Urbanization and Reform in the Gilded Age

Ch. 8, Sec 3-4

Urbanization

• • • • Movement of people to cities.

– Moved from farms to cities.

– Immigrants tended to settle in cities.

Public transportation developed.

– Trolleys, cable cars, subways, later buses.

Suburbs developed.

First skyscrapers built.

– Led to first elevators.

1 st skyscraper – Home Insurance Building

Living Conditions

• • Some lived in factory towns, most lived in tenements.

– Low-cost apartments, usually overcrowded.

Slum areas: overcrowded, dirty, open sewers, rats, stray animals, air pollution, disease, fires a huge danger.

– Led to creation of dumbell tenements.

• Narrower in middle to allow light & air to inside rooms.

– Led to better health care, clean water.

• •

Politics in Cities

Fierce competition for control of city gov’ts.

– Led to creation of Political Machines.

• Unofficial organization designed to keep a political party in power.

Machine would hand out jobs and favors to citizens.

– Citizens were expected to vote for machine bosses.

– Could also bribe machine for favors.

Reform Movements

• • • • Many and with varied goals.

– Motivated by religion, conscience, desire to help others.

Some helped poor and needy.

Some tried to alter behavior.

Some tried to halt immigration.

• • New York Charity Organization Society.

– Kept records on who received what help.

• Could determine “worthy” and “unworthy” needy.

– Expected immigrants to assimilate.

Social Gospel Movement

– Based out of churches.

– Applied Gospel of Christ to charity.

– Tried to fix root causes of alcoholism, poverty, gambling.

– Social Gospel Movement led to Settlement Houses.

Josephine Lowell-Founder of COS

• Settlement Houses.

– Started in USA by Jane Addams in Hull House.

– People in neighborhood could come.

– Attend cultural events, take classes.

– Had child-care centers, playgrounds, clubs, summer camps for kids.

– Very helpful to poor and immigrants.

– Settlement houses sprang up around the country.

Jane Addams Hull House

• • Nativism Movement.

– Favoring native-born Americans over immigrants.

– Anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic.

– Led to Chinese Exclusion Act of 1884, repeal of Contract Labor Act (allowed employers to recruit foreign labor).

Temperance Movement.

– Campaign to eliminate alcohol consumption.

– Supported Prohibition.

– Led by Prohibition Party, Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Anti-Saloon League.

• Kansan Carrie Nation used hatchet.

Carrie Nation

• Purity Crusaders.

– Against vice – immoral or corrupt behavior.

– Fought against alcohol, gambling, pornography, abortion, birth control, political corruption.

– Achieved passage of Comstock Law-prevented sending of obscene material through mail.

• Including info on birth control.