Secondary Source: Urbanization

Just before the Civil War in 1861, about 17% of Americans lived in large cities. Just forty years later in 1900, nearly 40% of all Americans lived in cities. Urban areas like Philadelphia and Chicago had over one million people in them, and cities like New York City had over two million. The main cause of this was Industrialization and urbanization, which affected many Americans, especially those that lived in the Northeast and Midwest. Industrial developments in new technology, construction, transportation, and electrical lighting all improved life in the cities.

Because of slavery, the South was behind the rest of the country when it came to industry and large cities. In many ways, the South is still not caught up with the rest of the Country. After the Civil War, this began to change as more industry was brought into the South during the late 1800s and early 1900s. New immigrants and northerners began investing heavily in Southern factories.

At the start of the Second Industrial Revolution, cities in the United States began to grow rapidly. Most of this growth is due to the Industrial Revolution, which led to thousands of factories being built in or near cities. As the availability of jobs and the number of factories increased, farmers began to abandon their agricultural jobs in search of new factory jobs. For many Americans, farming was not an effective way to become wealthy, and the promise of a regular wage, or paycheck, was very appealing.

The new trend of people moving from farms to cities became known as urbanization. Urbanization is an increase in a population in cities during the Industrial Revolution when workers moved towards cities to obtain jobs in factories as agricultural jobs became less common. Overpopulation quickly became an issue as more people moved to the cities. Having enough housing, fresh water, food, school, and health care quickly became a problem as older methods of providing these needs were overwhelmed by a large number of people. Cities began to build outward spreading over a long distance until better transportation was needed. Once the Bessemer Process was introduced in 1856, and Andrew Carnegie began to produce cheap steel in America, cities could then begin building skyscrapers to accommodate growth in population.

The large industrial cities were often very dangerous, unhealthy, and filthy. Many of the people who moved to the cities for factory jobs lived in apartments, which became very unhealthy. The risks were worth it, as for many people the idea of an opportunity to become wealthy in America was enough of a draw to keep people coming. Many in Europe realized that they had to choose between a life of poverty in the slums of Europe, with no real hope of improving their lives, or a life in an American city. Often immigrants would settle neighborhoods together, making ethnically similar regions of cities.

With the development of better farming tools, it took fewer and fewer people to do the work on farms. Decreasing the need for farmers in America. Facing a life of poverty, many farmers abandoned their family tradition of farming to move to the cities in search of a new opportunity and a better life.

After the spread of the railroad and the invention of the automobile, people began to live outside of the city in neighborhoods call suburbs. During the mid-1800s cities were challenged by fires, health hazards, housing, and transportation problems, but by the start of the twentieth century (1900), solutions were found to make urban life much better for Americans. In time working people began to move further away from the cities centers into cleaner and more calmer suburban areas.

A perfect example of urbanization in action was in Chicago, Illinois. Chicago was the largest city in the Midwest of the United States. The city began as a small trading post and struggled to grow at first. With the industrial Revolution, Chicago quickly took advantage of its surrounding countryside and worked to process natural resources from the Western Frontier into products that could be sold. Originally, the rivers and Lake Michigan provided the easy transportation needed. By the mid-1800s the Railroad moved into Chicago, and it became an important railroad junction for many trains crossing from east to west in our nation. Three of the most crucial industries in Chicago was the grain, lumber, and livestock industry. After the development of the refrigerated railroad car, Chicago quickly urbanized.

For the first time in American history, cities were playing a prominent role in American life. Cities were where factories were being built due to the development of the steam engine and later electricity. More and more immigrants came to the United States and settled in the cities, as farmers abandoned their traditional work to look for factory jobs. Cities were places where one could see industrialization in action. Cities were not without their problem, but over time life there would improve.

Primary Source:

Oral History: Harry Reece (Daca)

Harry Reece grew up on a farm in Illinois during the late 1800s. In the following, he recalls a trip to the city of Chicago - "big town" - and his first experience with the electric trolley. Why do you think Mr. Reece was so intrigued with the trolley? Do you think trolleys and other forms of mass transportation had anything to do with the development and growth of cities? What other curiosities about the city do you think young Reece experienced during his trip to "big town?"

I was born in the middle west. Out in the state of Illinois...and it was quite a while before the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. Measured by the things that have happened since then it seems like a long, long time indeed. We lived on a farm, and even telephones were curiosities to myself and the country boys of my age. Electric lights were something to marvel at...the old Edison phonograph with its wax cylinder records and earphones was positively ghostly...and trolley cars, well they too were past understanding!

Speaking of trolley oars reminds me of a trip to the 'city' once when I was about a dozen years old. My father and a neighbor, Old Uncle Bill Brandon, had to go up to the Big Town, which was Chicago, on some sort of business...and I suppose I'd been extra diligent at doing chores, weeding potatoes, killing worms on the tomato plants, or something...and Father rewarded me by taking me along.

A country boy in a large city for the first time isn't any more curious to the city than the city is to the country boy! They are both something to look at...and marvel about. You can imagine what a time I had seeing things I'd never seen before, in fact had only dreamed about or heard about. Curiosity wasn't the name for it. Speechless incredulty came nearer describing my emotions.

But when I saw my first trolley car slipping along Cottage Grove Avenue in Chicago...slipping along without horses or engine or apparent motive power...well it was just too darned much for me. I didn't know what to think.

Uncle Bill Brandon was almost as much in doubt about the reality of the darned thing as I was myself--and Uncle Bill Brandon was, locally, that is out on the farm, considered a very, very wise and sophisticated person. And he was wise, too. He had seen a lot of life...Too much, he sometimes said--especially during the four years of the 1860's when he was fighting in the Union Army.

Uncle Bill could understand horses, hogs and cattle, steam engines, army mules and row boats, and such thing--but that trolley car, with the little spinning wheel at the end of the pole, spinning along against the electric wire above it; was too much for him. Still, he didn't want to confess 'that there was any doggone thing on earth that he couldn't figure out!' And he didn't want to show his 'ignorance' and especially to my Father or to myself, a twelve year old edition of young Americana, species rusticana.

I wasn't so anxious to conceal my own ignorance, so with legitimate curiosity asked my Father and Uncle Bill what made the thing go. My Father was a thoughful man, and before answering studied for a moment. Uncle Bill was more spontaneous.

"Gosh a'mighty, can't you see what makes her go?' he exclaimed, 'It's that danged rod stickin' up out of the top of her. People's gettin' so cussed smart these days all they need to do to run a street car is to got a fish-pole and stick it up out of the roof of her!" Father let Uncle Bill's explanation ride. And I've never forgotten it, but since then, when I've heard variations of the same theme, I've wondered if Uncle Bill's rather [Doubting?] Thomas definition of the motive power of trolley cars was entirely original.

View the entire interview here.