Urban

America

during

the

Gilded

Age

1865 –

1900

Characteristics of Urbanization

During the Gilded Age

1. Megalopolis. 2. Mass Transit. 3. Magnet for economic and social

opportunities. 4. Pronounced class distinctions.

- Inner & outer core 5. New frontier of opportunity for women. 6. Squalid living conditions for many. 7. Political machines. 8. Ethnic neighborhoods.

1. How do Americans become consumers? 2. What does a “Higher Standard of Living” include? 3. What created a “mass culture”? 4. What was reflected in the arts during the gilded age? 5. How did education change in U.S.? 6. What did Americans do for entertainment? 7. What did cities offer as entertainment?

Tenement Slum Living

Tenement Slum Living

Florence Kelley • Illinois

• Attorney

• Fought against child labor.

• Fought for women’s rights.

• National Consumers League (NCL) 1899 promoted goods produced under “fair, safe, healthy” conditions. Inspect meat packing plants. Created “White Labels” = seal of approval.

• National Child Labor Committee (still active) – U.S. Children’s Bureau created in 1912. 1916 Keating – Owen Act struck down child labor. SCOTUS overturned in Hammer v. Dagenhart, 1918.

• Led NAWSA (Natl. Amer. Women Suff. Assoc.) to support war effort (WWI).

• Founding member of NAACP.

“Dumbell” Tenement

Mulberry Street – “Little Italy”

• New York by George Bellows

• Capturing the city as it transformed to a modern metropolis.

• Lone Tenement by George Bellows 1909

• “urban dislocation and a poignant allegory of time's passage. The last remaining building underneath the approaches to the new Queensboro Bridge stands alone.”

• People continued to live in this dilapidated tenement building while the others had made way for city growth.

• Cliff Dwellers by George

Bellows 1913

• View of the transformation

of America. Lower East

Side of Manhattan, lifestyle

of immigrants.

• Poor and living in cramped

quarters, if they have

housing at all. Paintings

like this captured the

essence of city living and

informed Americans about

the conditions of city

dwellers.

Statue of Liberty: “Mr.

Windom, if you’re going to

make this island a garbage

heap, I’m going back to

France.”

In 1890 secretary of Treasury

William Widom wanted to turn

the island at the base of the

Statue of Liberty into a

processing point for

immigrants. Compare the

caption to the poem inscribe

on the base of the statue that

tells the world to,

Give me your tired, your

poor, Your huddled masses

yearning to breathe free…

Chinese and

Irish

immigrants

both

consume

Uncle Sam

(America),

then the

Chinese

man

consumes

the Irishman

Knights of Labor

American Federation of Labor

• Closed shop.

CHICAGO

HOG Butcher for the World,

Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,

Player with Railroads and the

Nation's Freight Handler;

Stormy, husky, brawling,

City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe

them, for I have seen your painted women

under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.

And they tell me you are crooked and I

answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the

gunman kill and go free to kill again.

And they tell me you are brutal and my

reply is: On the faces of women and

children I have seen the marks of wanton

hunger…

- Carl Sandburg

Louis Sullivan

The Chicago School of Architecture

Form follows function!

Louis Sullivan: Bayard

Bldg., NYC, 1897

Daniel Burnham

Use of steel

as a super

structure. Fisher [Apt.] Bldg, Chicago

D. H. Burnham:

Marshall Fields Dept. Store,

1902

Frank Lloyd Wright 1869 – 1959

“Prairie House” School of Architecture

“Organic Architecture”

Function follows form!

Frank Lloyd Wright:

Allen-Lamb House, 1915

Frank Lloyd Wright:

Guggenheim Museum, NYC - 1959

New York City Architectural Style:

1870s-1910s

1. The style was less innovative than

in Chicago.

2. NYC was the source of the capital for Chicago.

3. Most major business firms had their

headquarters in NYC their bldgs. became

“logos” for their companies.

4. NYC buildings and skyscrapers were taller than

in Chicago.

Western

Union Bldg,.

NYC - 1875

NYC – 1888 Blizzard or White Hurricane

Edison’s generators going underground NYC

Singer

Building

NYC - 1902

Flatiron

Building

NYC – 1902

D. H. Burnham

Grand Central Station, 1913

John A. Roebling:

The Brooklyn Bridge, 1883

Hester Street – Jewish Section

Pell St. - Chinatown, NYC

Urban Growth: 1870 - 1900

Friday January 26, 2018

1. Bellringer: Analyze cartoon – write 5 facts in CompBook.

2. Discuss Venn Diagram: Wells; Washington: DuBois.

3. Powerpoint Facts: 15 facts