Day 101: America Moves to the City

Baltimore Polytechnic Institute

February 8, 2012
A.P. U.S. History
Mr. Green
America Moves to the City
Objectives: Students will:
Describe the rise of the American industrial city, and place it in the context of
worldwide trends of urbanization and mass migration (the European diaspora).
Describe the New Immigration, and explain how it differed from the Old
Immigration and why it aroused opposition from many native-born Americans.
Discuss the efforts of social reformers and churches to aid the New Immigrants
and alleviate urban problems, and the immigrants own efforts to sustain their
traditions while assimilating to mainstream America.
AP Focus
Industrialization sparks urbanization, and cities become magnets for
immigrants. Those who can afford to leave behind the hustle and bustle of
urban life move to the budding suburbs. See the table in The American Pageant
(13th ed., p. 560/14th ed., p. 598). Demographic Changes is an AP theme.
The late nineteenth century sees a surge of immigration, now from eastern and
southern Europe. Most encounter living and working conditions not
appreciably better than what they had left. The tenement floor plan (13 th ed., p.
561/14th ed., p. 599) shows typical living conditions for impoverished urban
workers.
Chapter Focus
CHAPTER THEMES
In the late nineteenth century, American society
was increasingly dominated by large urban
centers. Explosive urban growth was
accompanied by often disturbing changes,
including the New Immigration, crowded slums,
new religious outlooks, and conflicts over
culture and values. While many Americans were
disturbed by the new urban problems, cities
also offered opportunities to women and
expanded cultural horizons.
Announcements
Focus Questions Chapter 25-Due Today
Hand-in Now!!!!!
The Appeal of the Press
Growth of the public library
Carnegie contributed $60 million for 1,700 libraries
By 1900-9,000 free circulating libraries in U.S.
Causes for demand in literature
Linotype
Sensationalism
sex, scandal human-interest stories
Yellow Journalism
William Randolph Hearst
Joseph Pulitzer
Apostles of Reform
Henry George
single-tax idea
100% tax on windfall profits from selling
property
Edward Bellamy
Looking Backward
Main character wakes up in the year 2000
to see America a socialist state
Postwar Writing
Dime novels or paperbacks
virtue triumphed
General Lewis Wallace
Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ
anti-Darwinist crowd
Horatio Alger
juvenile fiction
survival of the purest
non-drinkers, non-smokers, nonswearers
Walt Whitman
O Captain! My Captain!
Emily Dickinson
published after her death
Literary Landmarks
Samuel Langhorne
Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Stephen Crane
Red Badge of Courage
Charles Francis Adams
History of the US. During the Admin of Jefferson and Madison
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Charles W. Chesnutt
realism
black dialect
Sister Carrie
The New Morality
Anthony Comstock
Comstock Law
sexual purity-confiscated obscene
pictures, items used for abortions
Increases in divorce rates
Women had a sense of a new morality as a
result of working womens independence
Families and Women in the
City
Emotionally isolated places
increase divorce rate
work habits
family size
National American Woman Suffrage Association
Linked suffrage to traditional definition of
womens roles
Most states by 1890 permitted wives to
own/control property after marriage
Excluded African-Americans
Prohibiting Alcohol and Promoting
Reform
Increase in liquor consumption after the Civil
War
immigrants accustomed to the Old Country
Womens Christian Temperance Union
Frances E. Willard
Carrie Nation
Anti-Saloon league
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals
Red Cross-1881
The Business of Amusemet
Vaudeville
Minstrel shows
Circus
Baseball
Basketball
Football
Boxing
Croquet
condemned for showing female ankles and flirtation
Safety Bicycle
Discussion-Review
1. What new opportunities and social problems did the
cities create for Americans?
2. In what ways was American urbanization simply part
of a worldwide trend, and in what ways did it reflect
particular American circumstances? How did the influx
of millions of mostly European immigrants create a
special dimension to Americas urban problems?
3. How did the New Immigration differ from the Old
Immigration, and how did Americans respond to it?
4. How was American religion affected by the urban
transformation, the New Immigration, and cultural and
intellectual changes?
Continued
6. How did American social criticism, fiction writing, and art all reflect
and address the urban industrial changes of the late nineteenth
century? Which social critics and novelists were most influential, and
why?
7. How and why did women assume a larger place in American society
at this time? (Compare their status in this period with that of the pre
Civil War period described in Chapter 16.) How were changes in their
condition related to changes in both the family and the larger social
order?
8. What was the greatest single cultural transformation of the Gilded
Age?
9. In what ways did Americans positively and enthusiastically
embrace the new possibilities of urban life, and in what ways did
their outlooks and actions reflect worries about the threats that cities
presented to traditional American democracy and social ideals?
Homework
Begin Reading first of Chapter 26
Chapter 25 Focus Questions Due on Monday.

No late assignments will be accepted.