APUSH Textbook Chapter 19

“Civilization’s Inferno”: The Rise
19
C H A P T E R
and Reform of Industrial Cities
1880–1917
C
THE NEW METROPOLIS larence Darrow, a successful law- IDENTIFY THE BIG IDEA
The Shape of the Industrial City yer from Ashtabula, Ohio, felt iso- How did the rise of large cities shape
Newcomers and Neighborhoods lated and overwhelmed when he American society and politics?
City Cultures moved to Chicago in the 1880s. “There is
no place so lonely to a young man as a great city,” Darrow later wrote. “When I walked
GOVERNING THE along the street I scanned every face I met to see if I could not perchance discover some-
GREAT CITY one from Ohio.” Instead, he saw a “sea of human units, each intent upon hurrying by.”
Urban Machines At one point, Darrow felt near despair. “If it had been possible I would have gone back
The Limits of Machine to Ohio,” he wrote, “but I didn’t want to borrow the money, and I dreaded to confess
Government
defeat.”
CRUCIBLES OF In the era of industrialization, more and more Americans had experiences like
PROGRESSIVE REFORM Darrow’s. In 1860, the United States was rural: less than 20 percent of Americans lived
Fighting Dirt and Vice in an urban area, defined by census takers as a place with more than 2,500 inhabitants.
The Movement for Social By 1910, more Americans lived in cities (42.1 million) than had lived in the entire nation
Settlements on the eve of the Civil War (31.4 million). The country now had three of the world’s ten
Cities and National Politics largest cities (America Compared, p. 611). Though the Northeast remained by far the
most urbanized region, the industrial Midwest was catching up. Seattle, San Francisco,
and soon Los Angeles became hubs on the Pacific coast. Even the South boasted of
thriving Atlanta and Birmingham. As journalist Frederic C. Howe declared in 1905,
“Man has entered on an urban age.”
The scale of industrial cities encouraged experiments that ranged from the amuse-
ment park to the art museum, the skyscraper to the subway. Yet the city’s complexity
also posed problems, some of them far worse than Clarence Darrow’s loneliness. Broth-
els flourished, as did slums, pollution, disease, and corrupt political machines. Fast-
talking hucksters enjoyed prime opportunities to fleece newcomers; homeless men
slept in the shadows of the mansions of the superrich. One African American observer
called the city “Civilization’s Inferno.” The locus of urgent problems, industrial cities
became important sites of political innovation and reform.
606
George Bellows, New York George Bellows, a member of the so-called Ash Can school of painters
(Chapter 18), was fascinated by urban life. In this 1911 painting, he depicts Madison Square during a
winter rush-hour, crowded with streetcars, horse-drawn wagons, and pedestrians. If you could enter the
world of this painting, what might you hear, feel, and smell, as well as see? What does Bellows suggest
about the excitement and challenges of life in the big city? Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C.
607
608 PART 6 INDUSTRIALIZING AMERICA: UPHEAVALS AND EXPERIMENTS, 1877–1917
trolley lines be moved off streets. The “el” or elevated

The New Metropolis railroad, which began operation as early as 1871 in
New York City, became a safer alternative. Other urban
Mark Twain, arriving in New York in 1867, remarked,
planners built down, not up. Boston opened a short
“You cannot accomplish anything in the way of busi-
underground line in 1897; by 1904, a subway running
ness, you cannot even pay a friendly call without devot-
the length of Manhattan demonstrated the full poten-
ing a whole day to it. . . . [The] distances are too great.”
tial of high-speed underground trains.
But new technologies allowed engineers and planners
Even before the Civil War, the spread of railroads
to reorganize urban geographies. Specialized districts
led to growth of outlying residential districts for the
began to include not only areas for finance, manufac-
well-to-do. The high cost of transportation effectively
turing, wholesaling, and warehousing but also immi-
segregated these wealthy districts. In the late nine-
grant wards, shopping districts, and business-oriented
teenth century, the trend accelerated. Businessmen and
downtowns. It was an exciting and bewildering world.
professionals built homes on large, beautifully land-
scaped lots in outlying towns such as Riverside, Illinois,
and Tuxedo Park, New York. In such places, affluent
The Shape of the Industrial City wives and children enjoyed refuge from the pollution
Before the Civil War, cities served the needs of com- and perceived dangers of the city.
merce and finance, not industry. Early manufacturing Los Angeles entrepreneur Henry Huntington,
sprang up mostly in the countryside, where mill own- nephew of a wealthy Southern Pacific Railroad mag-
ers could draw water power from streams, find plenti- nate, helped foster an emerging suburban ideal as he
ful fuel and raw materials, and recruit workers from pitched the benefits of southern California sunshine.
farms and villages. The nation’s largest cities were sea- Huntington invested his family fortune in Los Angeles
ports; urban merchants bought and sold goods for dis- real estate and transportation. Along his trolley lines,
tribution into the interior or to global markets. he subdivided property into lots and built rows of
As industrialization developed, though, cities bungalows, planting the tidy yards with lush trees
became sites for manufacturing as well as finance and and tropical fruits. Middle-class buyers flocked to
trade. Steam engines played a central role in this change. purchase Huntington’s houses. One exclaimed, “I have
With them, mill operators no longer had to depend apparently found a Paradise on Earth.” Anticipating
on less reliable water power. Steam power also vastly twentieth-century Americans’ love for affordable
increased the scale of industry. A factory employing single-family homes near large cities, Huntington had
thousands of workers could instantly create a small city begun to invent southern California sprawl.
such as Aliquippa, Pennsylvania,
COMPARE AND which belonged body and soul to Skyscrapers By the 1880s, invention of steel girders,
CONTRAST the Jones and Laughlin Steel durable plate glass, and passenger elevators began to
How were America’s Company. Older commercial cit- revolutionize urban building methods. Architects
industrial cities different ies also industrialized. Warehouse invented the skyscraper, a building supported by its
from the typical city before districts converted to small-scale steel skeleton. Its walls bore little weight, serving
1860? manufacturing. Port cities that instead as curtains to enclose the structure. Although
served as immigrant gateways expensive to build, skyscrapers allowed downtown
offered abundant cheap labor, an essential element in landowners to profit from small plots of land. By invest-
the industrial economy. ing in a skyscraper, a landlord could collect rent for ten
or even twenty floors of space. Large corporations
Mass Transit New technologies helped residents commissioned these striking designs as symbols of
and visitors negotiate the industrial city. Steam-driven business prowess.
cable cars appeared in the 1870s. By 1887, engineer The first skyscraper was William Le Baron Jenney’s
Frank Sprague designed an electric trolley system for ten-story Home Insurance Building (1885) in Chicago.
Richmond, Virginia. Electricity from a central generat- Though unremarkable in appearance — it looked just
ing plant was fed to trolleys through overhead power like other downtown buildings — Jenney’s steel-girder
lines, which each trolley touched with a pole mounted construction inspired the creativity of American archi-
on its roof. Trolleys soon became the primary mode of tects. A Chicago school sprang up, dedicated to the
transportation in most American cities. Congestion design of buildings whose form expressed, rather than
and frequent accidents, however, led to demands that masked, their structure and function. The presiding
CHAPTER 19 “Civilization’s Inferno”: The Rise and Reform of Industrial Cities, 1880–1917 609
Woolworth Building, New

York City
Under construction in this photo-
graph, taken between 1910 and
1913, the headquarters of the
nationwide Woolworth’s five-and-
dime chain became a dominant
feature of the New York skyline.
Manhattan soon had more sky-
scrapers than any other city in
the world. Library of Congress.
genius of this school was architect Louis Sullivan, the entrances to the theaters blaze out on the sidewalk.”
whose “vertical aesthetic” of set-back windows and At the end of a long working day, city dwellers flocked
strong columns gave skyscrapers a “proud and soaring” to this free entertainment. Nothing, declared an
presence and offered plentiful natural light for workers observer, matched the “festive panorama” of Broadway
inside. Chicago pioneered skyscraper construction, “when the lights are on.”
but New York, with its unrelenting demand for prime
downtown space, took the lead by the late 1890s. The
fifty-five-story Woolworth Building, completed in 1913, Newcomers and Neighborhoods
marked the beginning of Manhattan’s modern skyline. Explosive population growth made cities a world of
new arrivals, including many young women and men
The Electric City One of the most dramatic urban arriving from the countryside. Traditionally, rural
amenities was electric light. Gaslight, produced from daughters had provided essential labor for spinning
coal gas, had been used for residential light since the and weaving cloth, but industrialization relocated
early nineteenth century, but gas lamps were too dim those tasks from the household to the factory. Finding
to brighten streets and public spaces. In the 1870s, as themselves without a useful household role, many
generating technology became commercially viable, farm daughters sought paid employment. In an age of
electricity proved far better. Electric arc lamps, installed declining rural prosperity, many sons also left the
in Wanamaker’s department store in Philadelphia in farm and — like immigrants arriving from other
1878, astonished viewers with their brilliant illumina- countries — set aside part of their pay to help the folks
tion. Electric streetlights soon replaced gaslights on at home. Explaining why she moved to Chicago, an
city streets. African American woman from Louisiana declared, “A
Before it had a significant effect on industry, elec- child with any respect about herself or hisself wouldn’t
tricity gave the city its modern tempo. It lifted eleva- like to see their mother and father work so hard and
tors, illuminated department store windows, and above earn nothing. I feel it my duty to help.”
all, turned night into day. Electric streetlights made America’s cities also became homes for millions of
residents feel safer; as one magazine put it in 1912, “A overseas immigrants. Most numerous in Boston were
light is as good as a policeman.” Nightlife became less the Irish; in Minneapolis, Swedes; in other northern
risky and more appealing. One journalist described cities, Germans. Arriving in a great metropolis, immi-
Broadway in 1894: “All the shop fronts are lighted, and grants confronted many difficulties. One Polish man,
Lighting Up Minneapolis, 1883

