Between 1880 and 1900, cities in the United States grew at a dramatic rate. Owing most of their population growth to the expansion of industry, U.S. cities grew by about 15 million people in the two decades before 1900. Many of those who helped account for the population growth of cities were immigrants arriving from around the world. A steady stream of people from rural America also migrated to the cities during this period. Between 1880 and 1890, almost 40 percent of the townships in the United States lost population because of migration.
Industrial expansion and population growth radically changed the face of the nation's cities. Noise, traffic jams, slums, air pollution, and sanitation and health problems became commonplace. Mass transit, in the form of trolleys, cable cars, and subways, was built, and skyscrapers began to dominate city skylines. New communities, known as suburbs, began to be built just beyond the city. Commuters, those who lived in the suburbs and traveled in and out of the city for work, began to increase in number.
Many of those who resided in the city lived in rental apartments or tenement housing. Neighborhoods, especially for immigrant populations, were often the center of community life. In the enclave neighborhoods, many immigrant groups attempted to hold onto and practice precious customs and traditions. Even today, many neighborhoods or sections of some of the great cities in the United States reflect those ethnic heritages.
During the final years of the 1800s, industrial cities, with all the problems brought on by rapid population growth and lack of infrastructure to support the growth, occupied a special place in U.S. history. For all the problems, and there were many, the cities promoted a special bond between people and laid the foundation for the multiethnic, multicultural society that we cherish today.
DOCUMENT TWO:
In the 19th century at least 80% of the population was working class. In order to be considered middle class you had to have at least one servant. Most servants were female. (Male servants were more expensive because men were paid much higher wages). Throughout the century 'service' was a major employer of women.
For working class women life was an endless round of hard work and drudgery. As soon as they were old enough they worked on farms and in factories. Even when they married and had children housework was very hard without electricity or modern cleaning agents. On the other hand in the 19th century working class girls began to get some education. In the early and mid 19th century the churches provided some schools. After 1870 the state provided them.
The Family in the 19th Century
Divorce was made legal in 1857 but it was very rare in the 19th century.
In the 19th century wealthy women were kept busy running the household and organising the servants. Well to do women often also did charitable work.
In 1874 the first successful typewriter went on sale (It was invented in the USA by Christopher Sholes) and the telephone was invented in 1876. These two new inventions meant more job opportunities for women.
Women's Rights in the 19th Century
In 1865 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836-1917) became the first British woman doctor. Elizabeth also became the first woman in Britain to become mayor of a town (Aldeburgh) in 1908. The first woman in Britain to qualify as a dentist was Lilian Murray in 1895. The first woman to qualify as an architect in Britain was Ethel Charles in 1898. In 1869 John Stuart Mill published his book The Subjection of Women, which demanded equal rights for women. At Oxford University from 1884 onwards women were allowed to attend lectures and take university exams for the first time (although they were not actually awarded degrees till 1920). Halls were built for female students (later they became colleges). Elizabeth Wordsworth founded Lady Margaret Hall for women in 1878. Somerville College for women was founded in 1879. St Hilda’s College was founded in 1893 by Dorothea Beale. In Britain women ratepayers were allowed to vote in local elections after 1869. However in 1893 New Zealand became the first country to allow women to vote in national elections. The first Women’s Institute was founded in Canada in 1897. The first in Britain was founded in 1915. There were many famous women in the 19th century. Two of them were Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. They reformed nursing. Elizabeth Fry played a key role in prison reform. Mary Kingsley explored parts of Africa. Ada Lovelace was a famous mathematician. Marie Curie (1867-1934) was a famous scientist. Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932) was famous gardener. At the end of the 19th century Josephine Cochran invented the first practical dishwasher.
Rebecca Solomon (1832-1886) and Evelyn De Morgan (1855-1919) were famous artists. Marianne North (1830-1890) was an artist who travelled the world and painted more than 1,000 paintings. Another famous woman artist was Mary Cassatt (1844-1926). There were also many famous women writers in the 19th century. Among them were Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans).
