Chapter 15 Section 2 Critical Thinking #5

5) What effects did the migration from rural areas to the cities in the late 19th century have on urban society?


The migration from rural areas to the cities in the late 19th century had effects on the quality of life in the cities. The urbanization lead to many problems such as crime, housing issues, transporation, and sanitation among other things (p. 470). It also caused tension between blacks and whites as they competed for jobs (p.469).
The rapid urbanization of cities caused many problems. One of these was the issue of housing. When citydwellers started living in tenements, they were meant as an improvement over the row houses and cramped boardinghouses. But due to poor sanitation measures by the city, garbage was infrequently picked up and people would dump garbage out the air vents, which would attract vermin and they would then be forced to board up the windows to keep the smell out. Getting water that was safe for drinking in the cities was also a problem. Cities such as New York and Cleveland built public waterworks, but many cities were still receiving inadequate piped water into the 1860s. This assisted in the spread of diseases such as cholera and typhoid fever (p. 470). Fires were a problem that were not helped by the lack of water. Most city dwellings were wooden. Candles and kerosene heaters were fire hazards, and when blazes did spring up, there wasn't enough water to put the fires out. This resulted in the formation of the first full-time, paid firefighter squad in Cincinnati, since often firefighters weren't available when they were needed. This lead to advancements, such as automatic fire sprinklers and the replacement of wood with stone, brick of concrete. Crime increased as well, as city populations grew. The first full-time police force was organized by N.Y.C. in 1844, but it wasn't enough to make a big impact (p. 471). Basically the problem was that cities weren't able to keep up with their huge growth, and things started to come apart. Sanitation and tranportation were also problems.
Urbanization caused tension between blacks and whites as well. Many southern farmers lost their jobs when advances in technology were made that meant that less laborers were needed for the same jobs. Many of the farmers who lost their jobs and had to move to cities to make a living were African Americans. They often moved North or West to cities like Chicago or Detroit to try to escape political opression, racial violence and economic hardship, but things weren't much better in these cities, and job competition caused racial tension between them and the whites (p. 469).