Like other American cities, Minneapolis
at night had been lit by dim gaslight until
the advent of Charles F. Brush’s electric arc
lamps. This photograph marks the opening
day, February 28, 1883, of Minneapolis’s
new era: the first lighting of a 257-foot
tower topped by a ring of electric arc
lamps. The electric poles on the right,
connecting the tower to a power station,
would soon proliferate into a blizzard of
poles and overhead wires, as Minneapolis
became an electric city. © Minnesota Historical
Society/CORBIS.
who had lost the address of his American cousins, felt in Pittsburgh, for example, the carpentry shop was
utterly alone after disembarking at New York’s main German, the hammer shop Polish, and the blooming
immigration facility, Ellis Island, which opened in mill Serbian. “My people . . . stick together,” observed a
1892. Then he heard a kindly voice in Polish, offering son of Ukrainian immigrants. But he added, “We who
to help. “From sheer joy,” he recalled, “tears welled up are born in this country . . . feel this country is our
in my eyes to hear my native tongue.” Such experiences home.”
suggest why immigrants stuck together, relying on rel- Patterns of settlement varied by ethnic group. Many
atives and friends to get oriented and find jobs. A high Italians, recruited by padroni, or labor bosses, found
degree of ethnic clustering resulted, even within a work in northeastern and Mid-Atlantic cities. Their
single factory. At the Jones and Laughlin steelworks urban concentration was especially marked after the
AMERICA
C O M PA R E D
The World’s Biggest This table lists the ten largest cities in the world, by population in millions, at the
start of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries.
Cities, 1800–2000
TABLE 19.1
1800 1900
City Population City Population
Beijing, China 1.10 million London, United Kingdom 6.48 million
London, United Kingdom 0.86 New York, United States 4.24
Guangzhou, China 0.80 Paris, France 3.33
Istanbul, Turkey 0.57 Berlin, Germany 2.42
Paris, France 0.55 Chicago, United States 1.72
Hangzhou, China 0.50 Vienna, Austria 1.66
Edo (later Tokyo), Japan 0.49 Tokyo, Japan 1.50
Naples (later part of Italy) 0.43 St. Petersburg, Russia 1.44
Suzhou, China 0.39 Philadelphia, United States 1.42
Osaka, Japan 0.38 Manchester, United Kingdom 1.26
2000
City Population
Tokyo, Japan 34.45 million
QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS
Mexico City, Mexico 18.02
1. In each year, how many of the world’s ten larg-
New York City/Newark, United States 17.85 est cities were located in the United States? In
what regions of the world were the other cities
São Paulo, Brazil 17.10 located? What does this tell us about the United
States’s role in the world at each of these histori-
Mumbai (Bombay), India 16.09
cal moments?
Delhi, India 15.73 2. The figures from 1900 and 2000 show, to a large
degree, the effects of industrialization. What
Shanghai, China 13.22 does the table suggest about its impact?
Calcutta, India 13.06
Buenos Aires, Argentina 11.85
Los Angeles, United States 11.81
611
The San Francisco Earthquake

California’s San Andreas Fault had caused earthquakes for centuries — but when a major metropolis arose
nearby, it created new potential for catastrophe. The devastating earthquake of April 18, 1906, occurred at
5:12 A.M., when many residents were sleeping. This photograph of Sacramento Street shows the resulting
devastation and fires. The quake probably killed over 2,000 people, though the exact number will never be
known. A massive 296-mile rupture along the fault, felt as far away as Los Angeles, Oregon, and central
Nevada, the earthquake refuted contemporary geological theories. It prompted researchers to open new
lines of inquiry aimed at predicting tremors — and constructing urban buildings that could withstand them.
Universal History Archive / UIG / The Bridgeman Art Library.
1880s, as more and more laborers arrived from south- while New York Jews patronized a lively Yiddish theater.
ern Italy. The attraction of America was obvious to one By 1903, Italians in Chicago had sixty-six mutual aid
young man, who had grown up in a poor southern societies, most composed of people from a particular
Italian farm family. “I had never gotten any wages of province or town. These societies collected dues from
any kind before,” he reported after settling with his members and paid support in case of death or disabil-
uncle in New Jersey. “The work here was just as hard as ity on the job. Mutual benefit societies also functioned
that on the farm; but I didn’t mind it much because I as fraternal clubs. “We are strangers in a strange coun-
would receive what seemed to me like a lot.” Amadeo try,” explained one member of a Chinese tong, or
Peter Giannini, who started off as a produce merchant mutual aid society, in Chicago. “We must have an orga-
in San Francisco, soon turned to banking. After the San nization (tong) to control our country fellows and
Francisco earthquake in 1906, his Banca d’Italia was develop our friendship.”
the first financial institution to reopen in the Bay Sharply defined ethnic neighborhoods such as San
area. Expanding steadily across the West, it eventually Francisco’s Chinatown, Italian North Beach, and Jewish
became Bank of America. Hayes Valley grew up in every major city, driven by
Like Giannini’s bank, institutions of many kinds both discrimination and immigrants’ desire to stick
sprang up to serve ethnic urban communities. together (Map 19.1). In addition to patterns of ethnic
Throughout America, Italian speakers avidly read the and racial segregation, residential districts in almost all
newspaper Il Progresso Italo-Americano; Jews, the industrial cities divided along lines of economic class.
Yiddish-language Jewish Daily Forward, also published Around Los Angeles’s central plaza, Mexican neigh-
in New York. Bohemians gathered in singing societies, borhoods diversified, incorporating Italians and Jews.
MAP 19.1 E. 34th St.

The Lower East Side, New York City,
The
1900 N Bronx
As this map shows, the Jewish immi- N.J.
W E
grants dominating Manhattan’s
I.
S
Lower East Side preferred to live in
ttan
neighborhoods populated by those
nha
from their home regions of Eastern
Ma
Queens
Europe. Their sense of a common E. 21st St.
identity made for a remarkable
Avenue A
Third Ave.
A v e n ue B
flowering of educational, cultural,
and social institutions on the Jewish
Avenue C
Union Brooklyn
East Side. Ethnic neighborhoods Square
Park
became a feature of almost every Hebrew Technical E. 14th St.
American city. School for Boys
Fou
A ve.
A ve .
thr
East River
Ave

Second
Tompkins
F i rs t
Square Park
Public
School 63
Music School
Settlement E. 3rd. St. Houston St.
Ferr y
t on St .
E. Hous
W. Houston St. Beth
urg
Hamedrash Williamsb
Hagadol Bridge
Bowe
Broadway
Hebrew
Allen
St. Sheltering
Delancey Grand St.
ry
House
People’s Machzike
Talmud Hebrew Technical Ferry
St .
Bath
Torah School for Girls
St .
Grand
Educational Jewish Maternity Hospital
Alliance .
Yiddish Rialto St Home for the Aged

Cl
Ca n .
al St
in
Henry Street
Baxter St.
S t.
to
o n
is i Settlement
n
v
St
Di
.
o e
nr
Thalia Israel Mo Beth Israel Hospital
Worth S t. Theater Elchanan
Yeshiva
Ma
nh
City Br atta
Hall idg n
e
Park
Broo 0 0.25 mile

klyn
Bridg
e
Jewish Ethnic Concentrations

Hungarian Galician (Polish) Russian
Romanian Mixed Middle Eastern and Romanian
Later, as the plaza became a site for business and tour- more than 50 percent African American. Blacks also
ism, immigrants were pushed into working-class settled in northern cities, albeit not in the numbers that
neighborhoods like Belvedere and Boyle Heights, would arrive during the Great Migration of World
which sprang up to the east. Though ethnically diverse, War I. Though blacks constituted
East Los Angeles was resolutely working class; middle- only 2 percent of New York City’s PLACE EVENTS
class white neighborhoods grew up predominantly in population in 1910, they already IN CONTEXT
West Los Angeles. numbered more than 90,000. What opportunities did
African Americans also sought urban opportuni- These newcomers confronted con- urban neighborhoods
ties. In 1900, almost 90 percent of American blacks still ditions even worse than those for provide to immigrants and
African Americans, and
lived in the South, but increasing numbers had moved foreign-born immigrants. Relent-
what problems did these
to cities such as Baton Rouge, Jacksonville, Montgom- lessly turned away from manufac-
newcomers face?
ery, and Charleston, all of whose populations were turing jobs, most black men and
The Cherry Family, 1906

Wiley and Fannie Cherry migrated in
1893 from North Carolina to Chicago,
settling in the small African American
community that had established itself
on the city’s West Side. The Cherrys
apparently prospered. By 1906, when
this family portrait was taken, they had
entered the black middle class. When
migration intensified after 1900, longer-
settled urban blacks like the Cherrys often
became uncomfortable, and relations with
needy rural newcomers were sometimes
tense. Collection of Lorraine Heflin/Picture
Research Consultants & Archives.
women took up work in the service sector, becoming Evansville, Indiana (1903); and Springfield, Illinois
porters, laundrywomen, and domestic servants. (1908). By then, one journalist observed, “In every
Blacks faced another urban danger: the so-called important Northern city, a distinct race-problem already
race riot, an attack by white mobs triggered by street exists which must, in a few years, assume serious
altercations or rumors of crime. One of the most viru- proportions.”
lent episodes occurred in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1906. Whether they arrived from the South or from
The violence was fueled by a nasty political campaign Europe, Mexico, or Asia, working-class city residents
that generated sensational false charges of “negro needed cheap housing near their jobs (Map 19.2). They
crime.” Roaming bands of white men attacked black faced grim choices. As urban land values climbed,
Atlantans, invading middle-class black neighborhoods speculators tore down houses that were vacated by
and in one case lynching two barbers after seizing them middle-class families moving away from the industrial
in their shop. The rioters killed at least twenty-four core. In their place, they erected five- or six-story tene-
blacks and wounded more than a hundred. The disease ments, buildings that housed twenty or more families
of hatred was not limited to the South. Race riots broke in cramped, airless apartments (Figure 19.1). Tenements
out in New York City’s Tenderloin district (1900); fostered rampant disease and horrific infant mortality.
York’s Tenement House Law of 1901, which required

interior courts, indoor toilets, and fire safeguards for
new structures. The law, however, had no effect on the
44,000 tenements that already existed in Manhattan
and the Bronx. Reformers were thwarted by the eco-
nomic facts of urban development. Industrial workers
could not afford transportation and had to live near
their jobs; commercial development pushed up land
values. Only high-density, cheaply built housing earned
landlords a significant profit.
City Cultures
Despite their dangers and problems, industrial cities
could be exciting places to live. In the nineteenth cen-
tury, white middle-class Protestants had set the cul-
tural standard; immigrants and the poor were expected
to follow cues from their betters, seeking “uplift” and
respectability. But in the cities, new mass-based enter-
tainments emerged among the working classes, espe-
cially youth. These entertainments spread from the
working class to the middle class — much to the dis-
tress of many middle-class parents. At the same time,
cities became stimulating centers for intellectual life.
Urban Amusements One enticing attraction was

