The rapid growth of cities forced people to contend with problems of housing, transportation, water, and sanitation.

Growth of Cities• The technological

boom in the 19th century contributed to the growing industrial strength of the US – resulting in rapid Urbanization – growth of cities. This mainly effected the Northeast and Midwest.

The Americanization Movement• The government

sponsored a campaign to assimilate people of wide-ranging cultures into the dominant culture, as immigrants by 1910 made up more than half of the populations of America’s major cities.

• Many immigrants were unwilling to give up their cultures.

TenementsMany immigrant families

took over old working-class family housing, and often lived with many families in a single residence. These dwellings were overcrowded and unsanitary – and often became the locations of sweatshops, where they were away from government control.

Transportation• Innovations such as

Mass Transit were transportations systems designed to move large numbers of people along fixed routes – which enabled workers to get to and from work more easily, and spread out cities as they linked to neighboring communities.

Water• Cities faced problems

finding safe drinking water. Many cities started building public waterworks, but most places still didn’t have indoor plumbing, and collected water from faucets in the street. Disease such as cholera and typhoid fever spread rapidly until filtration was introduced in the 1870s, and chlorination in 1908.

SanitationWith growing cities,

cleanliness became a huge problem. Horse manure piled up, sewage flowed in open gutters, and factories polluted the air. By 1900, many cities developed sewer lines and sanitation departments to collect the waste.

Fire• Many cities had limited water

supplies, which led often to widespread fires. During the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, lack of water for the wooden dwellings, as well as use of candles and kerosene heaters caused widespread destruction and death. It killed about 3000 people, and destroyed 80% of San Francisco. Of its 410,000 population, about 250,000 were left homeless. Though the quake was estimated at 7.9 magnitude, 90% of the destruction was caused by the 4 days of fires that ravaged the city after.

Fire and Police Departments•To help with fires

and lawlessness, New York City organized the first full-time salaried police force in 1844, and Cincinnati, Ohio established the nations first paid Fire Department in 1853

Industrial Boom in America, 1860-1915

Due to…• Wealth of natural resources

▫New ways to create and find oil and steel• Government support of business

▫Laissez-faire attitude allowed them to grow unrestricted

• Growing urban populations▫Due to immigration explosion

• Cheap labor▫Due to immigration explosion

• Markets for new products▫Due to immigration explosion

The Brooklyn Bridge• Thanks to innovations

in steel (Bessemer) and construction, the Brooklyn Bridge was completed in 1883, it spanned 1595 feet

• Called a wonder of the world due to its height and weight bearing structure

Skyscrapers•Thanks to new

stronger steel (Bessemer), and the steel frame created by Louis Sullivan, buildings could now be built to astronomical heights because of the steel beams used in construction

Inventions change workforce• Women became 40%

of the clerical work force thanks to the typewriter (Sholes) and the telephone (Bell)

• Industrialization freed workers from back-breaking labor

• By 1890 work day reduced to about 10 hours

Industry Changes Business• Social Darwinism -

Success and failure in business governed by natural law

• Justifies “laissez-faire,” or “allow to do” attitude of government, which keeps government out of marketplace and allows business to run unrestricted.

Business

•Big business created more than 4000 millionaires after the Civil War

•Appealed to Protestant work ethic▫ If you have riches = God’s

favor▫ If you are poor = Lazy and

inferior

Carnegie’s Management Practices

• Vertical Integration – Buying out all of your suppliers to control production costs

• Horizontal Integration – Buying out all competitors to control industry

• But Carnegie also preached his “Gospel of Wealth”, you must give back to the community. - “It will be a great mistake for the community to shoot the millionaires, for they are the bees that make the most honey, and contribute the most the to the hive even after they have gorged themselves full.” Carnegie donated about 90% of his wealth, which still supports the arts and learning today.

Carnegie Steel

Railway Line

Competitor Steel Company

Iron Ore Mine

Competitor Steel Company

Rockefeller’s Business Practices

New Business Tactics•Mergers

▫ Industrialists pursued buying out competitors (horizontal integration)

•Monopolies▫ When industries buy out

all competitors and completely control industry

▫ Allows them to set wages, prices, and production

•Holding Companies▫ Set up specifically to buy

out stock of competitors – allows major corporations to control others secretly

•Trusts (like Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust)▫ Stocks in companies held by

trustees and ran as one business

▫ Not legal – creates a monopoly

Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890

•Made it illegal to form trusts that interfered with trade

•Hard to uphold because it didn’t define what a “trust” was

Exploitation and Unsafe Working Conditions Draw People Together in Labor Movement

Statistics

•By 1882, and average 675 people killed in work-related accidents

•Wages so low, most families had to send everyone out to get jobs

Sweatshops• 20% of boys and 10%

of girls under age 15 held jobs

• By 1899 women averaged $267 per year, men $498, and Carnegie $23 million not taxed

• Sweatshops were unregulated▫ Paid about $.27 for a

child’s 14 hour day

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory •More than 146

women died in fire•Company had

locked all doors to prevent theft

•When factory owners acquitted of the deaths, the public was outraged

•This tragedy led to the establishment of a task force to study factory working conditions

American Workers Start Organizing

Labor Unions• Urban problems spread

to the workplace – and as cities cleaned up, so did workplaces.

• Many leaders rose up to take charge, working on collective bargaining and negotiating. When negotiating stopped working, strikes got them the wages and working conditions they needed.

The Great Strike of 1877

• The great Railroad Strike of 1877 began on July 16, when railroad workers for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad staged a spontaneous strike after yet another wage cut. After President Rutherford Hayes sent federal troops to West Virginia to save the nation from “insurrection,” the strike spread across the nation.

Haymarket Square• On May 4, 1886 3000

people gathered in Chicago’s Haymarket Square to protest police brutality (when they were strike-breaking). Someone bombed the police line, police fired – 7 police officers were killed, and many protesters died. Eight people demonstrating were convicted for inciting a riot – 4 were hanged and one committed suicide in prison. This led to public turning away from labor movement.

The Homestead StrikeSteelworkers at Carnegie’s

Steel Company in Pennsylvania had to strike when the companies president decided to cut wages. Frick, the president, hired Pinkerton Detective Agency guards to protect his plant. The workers battled the guards, killing many, until the National Guard was called in – the union members ended up giving up, and wouldn’t mobilize again for 45 years.

The Pullman Strike• During the Panic of 1893

and the following Depression, Pullman company laid off more than 3000 workers and cut the wages of it’s employees without cutting the cost of living. Pullman refused to negotiate, so workers went on strike. The strike turned violent, the President called in federal troops, and Pullman fired most of the strikers, and blacklisted others so they could never again get railway jobs.

Management vs Unions•Management tried to stop unionizing by:▫ Forbidding union

meetings▫ Firing union members▫ Forcing employees to

sign “Yellowdog Contracts”

•Courts punished unions using the Sherman Anti-Trust Act▫ Said unions were

interrupting trade