The Urban U. S.

Immigrants, Exploiters, Professionals, & Do-Gooders, 1865-1914

Urbanizing population• In 1860, only 20% lived in urban areas; by 1920,

50% lived in urban areas• Far west was most urbanized in percentage of

population—many railroad and port towns—the north east had the more urban people

• Central heating and elevators permitted taller buildings

• Mass transit made it possible to get from periphery to the center of town

Problems of the Cities

• Dumbbell tenements

• Corrupt Urban Political machines – “He seen his opportunities and he took ‘em,” George Washington Plunkitt

William Marcy Tweed

New Immigrants

• Most from eastern and southern europe• Cities were “salad bowls”, not “melting pots.”• Between 1890 and 1920, some 18.2 million came

from abroad, most through Ellis Island• Met with Nativist Bigots like Dennis Kearney and

Josiah Strong• Beginning with excluding the Chinese in 1882,

immigration was limited, concluding with the 1921 and 1924 immigration acts

Immigrants at Ellis Island

Social Class and Culture• One’s leisure was often a function of how much

time and money one had.• Wild West Shows appealed to folk whose jobs

were no longer dangerous or on the frontier• Vaudeville variety shows were the rage in the

North East• Croquet, Tennis, and the bicycle were the rage of

the middle class• Poorer people found lower cost entertainment on

the street corners (food vendors, organ grinders, singers)

Saloons were the working class male’s haven

• Bars had an ethnic identity• Politicians hustled for votes• News was spread• Place to find work• Targeted by the WCTU and the Anti-Saloon

League, in part because of revulsion toward drink, but also because of the ethnic makeup of many saloons

Women and Urban Life

• Married women had little opportunity to sample urban amusements

• Poorer women couldn’t afford them• Older, wealthier women tried to regulated

them• Poorer women worked as domestics, but

sales and service sector employment (i.e. telephone operator) were growing

Spectator Sports

• Function of growth of leisure time among a growing middle class

• College Football—by 1880s, the Harvard-Yale game was huge

• Basketball was developed in 1891

• Baseball was quickly becoming “America’s Pastime.”

Camp, Stagg, & Thorpe

Sports and Society

• Sports culture reflected a desire to manufacture “manly” men

• Sports culture reflected U. S. core values—segregation

• Harvard did have an African American player in the 1880s, who later became a Federal Judge under President Taft.

Rise of Professions

• Managerial and Professional classes tied to Industrial Production (lawyers, bankers, etc.)

• Teaching becomes a “Pink collar” profession• Emergence of the Ph. D. based on the German

seminar model• Emergence of Learned/Professional Societies:

AHA in 1884

Dominant Ideas

• Social Darwinism—Herbert Spencer/William Graham Sumner

• Reform Darwinism—Lester Frank Ward

• Pragmatism—William James

• Social Critics—Henry George; Thorstein Veblen

• Social Gospel—Walter Rauschenbusch

Sumner, James, & Veblen

Literary Realism, Naturalism, & Local Color

• Henry James, Portrait of a Lady

• Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie

• Samuel Clemens, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Do-Gooders

• Settlement Houses—Jane Addams

• Women’s Suffrage—NAWSA—Susan B. Anthony

• Many laws passed to protect workers and regulated business

• Ran afoul of the Supreme Court and “Substantive Due Process”

Addams, Hull House, & Anthony