City+problems+and+machine+politics

=The Lure of the City=

Between 1870 and 1900, the city filled with factories became a symbol of the new America.

People from farms, small towns, and foreign countries were absorbed into older cities, and created new ones.

Only one sixth of the American population lived in cities (8,000 people or more) By 1900, one third of American population lived in cities. By 1920, one half of the American population lived in cities. In 1900, six cities including New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, had populations greater than a million.

=Skyscrapers and Suburbs= 1880s, the age of steel and glass produced the skyscraper. At first, cities were crowded jumble of small buildings. When buildings were made of heavy masonry, buildings could not be taller than dozen stories high. Steel frames and girders ended the limitation and allowed buildings to be built higher. Built in Chicago in 1885, the Home Insurance Building was the first metal frame structure.

Group of talented Chicago architects including John Root and Louis H. Sullivan, started to develop simple and modern style of office buildings; sky scrapers. “Form follows function” - Sullivan His idea was passed to Frank Lloyd Wright. Electric elevators first appeared in 1871 to carry passengers in the sky scrapers

Streetcar systems extended the radius and changed the urban map. The mass transit systems fostered commuting and widely separated business and residential districts sprang up. As middle class moved out of the cities to live in suburbs, working class started to immigrate into the city. The streetcar city became more fragmented.



=Tenements and the problems of overcrowding=

Tenement houses on small city brought people into the packed apartments. In 1890, nearly half of the residents in New York lived in tenements. That year, more than 1.4 million people lived on Manhattan Island, one of whose wards had a population density of 334,000 people per square mile. MAny people lived in dark alleys or basement.

The cities in the 1870s and 1880s stank. Hundreds of tons of horse manures were produced in the cities everyday. Cities dumped their wastes into the nearest body of water. However people got their drinking water from the same water they threw the waste in. In 1900, fewer than one out of then city dwellers drank properly filtered water.

Factories polluted the urban air. Smoke from 73 glass factories, 41 iron and steel mills, and 29 oil refineries. Crime was another growing problem. The nation’s homicide rate nearly tripled in the 1880s. Many gangs were formed in cities. Hayes Valley Gang in San Francisco. Baxter Street Dudes, the Daybreak Boys, and the Alley Gang in New York.

Suicide rate and alcoholism rate increased as well.



Strangers in a New Land
Many immigrants in the cities came from Europe where unemployment, food shortages, and increasing threats of war. Italians came in large numbers to escape an cholera epidemic in southern Italy in 1887. Jews were seeking place for refuge to escape from anti-Semitic massacre that swept Russia and czarist Poland in 1880.

Between 1877 and 1890, more than 6.3 million people entered the United States. In 1890, about 15 % of the population, 9 million people, were from foreign countries. Most were unskilled laborers. Most tended to crowd into northern and eastern cities, where their culture or religion lived.

In 1900, four fifths of Chicago, two thirds of Boston, and one half of Philadelphia’s populations were foreign born.

The new immigrants tended to be Catholics or Jews, not Protestants. They were sticking together and preserved their customs, languages, and religions.

The immigration Restriction League demanded a literacy test for immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, but it was vetoed by President Cleveland.

=Immigrants and the City=

Industrial capitalism tested the immigrants and placed a burden on them since most of them came from peasant societies. Most immigrant families were nuclear in structure. Men were wage earners and women were house keepers. Most of them tried to retain their traditional culture for themselves and their children while at the same time adapting to life in their new country. They spoke their native language, practiced their religion, read their own newspapers, and created special parochial. Immigrant associations offered newcomers jobs and homes, it worked as an unemployment and health insurance. Every major city had dozens of foreign language news papers. The church and the school were the most important institutions in every immigrant community. Jews established synagogues and religious schools and taught Hebrew language Irish and Poles established Roman Catholic church.

=The House that Tweed built=

Sudden growth of cities confused city governments and increased opportunity for corruption and greed. There were boss who tied together a network of ward and precinct captains.

Famous bosses

New York “Honest” John Kelly, Richard Croker, Chales Murphy led Tammany Hall, the famous Democratic party organization that dominated city politics from 1850 to 1930

Chicago “Hinky Dink” Kenna “Bathhouse John” Coughlin

Philadelphia James McManes

San Francisco Christopher A. Buckley

William M.Tweed head of the famed Tweed Ring in New York, provided the model for them all. He was the top of the Tammany Hall. He served in turn as city alderman, member of Congress, and New York State assemblyman. Behind the scenes, he headed a ring that plundered New York for tens of millions of dollars.

He built New York County Courthouse. It costed $2,870,464.06. In the end, it costed more than $13 million.

Skillful political organization and the fact that immigrants and others made up bosses constituency. Bosses stayed in power because they paid attention to the needs of the least priviledged city voters. If an immigrant was looking for a job, boss like Tweed would find him one.

Most bosses became rich but they were not Robin Hoods who shared their wealth with poors.