Was the city the

new frontier
at the turn of the
20th century?

Why would masses of people, apparently

against their own interests, abandon the nations
healthful and sociable rural areas and crowd into
the nations insalubrious and anonymous cities?
- Sociologist Henry Fletcher , 1895

I. Urbanization in late 19th

c. America

A. the New Immigrants

1. By 1900 4 of 5 residents
were either foreign born or the
children of immigrants
2. Southern and Eastern
European
a. Mostly peasants
b. Pull from growing industry; push
from economic/religious strife
3. Living Conditions in city slums
a. Tenement buildings
b. Inadequate sanitation due

Tenement Apartment

Growing Nativism
A. American Protective Association
B. Chinese Exclusion Act 1882
C. Plessy v. Ferguson 1896

How did the growth

of cities and the rise
of the middle class
reshape American
culture?

By 1900 the Lower East side

had the distinction of being
the most populated
two square miles in the
country
250,000 people per sq. mi
(today: 70,000 per sq. mi)

One of Cornelius Vanderbilts 4 Fifth Avenue mansions

As cities swelled, many

successful families
migrated North, away
from the heart of
commerce and industry
A distinctive class structure
emerged in the geography
of the city
LES - Working class
Broadway - Middle class
Fifth Avenue - Upper class

The New Middle Class

Significantly shaped urban
society and culture in the
late 19th c.

Important economically as
the predominant target for
growing consumption
ie. rise of conspicuous
consumption

New forms of
entertainment

Spectator Sports

Ebbets
Field,
Brooklyn