Urban Culture by 1900

 Urban Life (large cities and suburbs)

1. 1. initially wealthy in center of city as elite, move to separate from working class, emergence of suburbanareas to distinguish and largely settled by middle class
   2. enabled by transportation–horsedrawn streetcars then electric trolleys by 1890s because of increased RR tracks in town, subways (some of first in NY)
   3. working class neighborhoods: overcrowded with substandard housing and inadequate sanitation, vulnerable to epidemics and fires
      1. Ethnic communities: speak native language, buy traditional foods, Old World church services, familiar holidays, preserve ethnic identity, sense of family
      2. Slums and tenement living: division of housing by wealth and occupation
      3. Crime and corruption rampant: political boss to run unofficial parties and to keep certain politicians or officials in office, help for immigrants in exchange for votes–essential to success of many new immigrants (more benefit than detriment in short term)
      4. response to these issues: organized police force, regulation of drinking and gambling through “blue laws”, public utilities, rapid-transit systems, publicly-funded fire departments (all these could be manipulated at points to boss machine)

 Popular Culture

1. 1. Industrial advantages: catalogs, retail stores, ready-made clothing, indoor plumbing, better stoves and furnaces
   2. Differences in consumption, culture, and daily life heighten sense of class consciousness/difference; “conspicuous consumption” of wealth
      1. Andrew Carnegie was opposed to this because he felt that wealthy should be example to the poor
      2. One of greatest periods of palatial houses, arts, libraries: major separation of wealthy and poor standards of living yet American standard higher that many other places in the world
   3. Middle class victorian morality:
      1. wide practice of birth control including high rates of abortion (estimates that 1 out of every 4 pregnancies were aborted), reduction of family size,
      2. single breadwinners, youth have higher education
      3. sports–college sports especially football #1,
      4. music–hymns or songs to teach lessons or morals
   4. Working class: family labor, cooperative family work ethic,
      1. mass entertainment: escapism in saloons and dance halls, Sunday excursions, group picnics and holiday celebrations, amusement parks, vaudeville theaters,
      2. sports— boxing matches, baseball games, sporting clubs, professional teams, race tracks
         1. baseball: “national pastime” as professional teams and leagues stimulated fan interest,
            1. game initially reflected its working class fans in style of play and organization but soon tied to business economy
            2. segregated by 1880s, led to creation of Negro Leagues in 1920s–efforts by players to form own cooperative rule league failed
      3. music–ragtime (originating with black musicians in 1880s & 1890s in saloons and brothels of the South and Midwest) was popular for entertainment
   5. Challenges to Genteel Victorianism:
      1. realism and naturalism in literature
      2. modernism of Frank Lloyd Wright in architecture
      3. advocacy of widened woman’s sphere–increase of women in higher education (colleges and universities), athletics such as bicycling, women’s magazines advise independence and self-sufficiency (along with predominate domestic advice)
      4. divorce rate rose dramatically between 1880 and 1900 as many states now allowed the practice as well as for women to seek divorces instead of men only
      5. expanded and centralized public schooling met with arguments from wealthy who sent to private institutions and working class who depended on kids to work, still universities increased and developed modern form and rise in vocational schools, African Americans form own colleges and schools when racially barred–like Howard (medical school), Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute–industrial education
      6. triumph of working class culture into the 20th C