vaudeville theater, which arose in the 1880s and 1890s.
Vaudeville customers could walk in anytime and watch
The Atlanta Race Riot — Seen from France a continuous sequence of musical acts, skits, magic
The cover of this Paris newsmagazine depicts the Atlanta race shows, and other entertainment. First popular among
riot of 1906. While the artist had almost certainly never vis- the working class, vaudeville quickly broadened its
ited Atlanta, his dramatic illustration shows that, from this
early date, racial violence could be a source of embarrassment
appeal to include middle-class audiences. By the early
to the United States in its relations with other countries. 1900s, vaudeville faced competition from early movie
Picture Research Consultants & Archives. theaters, or nickelodeons, which offered short films for
a nickel entry fee. With distaste, one reporter described
a typical movie audience as “mothers of bawling infants”
and “newsboys, bootblacks, and smudgy urchins.” By
In New York’s Eleventh Ward, an average of 986 per- the 1910s, even working girls who refrained from less
sons occupied each acre. One investigator in Philadel- respectable amusements might indulge in a movie
phia described twenty-six people living in nine rooms once or twice a week.
of a tenement. “The bathroom at the rear of the house More spectacular were the great amusement parks
was used as a kitchen,” she reported. “One privy com- that appeared around 1900, most famously at New
partment in the yard was the sole toilet accommoda- York’s Coney Island. These parks had their origins in
tion for the five families living in the house.” African world’s fairs, whose paid entertainment areas had
Americans often suffered most. A study of Albany, offered giant Ferris wheels and camel rides through “a
Syracuse, and Troy, New York, noted, “The colored street in Cairo.” Entrepreneurs
people are relegated to the least healthful buildings.” found that such attractions were COMPARE AND
Denouncing these conditions, reformers called for big business. Between 1895 and CONTRAST
How did working-class and
model tenements financed by public-spirited citizens 1904, they installed them at sev-
elite city residents differ
willing to accept a limited return on their investment. eral rival amusement parks near
in how they spent their
When private philanthropy failed to make a dent, cities Coney Island’s popular beaches. money and leisure time?
turned to housing codes. The most advanced was New The parks offered New Yorkers a
MAP 19.2
The residential areas of
City limits, The Expansion of Chicago, 1865–1902
1902
the city tended to spread
out along elevated (light- N In 1865, Chicagoans depended on horsecar
rail) railroad lines and lines to get around town. By 1900, the
streetcar tracks. These new W E
forms of mass transit city limits had expanded enormously and
enabled people living in
distant neighborhoods to
S so had the streetcar service, which was by
reach the central business then electrified. Elevated trains eased the
district and other places congestion on downtown streets. Ongoing
of employment.
extension of the streetcar lines, some beyond
the city limits, ensured that suburban
Note that the number Lake development would continue as well.
of square miles within
Chicago’s city limits Michigan
increased more than
300 percent between
1865 and 1902.
Central
Business
District
Note that some areas of the old city Horsecar lines, 1865
were not used for either residence
or industry. Most of these were large City limits,
regional parks or undeveloped land. 1865
0 1 2 3 miles
Central Business District

Industrial area Lake
Calumet
Residential area
Parks and undeveloped land
Elevated lines, 1902
Streetcar lines, 1902
FIGURE 19.1
Floor Plan of a Dumbbell Tenement
In a contest for a design that met an
1879 requirement for every room to have
a window, the dumbbell tenement won. The
interior indentation, which created an airshaft
Air Shaft between adjoining buildings, gave the tene-
(Toilets) ment its “dumbbell” shape. But what was
10'
touted as a model tenement demonstrated
Bed Bed Bed
Fire Escape
Parlor Kitchen Room Room Room Kitchen Parlor instead the futility of trying to reconcile
Public Hall maximum land usage with decent housing.
Bed Bed Bed Each floor contained four apartments of three
Parlor Kitchen Room Room Room Kitchen Parlor or four rooms, the largest only 10 by 11 feet.
Air Shaft The two toilets in the hall became filthy or
50'0" broke down under daily use by forty or more
people. The narrow airshaft provided almost
no light for the interior rooms and served
mainly as a dumping ground for garbage.
So deplorable were these tenements that
they became the stimulus for the next wave
of New York housing reform.
Amusement Park, Long Beach, California

