Chapter 19 AMH1020

Describe the availability of the advantages of American city life in the 1890s for the poor residents.

The amenities were not easily available to the poor residents in the cities

Beginning in the 1870s, American men of all classes were united in their passion for _______________.

baseball

What was necessary for the economic survival of the nineteenth-century American working-class family?

A family's survival depended on the employment of every family member

Sweatshop

A small room used for clothing piecework beginning in the late 19th century. As mechanization transformed the garment industry with the introduction of foot-pedaled sewing machines and mechanical cloth-cutting knives, independent tailors were replaced with sweatshop workers hired by contractors to sew pieces into clothing.

Describe the world economy at the turn of the twentieth century.

An industrial core, an agricultural domain, and a third world tied to the industrial core by economic colonialism

How did some established immigrant groups view more recent immigrants

As not being part of the white race

Where did most white native-born women who worked at the end of the nineteenth century find employment?

Clerical jobs in offices

How did business expansion and consolidation change workers' occupations in the late nineteenth century?

Diminution of importance of skilled workers: Mechanization contributed to decreased job security for skilled artisans. Rise of sweatshops and piecework: Mechanization also contributed to the parceling out of work to sweatshops. Women and children came into the wage workforce, often for extremely low wages, in such facilities. Seasonal work and vulnerability: Most factory work was seasonal, which, along with the volatility of the national economy of the nineteenth century, left workers financially vulnerable. Emergence of white-collar work: Expansion and consolidation produced significant changes in management. Some displaced skilled workers moved into new managerial positions. Changes in businesses also contributed to the need for typists and salesclerks. Consumption and employment: Stores that emerged to serve the growing American appetite for consumption created new work opportunities for salesclerks.

Where did most new immigrants to America originate from after 1880?

Eastern and southern Europe

Family economy

Economic contributions of multiple members of a household that were necessary to the survival of the family. From the late 19th century into the 20th, many working-class families depended on the wages of all family members, regardless of sex or age.

Throughout much of the nineteenth century, middle-class American women were confined by a cultural ideology that dictated that they ___________________.

Exist within the private sphere of the household

What did the public school system in American cities provide?

Free tuition and open access to all school-aged children

Why did American cities experience explosive growth in the late nineteenth century?

Global migration: Migrants from agricultural regions all over the world flooded into industrial cities, many of which were in the United States. Eased transportation: The expansion of railroads and declining costs of steamship travel put immigration in reach for more people. Difficult conditions abroad: Tough economic and political conditions at home encouraged many European to immigrate.

Why did the fortunes of the Knights of Labor rise in the late 1870s and decline in the 1890s?

Great Railroad Strike of 1877: Railroad workers across the country organized to protest a decrease in wages, following on the heels of a significant economic depression. The strike was spontaneous and disorganized, but it attracted strong opposition from government and industrialists. At the same time, it raised workers' interest in unions. Rise of the Knights of Labor: The Knights began as a secret organization, but expanded dramatically after the railroad strike and tried to join workers of all skill levels, races, and ethnicities. Haymarket Riot: When a workers' demonstration at Haymarket descended into violence, workers, rather than the police, came in for the sharpest censure. Nationally, the broad ambitions of the Knights of Labor lost support.

What did Jacob Riis achieve with his best-selling How the Other Half Lives (1890)?

He forced middle-class Americans to acknowledge the degraded reality of the poor

Ellis Island

Immigration facility opened in 1892 in New York harbor that processed new immigrants coming into New York City. In the late 19th century, some 75% of European immigrants to America came through New York.

What changes were favored by Samuel Gompers, the founder of the American Federation of Labor?

It fought for higher pay and better working conditions for skilled labor

Describe the racism directed at ethnic immigrant groups in America in the late nineteenth century.

It was the product of the perception that ethnic and religious differences were racial characteristics

The direction of corporate goals and policies in the late nineteenth century was increasingly shaped by ___________.

Managers and executives

Haymarket bombing

May 4, 1886, conflict in which both workers and policemen were killed or wounded during a labor demonstration in Chicago. The violence began when someone threw a bomb into the ranks of the police at the gathering. The incident created a backlash against labor activism.

Global migration

Movement of populations across large distances such as oceans and continents. In the late 19th century, large-scale immigration from southern and eastern Europe into the United States contributed to the growth of cities and changes in American demographics.

Great Railroad Strike

Nationwide strike that began in 1877 with West Virginia railroad brakemen who protested against sharp wage reductions and quickly spread to include roughly 600,000 workers. When it grew violent, President Rutherford B. Hayes used federal troops to break the strike. Despite the strike's failure, union membership surged.

In which American cities did the population exceed one million people by 1900?

New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia

Cult of domesticity

Nineteenth-century belief that women's place was in the home, where they should create havens for their families. This sentimentalized ideal led to an increase in the hiring of domestic servants and freed white middle-class women to spend time in pursuits outside the home.

American Federation of Labor(AFL)

Organization created by Samuel Gompers in 1886 that coordinated the activities of craft unions throughout the United States. The AFL worked to achieve immediate benefits for skilled workers. Its narrow goals for unionism became popular after the Haymarket bombing.

Where did married black women typically work to supplement their family income in the late nineteenth century United States?

Outside the home as domestics

During the 1880s, what reforms were favored by the Knights of Labor?

Public ownership of railroads, an income tax, and equal pay for women

What was the outcome of the Haymarket affair?

Skilled workers turned toward the American Federation of Labor

Knights of Labor

The first mass organization of America's working class. Founded in 1869, the Knights of Labor attempted to bridge the boundaries of ethnicity, gender, ideology, race, and occupation to build a "universal brotherhood" of all workers.

What was the White City, which was constructed in 1893 five miles down the shore from Chicago?

The home of the World's Columbian Exhibition

What factor contributed significantly to the astonishing growth in America's urban population between 1870 and 1900?

The migration of people from the rural areas of Europe and the United States

How did working-class courtship rituals in urban, industrial America in the late nineteenth century change?

They began to consist of informal meetings at dance halls and other commercial settings

How did live-in servants change households in the North by 1870?

They enabled middle-class white women to explore opportunities outside the home

What was the main lesson learned by workers from the Great Railroad Strike of 1877?

They lacked power individually, but might gain it through a union

Describe the late-nineteenth-century American libraries.

They made up the most extensive free public-library system in the world

As middle- and upper-class urbanites moved to new areas of their cities, where did poor city dwellers live?

They stayed in the neighborhoods near the factories where they worked

What was the purpose of New York City's Central Park?

To create a natural oasis away from the busyness of the city

"typewriters"

Women who were hired by businesses in the decades after the Civil War to keep records and conduct correspondence, often using equipment such as typewriters. Secretarial work constituted one of the very few areas where middle-class women could use their literacy for wages.

Why did Southern blacks migrate to northern cities in the 1890s

for economic opportunities and safety

How did the process of mechanization affect U.S. industrialists' hiring and employment practices in the late nineteenth century?

it allowed industrialists to replace skilled laborers with lower-paid, unskilled immigrant laborers

What was the reality of working as a skilled craftsman in America in the late nineteenth century?

it did not ensure financial security

What circumstances enabled U.S. industrialists to hire cheap labor from around the world in the 1870s?

railroad expansion and low steamship fares brought many immigrants to America

What occurrence facilitated the emergence of the modern skyscraper emerged in the 1890s?

the advent of structural steel