DOCUMENT THREE:
Religious practice in Catholic Europe in the nineteenth century was a multifaceted thing, influenced by such factors as class, gender, and region. Despite nominally being members of the same faith, the religious experience of a Bavarian farmer was very different to that of an industrial worker in Barcelona and different again from that of a bourgeois woman in northern France. In previous centuries it can be argued that the Catholic 'community,' for lack of a better word, was a much more homogenous entity, despite cultural and class barriers. The enormous changes that transformed European society in the nineteenth century had an eroding effect on this uniformity, and the Church found itself having to respond to a variety of new and unique challenges across Europe. The twin forces of industrialization and urbanization presented the greatest challenges to the Church, as they forced it to redefine its role in communities. Since the very beginnings of European Christianity the overwhelming majority of the population had lived in rural areas and lived quite traditional agrarian lives. The peer pressure and insularity that is rampant within small communities had the effect of keeping virtually everyone within the Church's sphere of influence. The Church was an accepted part of the establishment, consorting with the European political elite while also providing spiritual comfort to the masses. And like other pillars of society such as the military and government, those who had been born into privilege dominated the upper levels of the Church hierarchy. This was the way that things had been throughout Catholic Europe for centuries, remaining relatively unchanged in those areas that were not swept up in the Reformation. The one great exception, of course, was Revolutionary France, where the connection between the Church and the State that had been so strong was irreparably severed. Most people in Europe lived their lives in relative isolation from each other, and only the Church offered a semblance of a wider community, of a life beyond toil in the fields. The nineteenth century changed this. The rise of industrialization and its crusading ideology, liberal capitalism, completely upset the balance of power in European society. Needless to say, this was a change that had a serious impact on the Catholic Church as well. It created a new social class of industrial tycoons whose power was based on wealth, not on their inherited status. Improvements in transport and communications technology drew together European societies in an entirely new way, creating the phenomenon of nationalism, a new way for people to connect their communities into a larger cultural whole. Industrialization drew people by the millions from the old way of life in the countryside to the booming cities. The negative side effects of industrialization, the poverty, the disease, the squalid housing, created socialism and the workers' movements, which were implicitly against the Establishment in all of its forms. The Church was, of course, an integral part of what they were fighting against. Essentially, these enormous changes created new communities of interests that were in many respects diametrically opposed to the old order dominated by the clergy and the aristocracy.
DOCUMENT FOUR:
- D. Abolitionism
- 1. American Colonization Society formed (1816) to gradually emancipate blacks and settle them in Africa.2. Abolitionism rose in the 1830s with an emphasis on racial equality. Intent on freeing, then educating blacks.
- a) William Lloyd Garrison The Liberator demanded immediate abolition.b) Theodore Weld worked for gradual emancipation through religious conversion. Used Oberlin College as training ground for abolitionists
c) Organized abolitionists smuggled 2,000 slaves a year out of the South to Canada and deluged Congress with petitions despite the gag rule (1836) which forbid the discussion of slavery in Congress.
- 1) Dorothea Dix investigated and reported treatment of insane and led to creation of humane institutions2) Legal code reforms
- a) Reduction in crimes punishable by deathb) Abolishing of public hangings in many states
c) Abandoning flogging and other cruel punishments
DOCUMENT FIVE:
INTRODUCTORY/THESIS:
During the urbanization period, a lot of things were changed about society. The role of the american woman was reverted to a working figure, rather than a stay at home, take care of the house and kids, type of person. The woman did not really have many rights either. The changes in religion cause a lot of different conflicts with different types of people.Civil Rights of this time were scarce. African Americans had just gotten the right to vote, and the white southern men were kinda livid about that so they did everything they could to make it to where the African American man could not vote. Overall, the changes brought by the urbanization of America had a HUGE influence on what was to come in the future.
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