The origins of the roller coaster go back to a
Switchback Railway installed at New York’s Coney
Island in 1884, featuring gentle dips and curves. By
1900, when the Jack Rabbit Race was constructed at
Long Beach, California, the goal was to create the
biggest possible thrill. Angelenos journeyed by trolley
to Long Beach to take a dip in the ocean as well as
to ride the new roller coaster — and the airplane ride
in the foreground. © Curt Teich Postcard Archives, Lake
County Museum.
chance to come by ferry, escape the hot city, and enjoy with the right). Ragtime became wildly popular among
roller coasters, lagoon plunges, and “hootchy-kootchy” audiences of all classes and races who heard in its infec-
dance shows. Among the amazed observers was Cuban tious rhythms something exciting — a decisive break
revolutionary José Martí, working as a journalist in with Victorian hymns and parlor songs.
the United States. “What facilities for every pleasure!” For the master of the genre, composer Scott Joplin,
Martí wrote. “What absolute absence of any outward ragtime was serious music. Joplin, the son of former
sadness or poverty! . . . The theater, the photographers’ slaves, grew up along the Texas-Arkansas border and
booth, the bathhouses!” He concluded that Coney Island took piano lessons as a boy from a German teacher. He
epitomized America’s commercial society, driven not and other traveling performers introduced ragtime to
by “love or glory” but by “a desire for gain.” Similar national audiences at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.
parks grew up around the United States. By the sum- Seeking to elevate African American music and secure
mer of 1903, Philadelphia’s Willow Grove counted a broad national audience, Joplin warned pianists, “It
three million visitors annually; so did two amusement is never right to play ‘Ragtime’ fast.” But his instruc-
parks outside Los Angeles. tions were widely ignored. Young Americans embraced
ragtime.
Ragtime and City Blues Music also became a They also embraced each other, as ragtime ushered
booming urban entertainment. By the 1890s, Tin in an urban dance craze. By 1910, New York alone had
Pan Alley, the nickname for New York City’s song- more than five hundred dance halls. In Kansas City,
publishing district, produced such national hit tunes shocked guardians of morality counted 16,500 dancers
as “A Bicycle Built for Two” and “My Wild Irish Rose.” on the floor on a Saturday night; Chicago had 86,000.
The most famous sold more than a million copies of Some young Polish and Slovak women chose restau-
sheet music, as well as audio recordings for the newly rant jobs rather than domestic service so they would
invented phonograph. To find out what would sell, have free time to visit dance halls “several nights a
publishers had musicians play at New York’s working- week.” New dances like the Bunny Hug and Grizzly
class beer gardens and dance halls. One publishing Bear were overtly sexual: they called for close body
agent, who visited “sixty joints a week” to test new songs, contact and plenty of hip movement. In fact, many of
declared that “the best songs came from the gutter.” these dances originated in brothels. Despite widespread
African American musicians brought a syncopated denunciation, dance mania quickly spread from the
beat that began, by the 1890s, to work its way into urban working classes to rural and middle-class youth.
mainstream hits like “A Hot Time in the Old Town By the 1910s, black music was achieving a central
Tonight.” Black performers became stars in their own place in American popular culture. African American
right with the rise of ragtime. This music, apparently trumpet player and bandleader W. C. Handy, born in
named for its ragged rhythm, combined a steady beat Alabama, electrified national audiences by performing
in the bass (played with the left hand on the piano) music drawn from the cotton fields of the Mississippi
with syncopated, off-beat rhythms in the treble (played Delta. Made famous when it reached the big city, this
music became known as the blues. Blues music spoke practical necessity. “If I did not have a man,” declared
of hard work and heartbreak, as in Handy’s popular hit one waitress, “I could not get along on my wages.” In
“St. Louis Blues” (1914): the anonymous city, there was not always a clear line
between working-class treats and casual prostitution.
Got de St. Louis Blues jes blue as I can be,
Dating and casual sex were hallmarks of an urban
Dat man got a heart lak a rock cast in the sea,
Or else he wouldn’t gone so far from me. world in which large numbers of residents were young
and single. The 1900 census found that more than
Blues spoke to the emotional lives of young urbanites 20 percent of women in Detroit, Philadelphia, and
who were far from home, experiencing dislocation, Boston lived as boarders and lodgers, not in family
loneliness, and bitter disappointment along with the units; the percentage topped 30 percent in St. Paul and
thrills of city life. Like Coney Island and other leisure Minneapolis. Single men also found social opportuni-
activities, ragtime and blues helped forge new collec- ties in the city. One historian has called the late nine-
tive experiences in a world of strangers. teenth century the Age of the Bachelor, a time when
Ragtime and blues spread quickly and had a pro- being an unattached male lost its social stigma. With
found influence on twentieth-century American cul- boardinghouses, restaurants, and abundant personal
ture. By the time Handy published “St. Louis Blues,” services, the city afforded bachelors all the comforts of
composer Irving Berlin, a Russian Jewish immigrant, home and, on top of that, an array of men’s clubs,
was introducing altered ragtime pieces into musical saloons, and sporting events.
theater — which eventually transferred to radio and Many industrial cities developed robust gay sub-
film. Lyrics often featured sexual innuendo, as in the cultures. New York’s gay underground, for example,
title of Berlin’s hit song “If You Don’t Want My Peaches included an array of drinking and meeting places, as
(You’d Better Stop Shaking My Tree).” The popularity well as clubs and drag balls. Middle-class men, both
of such music marked the arrival of modern youth cul- straight and gay, frequented such venues for entertain-
ture. Its enduring features included “crossover” music ment or to find companionship. One medical student
that originated in the black working class and a com- remembered being taken to a ball at which he was
mercial music industry that brazenly appropriated startled to find five hundred gay and lesbian couples
African American musical styles. waltzing to “a good band.” By the 1910s, the word queer
had come into use as slang for homosexual. Though
Sex and the City In the city, many young people harassment was frequent and moral reformers like
found parental oversight weaker than it had been Anthony Comstock issued regular denunciations of sex-
before. Amusement parks and dance halls helped fos- ual “degeneracy,” arrests were few. Gay sex shows and
ter the new custom of dating, which like other cultural saloons were lucrative for those who ran them (and for
innovations emerged first among the working class. police, who took bribes to look the other way, just as
Gradually, it became acceptable for a young man to they did for brothels). The exuberant gay urban subcul-
escort a young woman out on the town for commercial ture offered a dramatic challenge to Victorian ideals.
entertainments rather than spending time at home
under a chaperone’s watchful eye. Dating opened a new High Culture For elites, the rise of great cities offered
world of pleasure, sexual adventure, and danger. Young an opportunity to build museums, libraries, and other
women headed to dance halls alone to meet men; the cultural institutions that could flourish only in major
term gold digger came into use to describe a woman who metropolitan centers. Millionaires patronized the arts
wanted a man’s money more than the man himself. partly to advance themselves socially but also out of a
But young women, not men, proved most vulner- sense of civic duty and national pride. As early as the
able in the system of dating. Having less money to 1870s, symphony orchestras emerged in Boston and
spend because they earned half or less of men’s wages, New York. Composers and conductors soon joined
working-class girls relied on the “treat.” Some tried to Europe in new experiments. The Metropolitan Opera,
maintain strict standards of respectability, keenly founded in 1883 by wealthy businessmen, drew enthusi-
aware that their prospects for marriage depended on a astic crowds to hear the innovative work of Richard
virtuous reputation. Others became so-called charity Wagner. In 1907, the Met shocked audiences by present-
girls, eager for a good time. Such young women, one ing Richard Strauss’s sexually scandalous opera Salome.
investigator reported, “offer themselves to strangers, Art museums and natural history museums also
not for money, but for presents, attention and plea- became prominent new institutions in this era. The
sure.” For some women, sexual favors were a matter of nation’s first major art museum, the Corcoran Gallery
of Art, opened in Washington, D.C., in 1869, while New the corruption afflicting America’s urban governments.
York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art settled into its per- Steffens used dramatic language to expose “swindling”
manent home in 1880. In the same decades, public politicians. He claimed, for example, that the mayor of
libraries grew from modest collections into major urban Minneapolis had turned his city over to “outlaws.” In
institutions. The greatest library benefactor was steel St. Louis, “bribery was a joke,” while Pittsburgh’s Demo-
magnate Andrew Carnegie, who announced in 1881 cratic Party operated a private company that handled
that he would build a library in any town or city that most of the city’s street-paving projects — at a hefty
was prepared to maintain it. By 1907, Carnegie had profit. Historians now believe that Steffens and other
spent more than $32.7 million to establish over a thou- middle-class crusaders took a rather extreme view
sand libraries throughout the United States. of urban politics; the reality was more complex. But
charges of corruption could hardly be denied. As
Urban Journalism Patrons of Carnegie’s libraries industrial cities grew with breathtaking speed, they
could read, in addition to books, an increasing array of posed a serious problem of governance.
mass-market newspapers. Joseph Pulitzer, owner of
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and New York World, led the
way in building his sales base with sensational investi- Urban Machines
gations, human-interest stories, and targeted sections In the United States, cities relied largely on private
covering sports and high society. By the 1890s, Pulitzer developers to build streetcar lines and provide urgently
faced a challenge from William Randolph Hearst needed water, gas, and electricity. This preference for
(Thinking Like a Historian, p. 620). The arrival of business solutions gave birth to what one urban his-
Sunday color comics featuring the “Yellow Kid” gave torian calls the “private city” — an urban environment
such publications the name yellow journalism, a derog- shaped by individuals and profit-seeking businesses.
atory term for mass-market newspapers. Hearst’s and Private enterprise, Americans believed, spurred great
Pulitzer’s sensational coverage was often irresponsible. innovations — trolley cars, electric lighting, skyscrap-
In the late 1890s, for example, their papers helped whip ers — and drove urban real estate development. Invest-
up frenzied pressure for the United States to declare ment opportunities looked so tempting, in fact, that
war against Spain (Chapter 21). But Hearst and Pulitzer new cities sprang up almost overnight from the ruins
also exposed scandals and injustices. They believed of a catastrophic Chicago fire in 1871 and a major San
their papers should challenge the powerful by speaking Francisco earthquake in 1906. Real estate interests
to and for ordinary Americans. were often instrumental in encouraging streetcar lines
Along with Hearst’s and Pulitzer’s stunt reporters, to build outward from the central districts.
other urban journalists also worked to promote reform. When contractors sought city business, or saloon-
New magazines such as McClure’s introduced national keepers needed licenses, they turned to political
audiences to reporters such as Ida Tarbell, who exposed machines: local party bureaucracies that kept an
the machinations of John D. Rockefeller, and David unshakable grip on both elected and appointed public
Graham Phillips, whose “Treason of the Senate,” pub- offices. A machine like New York’s infamous Tammany
lished in Cosmopolitan in 1906, documented the defer- Society — known by the name of its meeting place,
ence of U.S. senators — especially Republicans — to Tammany Hall — consisted of layers of political func-
wealthy corporate interests. Theodore Roosevelt dis- tionaries. At the bottom were precinct captains who
missed such writers as muckrakers who focused too knew every city neighborhood and block; above them
much on the negative side of American life. The term were ward bosses and, at the top, powerful citywide
stuck, but muckrakers’ influence was profound. They leaders, who had usually started at the bottom and
inspired thousands of readers to get involved in reform worked their way up. Machines dispensed jobs and
movements and tackle the problems caused by patronage, arranged for urban services, and devoted
industrialization. their energies to staying in office, which they did, year
after year, on the strength of their political clout and
popularity among urban voters.
Governing the Great City For constituents, political machines acted as a
rough-and-ready social service agency, providing jobs
One of the most famous muckrakers was Lincoln for the jobless or a helping hand for a bereaved family.
Steffens, whose book The Shame of the Cities (1904), Tammany ward boss George Washington Plunkitt,
first published serially in McClure’s magazine, denounced for example, reported that he arranged housing for
THINKING LIKE
A HISTORIAN
Among the businesses that served urban consumers were mass-market news-
Making Mass Media: papers. Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World led the way in the 1880s; a decade
later Pulitzer had a powerful rival in the New York Journal, owned by William
Newspaper Empires Randolph Hearst.
1. R. F. Outcault’s “The Yellow Kid” comic, The World, much abused piece of bronze called the “BARTHOLDI
August 9, 1896. Pulitzer and Hearst introduced statue.” It begins to look as if the World may nurse it to a
Sunday color comics, including “The Yellow Kid” successful termination by raising funds enough through
(shown here on a bicycle). Working-class readers public contributions to complete the pedestal upon which
instantly recognized the “kid,” slang that then it is to stand. Success to the enterprise.
referred to working-class immigrant children. The
Kid, like other boys of his age, wore skirts; tene-
ment toddlers’ heads were shaved to discourage 3. “HOMELESS, HOPELESS! Nellie Bly in a Night
lice. Haunt of the City’s Wretchedest of Women,” New
York World, February 9, 1896. Pulitzer and Hearst
hired many “stunt reporters.” The most famous
was Elizabeth Jane Cochrane, who took her pen
name, Nellie Bly, from a popular song. In 1892,
sponsored by the World, Bly beat the record in
Jules Verne’s famous novel Around the World
in Eighty Days, circumnavigating the world in
seventy-two days. She filed many investigative
pieces such as this one.
An old woman stood with her back against the side of a
building. Over her head was a ragged shawl that had once
been red. Around her knees hung a limp and shapeless
calico skirt. The rain and sleet were falling steadily and
lay thick and slushy upon the streets.
I shivered as I stopped to watch. . . . If the old woman
felt the cold she gave no sign. She stood motionless, peep-
ing around the corner. Her eyes were fixed upon the door
of the Oak Street Station-House.
Just then three small boys, unmindful of the weather,
came trudging down the street . . . industriously gather-
ing every white spot that showed upon the pavement to
add to the black snowballs they held in their wet red hands.
Turning the corner suddenly they came upon the old
woman. For a second they paused and looked at her and
she glared at them. It reminded me of the way dogs
The World, Sunday, August 9, 1896.
behave when they turn a corner and espy a cat. . . . The
old woman started on a frantic hobble across the street,
2. Editorial, Wheeling Register, April 6, 1885. A West the boys after her. Their black snowballs landed squarely
Virginia newspaper commented on a campaign by and soakingly against her bent back. . . . The old woman
the New York World to complete the Statue of Lib- shouted things as she ran, things that do not sound well
erty. Parts of the statue, donated by France, were and are never by any chance reproduced in print, but they
languishing in New York City parks. seemed to increase the delight of the fiendish boys. . . .
The New York World is a liberty-loving journal. It has She could hobble she made for the station-house and the
taken the responsibility of being foster mother to that boys pursued her, pelting her.
620
4. Lewis Wickes Hine, newsboys sell-
ing at a Hartford, Connecticut
saloon, 9:30 P.M., March 1909.
In addition to subscriptions and
sales at newsstands, newspapers
sold bundles of one hundred
papers to boys and girls, who
resold as many as they could. Pho-
tographer Lewis Hine’s caption,
included below, suggests one
strategy for selling papers. Hine,
working for the National Child
Labor Committee, took many such
images.
A common case of “team work.” The
smaller boy . . . goes into one of the
saloons and sells his “last” papers. Then
comes out and his brother gives him
more. Joseph said, “Drunks are me best Library of Congress.
customers. . . . Dey buy me out so I kin
go home.” He sells every afternoon and
6. Circulation statistics for the New York World from
night. Extra late Saturday. At it again at
N. W. Ayer and Son’s American Newspaper Annual
6 a.m.
and Directory, 1910.
5. Newsboys strike coverage, New York Herald-
Tribune, July 25, 1899. As sales plummeted after Political No. of
the War of 1898, Pulitzer and other newspaper Edition affiliation Pages Circulation
titans raised the cost of a newspaper bundle, for Morning Democratic 16 361,412
children who resold them, from 50 to 60 cents. Evening Independent 12–16 410,259
Newsboys struck. They failed to get the 50-cent
Sunday Democratic 56–72 459,663
price reinstated, but the World and other compa-
nies agreed to buy back unsold papers, which they
had not done before. Kid Blink, the strike leader, Sources: (2) Wheeling Register, April 6, 1885; (3) New York World, February 9, 1896;
was blind in one eye. (5) New York Herald-Tribune, July 25, 1899; (6) N. W. Ayer and Son’s American
Newspaper Annual and Directory (Philadelphia: N. W. Ayer and Son, 1910), 623.
The newsboys’ strike gathered new strength last night in a
monster mass meeting held at New Irving Hall. . . . “Kid”
Blink, who has been made Grand Master Workman of the
ANALYZING THE EVIDENCE
union, led the procession. . . . The unbiased spectator last
1. Based on these sources, why do you think “yellow jour-
evening could not fail to be impressed with the resolute, nalism” was popular and profitable? What audiences did
manly fight the little fellows are making. . . . it serve, and how?
SPEECH OF “KID” BLINK 2. Consider the tone and point of view of sources 1, 3,
. . . Dis is de time when we’se got to stick togedder like and 5. What do they suggest about American attitudes
toward the urban poor?
glue! But der’s one ting I want ter say before I goes any
3. What do these sources say about how Pulitzer and
furder. I don’t believe in getting’ no feller’s papers frum Hearst viewed their role as publishers? How might we
him and tearin’ ’em up. I know I done it. (Cries of “You compare their newspaper empires to other corporations
bet you did!”) But I’m sorry fer it. No! der ain’t nuttin in of the industrial era (Chapter 17)?
dat. We know wot we wants and we’ll git it. . . . Dem 10
cents is as good ter us as to de millionaires — maybe bet- PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
ter. . . . We’ll strike and restrike till we get it. . . . We’ll Write a brief essay in which you explain the ways in which
the rise of mass-market newspapers might have contributed
stick togedder like plaster, won’t we, boys? to and helped to publicize calls for progressive reform.
The boys answered that they would.
621
families after their apartments burned, “fix[ing] them To see a longer excerpt of the Jane Addams essay,
up until they get things runnin’ again.” Plunkitt was an along with other primary sources from this period,
Irishman, and so were most Tammany Hall leaders. see Sources for America’s History.
But by the 1890s, Plunkitt’s Fifteenth District was fill-

