveled against African Americans.
• Between 1890-1900, there was an average of
187 lynchings –executions without proper
court preceedings-carried out by mobs each
year.

61. http://youtu.be/dnlTHvJBeP0
• "Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
• Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
• Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
• Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
• Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
• The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
• Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
• And the sudden smell of burning flesh!
• Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
• For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
• For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
• Here is a strange and bitter crop."

62. African American Response
• Booker T. Washington :He proposed that
Blacks should concentrate on education and
vocation.
demonstrate
"industry, thrift, intelligen
ce and property."

63. W. E. B. DuBois
• He was concerned with the rights of Blacks—
voting was the key he said to proper
manhood.

64. In the years that followed, many
African Americans worked to win
the vote and end discrimination.
The struggle, however, would
prove to be a long one