Chapter 25

America Moves to the City

By Dani Farver

The Urban Frontier

Cities grew up and out, skyscrapers
started making an appearance at about
this time (first seen in Chicago), Louis
Sullivan was one designer. Electricity,
indoor plumbing, and telephones attracted
many, along with stores like Macys and
engineering marvels like the Brooklyn
Bridge. Cities also produced a lt of trash
because of mail order stores like Sears
and Montgomery Ward making things
cheap and easy to buy. Most threw away
things that they didnt want.

The New Immigration

Old Immigration-People who were
from the British Isles and Western
Europe who were used to some form
of representative government , most
were from Germany and Ireland.
New Immigration-Basically the
opposite, most were from Southern
and eastern Europe, among them
were Italian, Jews, Croats, Slovaks,
Greeks, and Poles. They came from
countries with little history of a
democratic government.

Southern Europe Uprooted

In the years after 1800, the population of
Europe nearly doubled, European
Industrialization played a role in the heavy
inflow of immigrants to the U.S. Many people
left the countryside to live in European cities,
some just left Europe altogether, the U.S. was
often said to be an amazing place where people
ate large meals everyday and it was free of
religious persecution.
Profit-seeking Americans also attracted people
to America with promises of free land so they
could have a cheap labor source, railroads
could have buyers for land grants, or steamship
lines could have more human cargo.
Russians also turned violently on Jews in Polish
regions in the 1880s, causing many to flee to
America.

Reactions to the New Immigration

Because the federal government did almost
nothing to assimilate immigrants. It was left to
bosses. Jobs and services were exchanged for
votes
Some sought to apply lessons of Christianity to
slums and factories. Walter Rauschenbusch
and Washington Gladden both preached the
social gospel and both wanted churches to
tackle the current social problems of the day
Jane Addams established the Hull House, the
most prominent American settlement house and
she eventually won the Nobel Peace Prize in
1931
Florence Kelley fought for the welfare of
women, children, blacks, and consumers

Narrowing the Welcome Mat

Nativism was renewed, immigrants were
blamed for degradation of urban government,
anti foreign organizations were revived
(American Protective Association), immigrants
were used as strikebreakers but were hard to
unionize because of language barriers
The first restrictive law on immigrants in 1882, it
barred paupers, criminals, and convicts from
America as well as the Chinese. In 1885 the
importation of foreign workers under contract
was prohibited
The Statue of Liberty, a gift from France, arose
in 1886, with the inscription of:
Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wreched refuse of our teeming shore

Churches Confront the Urban

Challenge
Dwight Lyman Moody proclaimed the gospel of
kindness and forgiveness, later Moody Bible
Institute was established
Cardinal Gibbons, popular among roman
catholics and protestants, preached American
Unity
Church of Christ, Scientist ( Christian Science)
was founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879. She
claimed that the true practice of Christianity
healed sickness.
YMCAs and YWCAs ( Young Men/Women
Associations) also sprouted, combining physical
and other types of education with religious
instruction.

Darwin Disrupts the Churches

Charles Darwin released his own
theory of evolution that advocated
natural selection, nature blindly
selected organisms for survival or
death.
Darwins theory split the church in
two: Those who rejected Darwins
theory and believed that the bible
was fact and those who refused to
believe that the bible was completely
accurate and factual

The Lust for Learning

The idea of tax-supported elementary schools
was adopted nationwide, by 1870 most schools
made at least an elementary education
required, free text books were also funded by
taxpayers.
By 1900 about 6,000 high schools were in
America, Catholic schools also grew more
popular.
The Chautauqua Movement was launched in
1874, it provided public lecture from famous
speakers like Mark Twain and there were also
many Chautauqua courses of home study.
Cities provided better educational facilities than
the one room red schoolhouse.

Booker T. Washington and

Education for Black People
Booker T. Washington taught African
Americans useful trades so they
could gain self respect and economic
security, he did not challenge social
equity
W.E.B. Du Bois Believed in social
and economic equality for African
Americans and founded the National
Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP).

The Hallowed Halls of Ivy

Colleges for women like Vassar were gaining
ground
Black Colleges like Howard University and
Atlanta University were established
The Morrill Act of 1862 provided a generous
grant of public lands to the states for support of
education and was extended by the Hatch Act
of 1887, which provided federal funds for the
establishment of agricultural experiment
stations
Many new industrial millionaires donated to
educational enterprises to build a good
reputation