ing up with Italians and Russian Jews. On a given day Machine-style governments achieved some notable
(as recorded in his diary), he might attend an Italian successes. They arranged (at a profit) for companies to
funeral in the afternoon and a Jewish wedding in the operate streetcars, bring clean water and gaslight, and
evening. Wherever he went, he brought gifts, listened remove garbage. Nowhere in the world were there
to his constituents’ troubles, and offered a helping more massive public projects — aqueducts, sewage sys-
hand. tems, bridges, and spacious parks — than in the great
The favors dispensed by men like Plunkitt came cities of the United States. The nature of this achieve-
via a system of boss control that was, as Lincoln ment can be grasped by comparing Chicago, Illinois,
Steffens charged, corrupt. Though rural, state, and with Berlin, the capital of Germany, in 1900. At that
national politics were hardly immune to such prob- time, Chicago’s waterworks pumped 500 million gal-
lems, cities offered flagrant opportunities for bribes lons of water a day, providing 139 gallons per resident;
and kickbacks. The level of corruption, as Plunkitt Berliners made do with 18 gallons each. Flush toilets, a
observed, was greater in cities, “accordin’ to the oppor- rarity in Berlin, could be found in 60 percent of Chicago
tunities.” When politicians made contracts for city ser- homes. Chicago lit its streets with electricity, while
vices, some of the money ended up in their pockets. In Berlin still relied mostly on gaslight. Chicago had twice
the 1860s, William Marcy Tweed, known as Boss as many parks as the German capital, and it had just
Tweed, had made Tammany Hall a byword for corrup- completed an ambitious sanitation project that reversed
tion, until he was brought down in 1871 by flagrant the course of the Chicago River, carrying sewage into
overpricing of contracts for a lavish city courthouse. Lake Michigan, away from city residents.
Thereafter, machine corruption became more surrep- These achievements were remarkable, because
titious. Plunkitt declared that he had no need for American municipal governments labored under
outright bribes. He favored what he called “honest severe political constraints. Judges did grant cities
graft” — the profits that came to savvy insiders who some authority: in 1897, for example, New York’s state
knew where and when to buy land. Plunkitt made supreme court ruled that New York City was entirely
most of his money building wharves on Manhattan’s within its rights to operate a municipally owned sub-
waterfront. way. Use of private land was also subject to whatever
Middle-class reformers condemned immigrants regulations a city might impose. But, starting with an
for supporting machines. But urban immigrants 1868 ruling in Iowa, the American legal system largely
believed that few middle-class Americans cared classified the city as a “corporate entity” subject to state
about the plight of poor city folk like themselves. control. In contrast to state governments, cities had
Machines were hardly perfect, but immigrants could only a limited police power, which they could use, for
rely on them for jobs, emergency aid, and the only example, to stop crime but not to pass more ambitious
public services they could hope to obtain. Astute com- measures for public welfare. States, not cities, held
mentators saw that bosses dominated city government most taxation power and received most public reve-
because they provided what was needed, with no nues. Machines and their private allies flourished, in
condescending moral judgments. As reformer Jane part, because cities were starved for legitimate cash.
Addams put it, the ward boss was a “stalking survival Thus money talked; powerful economic interests
of village kindness.” Voters knew he was corrupt, warped city government. Working-class residents —
but on election day they might say, “Ah, well, he has even those loyal to their local machines — knew that
a big Irish heart. He is good to the widow and the the newest electric lights and best trolley lines served
fatherless,” or, “he knows the poor.” Addams con- affluent neighborhoods, where citizens had the most
cluded that middle-class reform- clout. Hilda Satt, a Polish immigrant who moved into a
EXPLAIN ers would only make headway if poor Chicago neighborhood in 1893, recalled garbage-
CONSEQUENCES they set aside their prejudices, strewn streets and filthy backyard privies. “The streets
Why, given that everyone learned to “stand by and for and were paved with wooden blocks,” she later wrote, “and
agreed machines were with the people,” and did a bet- after a heavy rainfall the blocks would become loose
corrupt, did urban voters
ter job of it than the machine and float about in the street.” She remembered that
support them?
bosses did. on one such occasion, local pranksters posted a sign
City Garbage
“How to get rid of the garbage?” was a question that bedeviled every American city. The difficulties of keep-
ing up are all too clear in this ground-level photograph by the great urban investigator Jacob Riis, looking
down Tammany Street in New York City around 1890. Museum of the City of New York.
saying, “The Mayor and the Aldermen are Invited to had abolished the early-nineteenth-century system of
Swim Here.” As cities expanded, the limitations of outdoor relief, which provided public support for the
political machines became increasingly clear. indigent. Fearing the system promoted laziness among
the poor, middle-class reformers had insisted on pri-
vate, not public, charity. Even cities that continued to
The Limits of Machine Government provide outdoor relief in the 1890s were overwhelmed
The scale of urban problems became dramatically evi- by the magnitude of the crisis. Flooded with “tramps,”
dent in the depression of the 1890s, when unemploy- police stations were forced to end the long-standing
ment reached a staggering 25 percent in some cities. practice of allowing homeless individuals to sleep inside.
Homelessness and hunger were rampant; newspapers Faced with this crisis, many urban voters proved
nationwide reported on cases of starvation, despera- none too loyal to the machines when better alterna-
tion, and suicide. To make matters worse, most cities tives arose. Cleveland, Ohio, for example, experienced
eighty-three labor strikes between 1893 and 1898. vegetable gardens. Though some people ridiculed
Workers’ frustration centered on corrupt businesses “Pingree’s Potato Patches,” the gardens helped feed
with close ties to municipal officials. The city’s Central thousands of Detroit’s working people during the
Labor Union, dissatisfied with Democrats’ failure to harsh depression years. By 1901, a coalition of reform-
address its concerns, worked with middle-class allies ers who campaigned against New York’s Tammany
to build a thriving local branch of the People’s Party Hall began to borrow ideas from Pingree and other
(Chapter 20). Their demands for stronger government mayors. In the wealthier wards of New York, they
measures, especially to curb corporate power, culmi- promised to reduce crime and save taxpayer dollars.
nated in citywide protests in 1899 during a strike In working-class neighborhoods, they vowed to pro-
against the hated streetcar company. That year, more vide affordable housing and municipal ownership of
than eight thousand workers participated in the city’s gas and electricity. They defeated Tammany’s candi-
annual Labor Day parade. As they passed the mayor’s dates, and though they did not fulfill all of their prom-
reviewing stand, the bands fell silent and the unions ises, they did provide more funding for overcrowded
furled their flags in a solemn protest against the may- public schools.
or’s failure to support their cause. Reformers also experimented with new ways of
To recapture support from working-class Cleve- organizing municipal government itself. After a devas-
landers, Democrats made a dramatic change in 1901, tating hurricane in 1900 killed an estimated six thou-
nominating Tom Johnson for mayor. Johnson, a sand people in Galveston, Texas, and destroyed much
reform-minded businessman, advocated municipal of the city, rebuilders adopted a commission system
ownership of utilities and a tax system in which that became a nationwide model for efficient govern-
“monopoly and privilege” bore the main burdens. ment. Leaders of the National Municipal League advised
(Johnson once thanked Cleveland’s city appraisers for cities to elect small councils and hire professional city
raising taxes on his own mansion.) Johnson’s comfort- managers who would direct operations like a corporate
able victory transformed Democrats into Cleveland’s executive. The league had difficulty persuading politi-
leading reform party. While the new mayor did not ful- cians to adopt its business-oriented model; it won its
fill the whole agenda of the Central Labor Union and greatest victories in young, small cities like Phoenix,
its allies, he became an advocate of publicly owned util- Arizona, where the professional classes held political
ities, and one of the nation’s most famous and innova- power. Other cities chose, instead, to enhance demo-
tive reformers. cratic participation. As part of the Oregon System,
Like Johnson, other mayors began to oust machines which called for direct voting on key political ques-
and launch ambitious programs of reform. Some mod- tions, Portland voters participated in 129 municipal
eled their municipal governments on those of Glasgow, referendum votes between 1905 and 1913.
Scotland; Düsseldorf, Germany; and other European
cities on the cutting edge of innovation. In Boston,
Mayor Josiah Quincy built public baths, gyms, swim-
ming pools, and playgrounds and provided free public Crucibles of Progressive
concerts. Like other mayors, he battled streetcar com-
panies to bring down fares. The scope of such projects
Reform
varied. In 1912, San Francisco managed to open one The challenges posed by urban life presented rich
small municipally owned streetcar line to compete opportunities for experimentation and reform. As hap-
with private companies. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on the pened in Cleveland with Tom Johnson’s election as
other hand, elected socialists who experimented with a mayor, working-class radicals and middle-class reform-
sweeping array of measures, including publicly subsi- ers often mounted simultaneous challenges to political
dized medical care and housing. machines, and these combined pressures led to dra-
Republican Hazen Pingree, matic change. Many reformers pointed to the plight of
PLACE EVENTS mayor of Detroit from 1890 to the urban poor, especially children. Thus it is not sur-
IN CONTEXT 1897, was a particularly noted prising that progressivism, an overlapping set of move-
How did reformers try reformer who worked for better ments to combat the ills of industrialization (Chapter
to address the limits of streets and public transportation. 20), had important roots in the city. In the slums and
machine government? During the depression, Pingree tenements of the metropolis, reformers invented new
To what extent did they
opened a network of vacant forms of civic participation that shaped the course of
succeed?
city-owned lots as community national politics.
Fighting Dirt and Vice researchers could not yet cure

