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From 1880 to1920 cities in the United States became known as gilded due to false advertisements and government neglect, to which Americans responded with art and literature.
Document A demonstrates the percentages of the population growth in urbanized cities. It specifically concentrates on how much they grew from 1880 to 1920. In 1880, Boston was the only city with over 60% population. At that time people weren’t introduced to the city. In addition, buildings and establishments would be spread out. However, in 1920 there was a spike in population growth with several cities over 60% population. Cities like New York, Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, and Cleveland became populated with over 60%. Such population growth was a great influence on the growth of cities. Factories now had plenty of employees and tenements had to be built for people.
Document D from the Chicago Tribune, talks about city commissioner neglect. The city would send a smoke inspector to check the issue of smoke coming from nearby factories. The inspectors were expected to provide a solution but ended up doing nothing. They would claim that everything was fine without actually inspecting the problem. In other cases, they would inspect the tenth floor where there wasn’t any smoke because the smoke did not rise as fast. Some buildings didn’t produce as much smoke as others, yet the ones that caused the problems were ignored. Instead of the city inspector doing something about the smoke, the newspaper would write an article exposing the realities of city life. They described the situation as being engulfed by smoke. The article explains that “While the Smoke Inspector will claim his work has made the change, it is probably the moral suasion of newspaper agitation that has been the direct cause of the measure of reform that has already been accomplished rather than the fussy inactivity of the department of the City Health Commissioner.” The document shows the gilded side of the cities as it praised the “nice” looking buildings that barely produced smoke but concealed the “bad” buildings that would produce the most smoke. The article elaborates on how urbanization harmed the environment with all the smoke the factories/buildings created. In addition, the newspaper can be considered a form of literature that was used to respond to challenges faced. It supports the thesis as the newspaper was the resident's way of complaining about the pollution situation.
Document E provides strong evidence of propaganda because it displays a picture of the great storm sewer in Brooklyn. The article was published in 1892 and there are pictures of men in suits working underground. These men are working in their top hats and look very sophisticated. The picture is well drawn and doesn't show the reality of working in the sewers. Working in sewers and doing any underground work requires a lot of labor. Furthermore, underground workers faced many difficulties such as starvation, strenuous hours, and poor conditions. In contrast, the pictures create a false paradise of men working together in easy conditions. It glorifies/ romanticizes working underground. In addition, the picture includes a clean neighborhood in the background. The article withholds the true aspect of living in cities. Various cities had garbage on the streets and didn’t have nice buildings. This article would appeal to immigrants and inspire them to move to Brooklyn because of how nice Brooklyn is displayed on the front cover of the article. As mentioned in the thesis it falsely advertises the cities which helped them grow and become urbanized.
Document F highlights the false advertisements of urbanization in the year 1899. The document from Adna Ferrin Weber named The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century, explains how education was a popular form of advertisement. She discusses how people are being informed of a greater life that awaits them in cities of urbanization. This information leads to people discussing the possible opportunities, therefore making it a popular topic. Through education, urbanized cities became the gossip of rural areas. Weber describes the experience of advertisement as a “glimpse of a more attractive life…” People were being educated about a prosperous life without struggles. Such a life was desired by people who worked on farms and were financially unstable. Overall, Weber’s accounts support how the government falsely advertised urbanization. Unfortunately, this life was a fantasy that would be exposed through literature.
Constantine Panunzio wrote a description of what an immigrant neighborhood in Boston was like during the early Twentieth century. She describes their living conditions in a hemorrhoid manner and explains that there are so many people stacked upon each other and the space was so little for 35,000 people to be living on these narrow streets. Not only was space a problem but there was a massive amount of litter, trash, soot, and dirt that polluted the air causing ill odor and polluting the streets leading to not one tree, not one park, and not one safe environment where children could play without being engulfed in filth.- This shows how the government didn’t care for the immigrant areas and how this pollution would affect the people and their children. They did nothing to provide a clean living space with adequate space for each family to flush and be provided with the essentials needed to survive. Instead, they let them live like sardines in a tin squished together living among their filth and pollution with no help whatsoever.
Robert Hunter wrote about poverty in 1904 with a list of things the government could do to solve the “evils” of tenements and factories. He wrote that they knew of the unsanitary conditions of the tenements and factories and that to deal with those problems to pass a legislative action to enforce minimum standards and living conditions in working and living environments. He wants the legislation to make all tenements and factories sanitary, regulate working hours, and do everything necessary to rule out any unwanted diseases. He also wanted the institute all the necessary educational and recreational institutions like parks and schools Constantine said the children were missing in the other document.- The document is an example of how literature was used to beg the government to help with the conditions of the immigrant/poor neighborhoods because they wouldn’t take care of them as they did with the rich neighborhoods. An article shouldn’t be addressing the problems and saying what the steps of action should be, it should be the government addressing this problem and trying to figure out what to do to resolve it instead of pushing it aside and neglecting the voices of the people living and working in those harsh conditions.
Telephone companies and streetcar companies had to fix issues of poles in the street and problems with the city street department. They straightened matters out on their own instead of going to the city council because they were always objected. The American citizens began a series of reform movements called reform, the Moral Awakening, the New Idea, the Square Deal, the Uplift, and Insurgency. This displays how the government didn’t take responsibility for issues in the city and corporations were now taking the place of the government. It states in the passage that “ the extra-constitutional place of the boss in government was as the extra-constitutional guardian of business.” Telephone companies placing poles helps with communication across cities. Such communication influenced growth in cities as most families dreaded separation. With telephone poles, immigrant families could communicate with one another even if they weren’t in the same are. The actions of these companies show how corporations were making it their job to renovate the cities and make them better places which should be the roles of the city government.
Jurgis Rudkus Discovers Drink in The Jungle, 1905
The Jungle is a fictional story written by Upton Sinclair that portrays the reality of living in urbanized cities. In the excerpt from the story, Sinclair describes the outcome of “achieving” the dream promised by advertisements. In the story, the characters express their disillusionment with working in factories. The characters had dreamed, “to be decent and clean, to see their child grow up to be strong.” To their surprise, everything that the advertisements had promised was far from reality. Even with years of working people still weren’t able to obtain livable conditions. Sinclair expresses the situation as unreachable even through the span of six years. He makes it clear that the characters no longer believe in such a dream as they “had played the game and they had lost.” The game of urbanization was introduced as a place of opportunity. However advertisements failed to mention that it meant working endlessly and in terrible conditions. Urbanization caused poverty, physical/mental pain, and alcoholism. Jurgis–a character in the story– resorts to alcohol to relieve himself of the pain his life had become. Through the story, Sinclair responds to the challenges of urbanization by revealing the truth. Similarly, other writers used their abilities to expose the false advertisements made about urbanization. By uncovering the truth, writers could prevent others from falling for false advertisements. It was a way of communication that would not result in persecution. Based on previous historical events, direct confrontation was usually met with violence. The forms of literature could even be acknowledged as a way of resistance. Resistance through writers helping people not succumb to the idolization of urbanized cities.