IDENTIFY CAUSES
epidemic diseases, they could rec- What prompted the rise
As early as the 1870s and 1880s, news reporters drew
ommend effective measures for of urban environmental
attention to corrupt city governments, the abuse of
prevention. Following up on New and antiprostitution cam-
power by large corporations, and threats to public
York City’s victory against cholera paigns?
health. Researcher Helen Campbell reported on tene-
in 1866 — when government offi-
ment conditions in such exposés as Prisoners of
cials instituted an effective quarantine and prevented
Poverty (1887). Making innovative use of the inven-
large numbers of deaths — city and state officials began
tion of flash photography, Danish-born journalist
to champion more public health projects. With a major
Jacob Riis included photographs of tenement interiors
clean-water initiative for its industrial cities in the
in his famous 1890 book, How the Other Half Lives.
late nineteenth century, Massachusetts demonstrated
Riis had a profound influence on Theodore Roosevelt
that it could largely eliminate typhoid fever. After a
when the future president served as New York City’s
horrific yellow fever epidemic in 1878 that killed per-
police commissioner. Roosevelt asked Riis to lead him
haps 12 percent of its population, Memphis, Tennessee,
on tours around the tenements, to help him better
invested in state-of-the-art sewage and drainage.
understand the problems of poverty, disease, and
Though the new system did not eliminate yellow fever,
crime.
it unexpectedly cut death rates from typhoid and chol-
era, as well as infant deaths from water-borne disease.
Cleaning Up Urban Environments One of the Other cities followed suit. By 1913, a nationwide sur-
most urgent problems of the big city was disease. In the vey of 198 cities found that they were spending an
late nineteenth century, scientists in Europe came to average of $1.28 per resident for sanitation and other
understand the role of germs and bacteria. Though health measures.
A Hint to Boards of Health

In 1884, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper
urged municipal and state boards of health
to work harder to protect urban children.
When this cartoon appeared, New Yorkers
were reading shocking reports of milk deal-
ers who diluted milk with borax and other
chemicals. Note the range of health threats
that the cartoonist identifies. Rutherford B.
Hayes Presidential Center.
The public health movement became one of the Park, where city people could stroll, rest, and contem-
era’s most visible and influential reforms. In cities, the plate natural landscapes. By the turn of the twentieth
impact of pollution was obvious. Children played on century, the “City Beautiful” movement arose to advo-
piles of garbage, breathed toxic air, and consumed poi- cate more and better urban park spaces. Though most
soned food, milk, and water. Infant mortality rates parks still featured flower gardens and tree-lined paths,
were shocking: in the early 1900s, a baby born to a they also made room for skating rinks, tennis courts,
Slavic woman in an American city had a 1 in 3 chance baseball fields, and swimming pools. Many included
of dying in infancy. Outraged, reformers mobilized to play areas with swing sets and seesaws, promoted by
demand safe water and better garbage collection. the National Playground Association as a way to keep
Hygiene reformers taught hand-washing and other urban children safe and healthy.
techniques to fight the spread of tuberculosis.
Americans worked in other ways to make indus- Closing Red Light Districts Distressed by the
trial cities healthier and more beautiful to live in. Many commercialization of sex, reformers also launched a
municipalities adopted smoke-abatement laws, though campaign against urban prostitution. They warned, in
they had limited success with enforcement until the dramatic language, of the threat of white slavery, alleg-
post–World War I adoption of natural gas, which ing (in spite of considerable evidence to the contrary)
burned cleaner than coal. Recreation also received that large numbers of young white women were being
attention. Even before the Civil War, urban planners kidnapped and forced into prostitution. In The City’s
had established sanctuaries like New York’s Central Perils (1910), author Leona Prall Groetzinger wrote
The Crusade Against “White Slavery”

With the growth of large cities, prostitution was a
major cause of concern in the Progressive Era. Though
the number of sex workers per capita in the United
States was probably declining by 1900, the presence
of red light districts was obvious; thousands of young
women (as well as a smaller number of young men)
were exploited in the sex trade. This image appeared
in The Great War on White Slavery, published by the
American Purity Foundation in 1911. It illustrates how
immigrant women could be ensnared in the sex trade
by alleged “friends” who offered them work. Reformers’
denunciations of “white slavery” show an overt racial
bias: while antiprostitution campaigners reported on
the exploitation of Asian and African American women,
the victimization of white women received the greatest
emphasis and most effectively grabbed the attention of
prosperous, middle-class Americans. From The Great War
on White Slavery, by Clifford G. Roe, 1911. Courtesy Vassar
College Special Collections.
that young women arrived from the countryside “burn- The crusade against prostitution accomplished its
ing with high hope and filled with great resolve, but the main goal, closing brothels, but in the long term it
remorseless city takes them, grinds them, crushes worsened the conditions under which many prosti-
them, and at last deposits them in unknown graves.” tutes worked. Though conditions in some brothels
Practical investigators found a more complex real- were horrific, sex workers who catered to wealthy
ity: women entered prostitution as a result of many fac- clients made high wages and were relatively protected
tors, including low-wage jobs, economic desperation, by madams, many of whom set strict rules for clients
abandonment, and often sexual and domestic abuse. and provided medical care for their workers. In the
Women who bore a child out of wedlock were often wake of brothel closings, such women lost control of
shunned by their families and forced into prostitution. the prostitution business. Instead, almost all sex work-
Some working women and even housewives under- ers became “streetwalkers” or “call girls,” more vulner-
took casual prostitution to make ends meet. For decades, able to violence and often earning lower wages than
female reformers had tried to “rescue” such women they had before the antiprostitution crusade began.
and retrain them for more respectable employments,
such as sewing. Results were, at best, mixed. Efforts to
curb demand — that is, to focus on arresting and pun- The Movement for Social Settlements
ishing men who employed prostitutes — proved unpop- Some urban reformers focused their energies on build-
ular with voters. ing a creative new institution, the social settlement.
Nonetheless, with public concern mounting over These community welfare centers investigated the
“white slavery” and the payoffs machine bosses exacted plight of the urban poor, raised funds to address urgent
from brothel keepers, many cities appointed vice com- needs, and helped neighborhood residents advocate on
missions in the early twentieth century. A wave of their own behalf. At the movement’s peak in the early
brothel closings crested between 1909 and 1912, as twentieth century, dozens of social settlements oper-
police shut down red light districts in cities nation- ated across the United States. The most famous, and
wide. Meanwhile, Congress passed the Mann Act one of the first, was Hull House on Chicago’s West Side,
(1910) to prohibit the transportation of prostitutes founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and her companion
across state lines. Ellen Gates Starr. Their dilapidated mansion, flanked
Hull House Playground,

Chicago, 1906
When this postcard was made,
the City of Chicago’s Small Parks
Commission had just taken over
management of the playground
from settlement workers at Hull
House, who had created it. In a
pattern repeated in many cities,
social settlements introduced
new institutions and ideas —
such as safe places for urban
children to play — and inspired
municipal authorities to assume
responsibility and control. Picture
Research Consultants & Archives.
by saloons in a neighborhood council. The women, Addams wrote, had shown “civic
TRACE CHANGE
of Italian and Eastern European enterprise and moral conviction” in carrying out the
OVER TIME
immigrants, served as a spark project themselves.
What were the origins
of social settlements, and plug for community improve- Social settlements took many forms. Some attached
how did they develop ment and political reform. themselves to preexisting missions and African Ameri-
over time? The idea for Hull House came can colleges. Others were founded by energetic college
partly from Toynbee Hall, a graduates. Catholics ran St. Elizabeth Center in St.
London settlement that Addams and Starr had visited Louis; Jews, the Boston Hebrew Industrial School.
while touring Europe. Social settlements also drew Whatever their origins, social settlements were, in
inspiration from U.S. urban missions of the 1870s and Addams’s words, “an experimental effort to aid in the
1880s. Some of these, like the Hampton Institute, had solution of the social and industrial problems which
aided former slaves during Reconstruction; others, like are engendered by the modern condition of life in a
Grace Baptist in Philadelphia, arose in northern cities. great city.”
To meet the needs of urban residents, missions offered Settlements served as a springboard for many other
employment counseling, medical clinics, day care cen- projects. Settlement workers often fought city hall to get
ters, and sometimes athletic facilities in cooperation better schools and lobbied state legislatures for new
with the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). workplace safety laws. At Hull House, Hamilton inves-
Jane Addams, a daughter of the middle class, first tigated lead poisoning and other health threats at local
expected Hull House to offer art classes and other cul- factories. Her colleague Julia Lathrop investigated the
tural programs for the poor. But Addams’s views plight of teenagers caught in the criminal justice system.
quickly changed as she got to know her new neighbors She drafted a proposal for separate juvenile courts and
and struggled to keep Hull House open during the persuaded Chicago to adopt it. Pressuring the city to
depression of the 1890s. Addams’s views were also experiment with better rehabilitation strategies for juve-
influenced by conversations with fellow Hull House niles convicted of crime, Lathrop created a model for
resident Florence Kelley, who had studied in Europe juvenile court systems across the United States.
and returned a committed socialist. Dr. Alice Hamilton, Another example of settlements’ long-term impact
who opened a pediatric clinic at Hull House, wrote that was the work of Margaret Sanger, a nurse who moved
Addams came to see her settlement as “a bridge to New York City in 1911 and volunteered with a Lower
between the classes. . . . She always held that this bridge East Side settlement. Horrified by women’s suffering
was as much of a help to the well-to-do as to the poor.” from constant pregnancies — and remembering her
Settlements offered idealistic young people “a place devout Catholic mother, who had died young after
where they could live as neighbors and give as much as bearing eleven children — Sanger launched a crusade
they could of what they had.” for what she called birth control. Her newspaper col-
Addams and her colleagues believed that working- umn, “What Every Girl Should Know,” soon garnered
class Americans already knew what they needed. What an indictment for violating obscenity laws. The public-
they lacked were resources to fulfill those needs, as well ity that resulted helped Sanger launch a national birth
as a political voice. These, settlement workers tried to control movement.
provide. Hull House was typical in offering a bath- Settlements were thus a crucial proving ground for
house, playground, kindergarten, and day care center. many progressive experiments, as well as for the emerg-
Some settlements opened libraries and gymnasiums; ing profession of social work, which transformed the
others operated penny savings banks and cooperative provision of public welfare. Social workers rejected the
kitchens where tired mothers could purchase a meal at older model of private Christian charity, dispensed by
the end of the day. (Addams humbly closed the Hull well-meaning middle-class volunteers to those in need.
House kitchen when she found that her bland New Instead, social workers defined themselves as profes-
England cooking had little appeal for Italians; her sional caseworkers who served as advocates of social
coworker, Dr. Alice Hamilton, soon investigated the justice. Like many reformers of the era, they allied
health benefits of garlic.) At the Henry Street Settle- themselves with the new social sciences, such as soci-
ment in New York, Lillian Wald organized visiting ology and economics, and undertook statistical surveys
nurses to improve health in tenement wards. Addams, and other systematic methods for gathering facts. Social
meanwhile, encouraged local women to inspect the work proved to be an excellent opportunity for edu-
neighborhood and bring back a list of dangers to health cated women who sought professional careers. By 1920,
and safety. Together, they prepared a complaint to city women made up 62 percent of U.S. social workers.
Cities and National Politics

Despite reform efforts, the problems wrought by indus-
trialization continued to cause suffering in urban
workplaces and environments. In 1906, journalist
Upton Sinclair exposed some of the most extreme
forms of labor exploitation in his novel The Jungle,
which described appalling conditions in Chicago meat-
packing plants. What caught the nation’s attention was
not Sinclair’s account of workers’ plight, but his descrip-
tions of rotten meat and filthy packing conditions.
With constituents up in arms, Congress passed the
Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) and created the federal
Food and Drug Administration to oversee compliance
with the new law.
The impact of The Jungle showed how urban
reformers could affect national politics. Even more
significant was the work of Josephine Shaw Lowell, a
Civil War widow from a prominent family. After years
of struggling to aid poverty-stricken individuals in
New York City, Lowell concluded that charity was not
enough. In 1890, she helped found the New York
Consumers’ League to improve wages and working
conditions for female store clerks. The league encour-
aged shoppers to patronize only stores where wages
and working conditions were known to be fair. By
1899, the organization had become the National Con-
The Jungle
sumers’ League (NCL). At its head stood the outspo-
This poster advertises a 1914 silent film based on Sinclair’s
ken and skillful Florence Kelley, a Hull House worker reform novel, which tells the story of Lithuanian immigrants
and former chief factory inspector of Illinois. Kelley struggling to get by amid the dangerous work, starvation
believed that only government oversight could protect wages, and abysmal living conditions of Chicago’s meat-
packing district. The film launched the film careers of actors
exploited workers. Under her crusading leadership, the
George Nash and Gail Kane, who played the hero, Jurgis
NCL became one of the most powerful progressive Rutkus, and his wife, Ona. Sinclair himself appeared at
organizations advocating worker protection laws. the start of the film, explaining how he conducted research
Many labor organizations also began in a single for his story. Socialist clubs often screened the film, which
ended — like the book — with a ringing call for workers to
city and then grew to national stature. One famous organize and create a “cooperative commonwealth” to take
example was the Women’s Trade Union League, founded control of their conditions of life and work. Courtesy Lilly Library,
in New York in 1903. Financed by wealthy women who Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.
supported its work, the league trained working-class
leaders like Rose Schneiderman, who organized unions
among garment workers. Although often frustrated by on March 25, 1911. On that Saturday afternoon, just
the patronizing attitude of elite sponsors, trade-union before quitting time, a fire broke out at the Triangle
women joined together in the broader struggle for Shirtwaist Company. It quickly spread through the
women’s rights. When New York State held referenda three floors the company occupied at the top of a ten-
on women’s suffrage in 1915 and 1917, strong support story building. Panicked workers discovered that,
came from Jewish and Italian precincts where union- despite fire safety laws, employers had locked the emer-
ized garment workers lived. Working-class voters hoped, gency doors to prevent theft. Dozens of Triangle work-
in turn, that enfranchised women would use their bal- ers, mostly young immigrant women, were trapped in
lots to help industrial workers. the flames. Many leaped to their deaths; the rest never
Residents of industrial cities, then, sought allies in reached the windows. The average age of the 146
state and national politics. The need for broader action people who died was just nineteen (American Voices,
was made clear in New York City by a shocking event p. 630).
AMERICAN
VOICES
“These Dead Bodies Entire books have been written about the catastrophic 1911 fire at the Triangle
Shirtwaist Company in New York City. The following excerpts are from docu-
ments by four contemporaries who in various ways played a part in the Triangle
Were the Answer”: tragedy and its aftermath. Note the different audiences that these speakers and
authors were addressing and the lessons that each one draws from this horrific
The Triangle Fire event.
William G. Shepherd, Reporter This was not an inevitable disaster which man could nei-
William G. Shepherd’s eyewitness account appeared in ther foresee nor control. We might have foreseen it, and
newspapers across the country. Working for the United some of us did; we might have controlled it, but we chose
Press, Shepherd phoned the story to his editor as he not to do so. . . . It is not a question of enforcement of law
watched the unfolding tragedy. nor of inadequacy of law. We have the wrong kind of laws
and the wrong kind of enforcement. Before insisting upon
I was walking through Washington Square when a puff inspection and enforcement, let us lift up the industrial
of smoke issuing from a factory building caught my eye. standards so as to make conditions worth inspecting, and,
I reached the building before the alarm was turned in. I if inspected, certain to afford security to workers. . . . And
saw every feature of the tragedy visible from outside the when we go before the legislature of the state, and demand
building. I learned a new sound — a more horrible sound increased appropriations in order to ensure the possibility
than description can picture. It was the thud of a speed- of a sufficient number of inspectors, we will not forever be
ing, living body on a stone sidewalk. . . . put off with the answer: We have no money.
I looked up — saw that there were scores of girls at The lesson of the hour is that while property is good,
the windows. The flames from the floor below were beat- life is better; that while possessions are valuable, life is
ing in their faces. Somehow I knew that they, too, must priceless. The meaning of the hour is that the life of the
come down, and something within me — something I lowliest worker in the nation is sacred and inviolable,
didn’t know was there — steeled me. and, if that sacred human right be violated, we shall
I even watched one girl falling. Waving her arms, stand adjudged and condemned before the tribunal
trying to keep her body upright until the very instant of God and history.
she struck the sidewalk, she was trying to balance her-
self. Then came the thud — then a silent, unmoving pile
of clothing and twisted, broken limbs. . . . Rose Schneiderman, Trade Unionist
On the sidewalk lay heaps of broken bodies. A police- Rose Schneiderman also spoke at the Metropolitan Opera
man later went about with tags, which he fastened with House meeting. At age thirteen, she had gone to work in
wire to the wrists of the dead girls, numbering each with a garment factory like Triangle Shirtwaist’s and, under the
a lead pencil, and I saw him fasten tag no. 54 to the wrist tutelage of the Women’s Trade Union League, had become
of a girl who wore an engagement ring. . . . a labor organizer. The strike she mentions in her speech
The floods of water from the firemen’s hose that ran into was popularly known as the Uprising of the 30,000, a
the gutter were actually stained red with blood. I looked nearly spontaneous walkout in 1909 that launched the
upon the heap of dead bodies and I remembered these girls union movement in the women’s garment trades.
were the shirtwaist makers. I remembered their great strike
of last year in which these same girls had demanded more I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies if I
sanitary conditions and more safety precautions in the came here to talk good fellowship. We have tried you
shops. These dead bodies were the answer. good people of the public and we have found you want-
ing. The old Inquisition had its rack and its thumbscrews
and its instruments of torture with iron teeth. We know
Stephen S. Wise, Rabbi what these things are today; the iron teeth are our neces-
A week after the fire, on April 2, 1911, a memorial meet- sities, the thumbscrews are the high-powered and swift
ing was held at the Metropolitan Opera House. One of the machinery close to which we must work, and the rack
speakers, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, a prominent figure in is here in the firetrap structures that will destroy us the
New York reform circles, made the following remarks. minute they catch on fire.
630
This is not the first time girls have been burned alive own way will you tell the jury everything you did, every-
in the city. . . . Every year thousands of us are maimed. thing you said, and everything you saw from the moment
The life of men and women is so cheap and property is you first saw flames.”
so sacred. There are so many of us for one job it matters The question was put in precisely the same words that
little if 146 of us are burned to death. the District Attorney had put it, and little Rose started her
We have tried you citizens; we are trying you now, and answer with exactly the same word that she had started it
you have a couple of dollars for the sorrowing mothers, to the District Attorney . . . and the only change in her
brothers, and sisters by way of a charity gift. But every recital was that Rose left out one word. And then Rose
time the workers come out in the only way they know was asked, “Didn’t you leave out a word that you put in
to protest against conditions which are unbearable the when you answered it before?” . . . So Rose started to
strong hand of the law is allowed to press down heavily repeat to herself the answer [laughter], and as she came to
upon us . . . [and] beats us back, when we rise, into the the missing word she said, “Oh, yes!” and supplied it; and
conditions that make life unbearable. thereupon the examiner went on to an entirely different
I can’t talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. subject. . . . [W]hen again he [asked her to repeat her
Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my expe- story] . . . Rose started with the same word and finished
rience it is up to the working people to save themselves. with the same word, her recital being identical with her
The only way they can save themselves is by a strong first reply to the same question.
working-class movement. The jurymen were not weeping. Rose had not hurt the
case, and the defendants were acquitted; there was not a
word of reflection at any time during that trial upon poor
Max D. Steuer, Lawyer
little Rose.
After finding physical evidence of the locked door that
had blocked escape from the fire, New York’s district attor- Source: Excerpt from Out of the Sweatshop: The Struggle of Industrial Democracy by
ney brought manslaughter charges against the Triangle Leon Stein, copyright © 1977 by Leon Stein. Used by permission of Quadrangle Books,
an imprint of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Any third party use of this
proprietors, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, who hired in material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly
their defense the best, highest-priced trial attorney in to Random House LLC for permission.
town, Max D. Steuer. In this talk, delivered some time later

to a rapt audience of lawyers, Steuer described how he
undermined the testimony of the key witness for the pros-
QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS
ecution by suggesting that she had been coached to recite
1. The hardest task of the historian is to conjure up the
her answer. The trial judge instructed the jury that they
reality of the past — to say, “This is what it was really
could only convict Blanck and Harris if it was certain they like.” That’s where eyewitness evidence like the reporter
had known the emergency exits were locked; as Steuer Shepherd’s comes in. What is there in his account that
notes, the jury voted to acquit. you could only obtain from an eyewitness?
2. Both Rabbi Wise and Rose Schneiderman were incensed
There are many times, many times when a witness has at the Triangle carnage, yet their speeches are quite
given evidence very hurtful to your cause and you say, different. In what ways? What conclusions do you draw
about the different motivations and arguments that led
“No questions,” and dismiss him or her in the hope that to reform?
the jury will dismiss the evidence too. [Laughter.] But can 3. Max Steuer and Rose Schneiderman came from remark-
you do that when the jury is weeping, and the little girl ably similar backgrounds. They were roughly the same
witness is weeping too? [Laughter.] . . . There is one [rule] age, grew up in poverty on the Lower East Side, and
started out as child workers in the garment factories.
that commands what not to do. Do not attack the witness.
The differences in their adult lives speak to the varieties
Suavely, politely, genially, toy with the story. of immigrant experience in America. Does anything in
In the instant case, about half an hour was consumed their statements help to account for their differing life
by the examiner [Steuer]. . . . Very little progress was paths? What might have happened if Rose Schneider-
man, rather than “little Rose,” had faced Max Steuer on
made; but the tears had stopped. And then [the witness] the witness stand?
was asked, “Now, Rose, in your own words, and in your
631
Shocked by this horrific event, that was far more ethnically, racially, and religiously
EXPLAIN
New Yorkers responded with an diverse.
CONSEQUENCES
outpouring of anger and grief that In the era of industrialization, some rural and
How did urban reform
movements impact state
crossed ethnic, class, and religious native-born commentators warned that immigrants
and national politics? boundaries. Many remembered were “inferior breeds” who would “mongrelize” Amer-
that, only a year earlier, shirtwaist ican culture. But urban political leaders defended
workers had walked off the job to protest abysmal cultural pluralism, expressing appreciation — even
safety and working conditions — and that the owners admiration — for immigrants, including Catholics and
of Triangle, among other employers, had broken the Jews, who sought a better life in the United States. At
strike. Facing demands for action, New York State the same time, urban reformers worked to improve
appointed a factory commission that developed a conditions of life for the diverse residents of American
remarkable program of labor reform: fifty-six laws cities. Cities, then, and the innovative solutions pro-
dealing with such issues as fire hazards, unsafe posed by urban leaders, held a central place in America’s
machines, and wages and working hours for women consciousness as the nation took on the task of pro-
and children. The chairman and vice chairman of the gressive reform.
commission were Robert F. Wagner and Alfred E.
Smith, both Tammany Hall politicians then serving in
the state legislature. They established the commission,
participated fully in its work, and marshaled party reg-
SUMMARY
ulars to pass the proposals into law — all with the After 1865, American cities grew at an unprecedented
approval of Tammany. The labor code that resulted was rate, and urban populations swelled with workers from
the most advanced in the United States. rural areas and abroad. To move burgeoning popula-
Tammany’s response to the Triangle fire showed tions around the city, cities pioneered innovative forms
that it was acknowledging its need for help. The social of mass transit. Skyscrapers came to mark urban sky-
and economic problems of the industrial city had out- lines, and new electric lighting systems encouraged
grown the power of party machines; only stronger nightlife. Neighborhoods divided along class and eth-
state and national laws could bar industrial firetraps, nic lines, with the working class inhabiting crowded,
alleviate sweatshop conditions, and improve slums. shoddily built tenements. Immigrants developed new
Politicians like Wagner and Smith saw that Tammany ethnic cultures in their neighborhoods, while racism
had to change or die. The fire had unforeseen further followed African American migrants from the country
consequences. Frances Perkins, a Columbia University to the city. At the same time, new forms of popular
student who witnessed the horror of Triangle workers urban culture bridged class and ethnic lines, challeng-
leaping from the windows to their deaths, decided she ing traditional sexual norms and gender roles. Popular
would devote her efforts to the cause of labor. Already journalism rose to prominence and helped build rising
active in women’s reform organizations, Perkins went sympathy for reform.
to Chicago, where she volunteered for several years Industrial cities confronted a variety of new politi-
at Hull House. In 1929, she became New York State’s cal challenges. Despite notable achievements, estab-
first commissioner of labor; four years later, during lished machine governments could not address urban
the New Deal (Chapter 23), Franklin D. Roosevelt problems through traditional means. Forward-looking
appointed her as U.S. secretary of labor — the first politicians took the initiative and implemented a range
woman to hold a cabinet post. of political, labor, and social reforms. Urban reformers
The political aftermath of the Triangle fire demon- also launched campaigns to address public health,
strated how challenges posed by industrial cities morals, and welfare. They did so through a variety of
pushed politics in new directions, transforming urban innovative institutions, most notably social settlements,
government and initiating broader movements for which brought affluent Americans into working-class
reform. The nation’s political and cultural standards neighborhoods to learn, cooperate, and advocate on
had long been set by native-born, Protestant, middle- behalf of their neighbors. Such projects began to
class Americans. By 1900, the people who thronged to increase Americans’ acceptance of urban diversity and
the great cities helped build America into a global indus- their confidence in government’s ability to solve the
trial power — and in the process, created an electorate problems of industrialization.
CHAPTER 19 CHAPTER REVIEW 633
C H A P T E R R E V I E W
M A K E I T S T I C K Go to LearningCurve to retain what you’ve read.
TERMS TO KNOW Identify and explain the significance of each term below.
Key Concepts and Events Key People

Chicago school (p. 608) progressivism (p. 624) Scott Joplin (p. 617)
mutual aid society (p. 612) “City Beautiful” movement Tom Johnson (p. 624)
race riot (p. 614) (p. 626) Jacob Riis (p. 625)
tenement (p. 614) social settlement (p. 627) Jane Addams (p. 627)
vaudeville (p. 615) Hull House (p. 627) Margaret Sanger (p. 628)
ragtime (p. 617) Pure Food and Drug Act (p. 629) Upton Sinclair (p. 629)
blues (p. 618) National Consumers’ League Florence Kelley (p. 629)
yellow journalism (p. 619) (p. 629)
muckrakers (p. 619) Women’s Trade Union League
(p. 629)
political machine (p. 619)
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (p. 629)
National Municipal League
(p. 624)
REVIEW QUESTIONS Answer these questions to demonstrate your

understanding of the chapter’s main ideas.
1. What were the major features of industrial cities 4. THEMATIC UNDERSTANDING Using the
that arose in the United States in the late nineteenth thematic timeline on page 543, consider some of
and early twentieth centuries? What institutions the ways in which mass migrations of people — both
and innovations helped make urban life from other countries and from places within the
distinctive? United States — shaped industrial cities. How did
this influence American society, culture, and
2. What were the limitations and achievements of
national identity?
urban governments run by political machines?
3. Why did so many reform initiatives of the early
twentieth century emerge in large cities? What
were some of those initiatives, and what was their
political impact?
634 PART 6 CHAPTER REVIEW
MAKING Recognize the larger developments and continuities within

CONNECTIONS and across chapters by answering these questions.
1. ACROSS TIME AND PLACE In Chapter 17 we tion? What remedies would each suggest? On what
explored the activities of agrarian reformers and points would they have disagreed? Can you imag-
labor unions who protested the impact of industri- ine any issues on which they might have worked
alization on their lives. In Chapters 18 and 19 we together? What does this suggest about the oppor-
considered the work of middle-class and urban tunities and limits of alliance building, in the late
reformers who sought to address some of the same 1800s and early 1900s, across class and geographic
conditions. Chronologically, their work over- lines?
lapped: note, for example, that Jane Addams
2. VISUAL EVIDENCE Imagine that you have just
founded Hull House in 1889, just as the Farmers’
arrived in a big American city in the early 1900s.
Alliance was reaching a peak of activism and work-
Look carefully at all the images in this chapter and
ers had organized the Knights of Labor and
group them under two categories: (1) problems and
American Federation of Labor. Imagine a conver-
dangers you might have encountered as a new
sation among the following individuals: a rural
urban resident; (2) sights and opportunities that
man or woman active in the Farmers’ Alliance; a
might have been appealing and exciting to you as a
skilled workman who joined the American
newcomer. On balance, do you think you would
Federation of Labor; an urban antiprostitution
have wanted to stay, or turn around and head back
reformer; and a middle-class volunteer who worked
home? Why? What factors might have shaped your
in a settlement house. How would each have
decision?
described the problems caused by industrializa-
MORE TO EXPLORE Start here to learn more about the events discussed in this chapter.
Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House (1910). An Ruth Rosen, The Lost Sisterhood (1982). A poignant
inspiring must-read by a great American reformer. account of Progressive Era antiprostitution campaigns
and their tragic impact on sex workers.
George Chauncey, Gay New York (1994). A ground-
breaking study of the rise of urban gay subcultures. David Von Drehle, Triangle: The Fire That Changed
America (2003). The most recent account of the fire
Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements (1986). Explores
and its consequences.
urban working-class dating and the world of young
working-class women.
Harold Platt, The Electric City (1991). A study of how
electricity shaped the urban industrial society and
economy.
CHAPTER 19 CHAPTER REVIEW 635
TIMELINE Ask yourself why this chapter begins and ends with these dates
and then identify the links among related events.
1866 t New York City contains cholera epidemic
1869 t Corcoran Gallery of Art opens in Washington, D.C.
1871 t First elevated railroad begins operation in New York
1878 t Yellow fever epidemic in Memphis, Tennessee
1883 t Metropolitan Opera opens in New York
1885 t First skyscraper completed in Chicago
1887 t First electric trolley system built in Richmond, Virginia
1889 t Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr found Hull House in Chicago
1890 t Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives
1892 t New York’s Ellis Island opens
1893 t Ragtime introduced to national audiences at Chicago World’s Fair
1897 t First subway line opened in Boston
1899 t Central Labor Union protests in Cleveland
t National Consumers’ League founded
1901 t New York passes Tenement House Law
t “City Beautiful” plan developed for Washington, D.C.
1903 t Women’s Trade Union League founded
1904 t Subway running the length of Manhattan completed
1906 t Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle published
t Food and Drug Administration established
t Atlanta race riot
1910 t Mann Act prohibits transportation of prostitutes across state lines
1911 t Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire in New York
1913 t Fifty-five-story Woolworth Building completed in New York
KEY TURNING POINTS: On the timeline above, what tipping points can you identify when
Americans began to propose political solutions for urban industrial problems? What issues did
they emphasize?

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“Civilization’s Inferno”: The Rise

trolley lines be moved off streets. The “el” or elevated

Woolworth Building, New

Lighting Up Minneapolis, 1883

The San Francisco Earthquake

MAP 19.1 E. 34th St.

Broo 0 0.25 mile

Jewish Ethnic Concentrations

The Cherry Family, 1906

York’s Tenement House Law of 1901, which required

Urban Amusements One enticing attraction was

Central Business District

Amusement Park, Long Beach, California

But by the 1890s, Plunkitt’s Fifteenth District was fill-

Fighting Dirt and Vice researchers could not yet cure

A Hint to Boards of Health

The Crusade Against “White Slavery”

Hull House Playground,

Cities and National Politics

town, Max D. Steuer. In this talk, delivered some time later

Key Concepts and Events Key People

REVIEW QUESTIONS Answer these questions to demonstrate your

MAKING Recognize the larger developments and continuities within

1866 t New York City contains cholera epidemic

1869 t Corcoran Gallery of Art opens in Washington, D.C.

1871 t First elevated railroad begins operation in New York

1878 t Yellow fever epidemic in Memphis, Tennessee

1883 t Metropolitan Opera opens in New York

1885 t First skyscraper completed in Chicago

1887 t First electric trolley system built in Richmond, Virginia

1890 t Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives

1892 t New York’s Ellis Island opens

1893 t Ragtime introduced to national audiences at Chicago World’s Fair

1897 t First subway line opened in Boston

1899 t Central Labor Union protests in Cleveland

t National Consumers’ League founded

1901 t New York passes Tenement House Law

t “City Beautiful” plan developed for Washington, D.C.

1903 t Women’s Trade Union League founded

1904 t Subway running the length of Manhattan completed

1906 t Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle published

t Food and Drug Administration established

t Atlanta race riot

1910 t Mann Act prohibits transportation of prostitutes across state lines

1911 t Triangle Shirtwaist Company ﬁre in New York

1913 t Fifty-ﬁve-story Woolworth Building completed in New York

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