APUSH Chapter 19 Learning Curve

Which institution of progressivism offered a laboratory to experiment with solving social problems?

The settlement movement → Settlements were a crucial proving ground for many progressive experiments, as well as for the emerging profession of social work, which transformed the provision of public welfare.

Why were skyscrapers an impetus to urban development?

They made it possible to crowd more work and living space into a given area. → Skyscrapers were expensive to build, but they allowed downtown landowners to profit from small plots of land. By investing in a skyscraper, a landlord could collect rent for ten or even twenty floors of space.

What was the relationship of Italian immigrants' mutual aid societies and Chinese Americans' tongs?

They were essentially the same. → Tongs were also mutual aid societies. Many immigrants formed these groups to collect dues from members and pay support in case of death or disability on the job. They also functioned as fraternal clubs.

In what way was the power of city governments limited?

They were subject to state law. → Judges did grant cities some authority, and use of private land was also subject to whatever regulations a city might impose. But, starting with an 1868 ruling in Iowa, the American legal system largely classified the city as a "corporate entity" subject to state control.

What was the key to the successful building of skyscrapers in American cities in the late nineteenth century?

An interior skeleton made of manufactured steel beams → Architects invented the skyscraper, a building that was supported by its steel skeleton while its walls bore little weight, serving instead to enclose the structure.

What entrepreneur donated money that was used to found more than a thousand libraries across the United States?

Andrew Carnegie → The greatest library benefactor was steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, who announced in 1881 that he would build a library in any town or city that was prepared to maintain it. By 1907, Carnegie had spent more than $32.7 million to establish over a thousand libraries throughout the United States.

What did New York State do in response to the public outrage expressed here over the Triangle fire tragedy?

Appointed a factory commission that developed labor reform

Which building, completed in 1913, marked the beginning of the modern Manhattan skyline?

The Woolworth Building → New York, with its unrelenting demand for prime downtown space, took the lead in skyscraper construction by the late 1890s. The fifty-five story Woolworth Building, completed in 1913, marked the beginning of the modern Manhattan skyline.

What does this image suggest about the extent to which the publication's readers shared urban white Americans' racial attitudes at the time?

The brutal depiction of whites massacring blacks reveals Parisians' abhorrence of white Americans' racism.

Which statement assesses the early-twentieth-century crusade against prostitution in the United States?

The crusade pushed prostitution out of brothels and into the street.

Which statement assesses the consequences of the Triangle fire in New York City in 1911?

The fire showed that only stronger laws could alleviate sweatshop conditions. → Facing public demands for action, New York State appointed a factory commission that developed a remarkable labor code that was the most advanced in the United States. New York City leaders recognized that the social and economic problems of the industrial city had outgrown the power of party machines and that only stronger state and national laws could bar industrial fire traps, alleviate sweatshop conditions, and improve slums.

What new institution arose as a result of the work with children of Julia Lathrop, one of the workers at Chicago's Hull House?

The juvenile justice system → Lathrop investigated the plight of teenagers caught in the criminal justice system. She drafted a proposal for separate juvenile courts and persuaded Chicago to adopt it. Pressuring the city to experiment with better rehabilitation strategies for juveniles convicted of crime, Lathrop created a model for juvenile court systems across the United States.

How did the early-twentieth-century campaign against prostitution affect prostitutes in many Americans cities at the time?

By closing brothels, new laws worsened many prostitutes' lives. → By closing the brothels, new laws actually worsened the conditions under which many prostitutes worked. Losing the protection of madams, almost all sex workers became "streetwalkers" or "call girls," more vulnerable to violence.

How did adoption of steam power change manufacturing in the middle and late nineteenth century?

By vastly expanding scale → Steam power vastly increased the scale of industry. A factory employing thousands of workers could instantly create a small city such as Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, which belonged body and soul to the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company.

Which city suffered a terrible fire in 1871?

Chicago

Which statement describes living conditions in New York City's Eleventh Ward at the turn of the nineteenth century?

Crowding was a serious problem in tenements.

Which technological innovation transformed urban nightlife in the United States in the late nineteenth century?

Electric wiring

Which of the following helped found symphony orchestras and opera companies in late-nineteenth-century American cities?

Elites → Millionaires patronized the arts partly to advance themselves socially but also out of a sense of civic duty and national pride. As early as the 1870s, symphony orchestras emerged in Boston and New York. Composers and conductors soon joined Europe in new experiments. The Metropolitan Opera, founded in 1883 by wealthy businessmen, soon drew enthusiastic crowds.

How did Henry Huntington expand the suburban ideal in southern California in the early twentieth century?

He used his family's fortune to buy up real estate and subdivide it into lots. → Henry Huntington was the nephew of a wealthy Southern Pacific Railroad magnate who expanded the suburban ideal by buying up Los Angeles real estate, building trolley lines, and then subdividing the property into lots on which he built rows of bungalows with tidy yards that featured lush trees and tropical fruits.

The settlement houses that emerged in early-twentieth-century cities pioneered what new occupational field?

Social work → The women who worked through settlement houses in the early twentieth century allied themselves with the new social sciences and essentially created the field of social work. By 1920, women made up nearly two-thirds of U.S. social workers.

In what type of buildings did New York City's poor immigrants generally make their homes?

Tenements → The poor in New York City generally lived in five- or six-story tenement buildings.

The dominance of private development in U.S. cities and the preference for business solutions to city needs are expressed in what concept?

The "private city" → In the United States, cities relied largely on private developers to build streetcar lines and provide urgently needed water, gas, and electricity. This preference for business solutions gave birth to what one urban historian calls the "private city"—a place shaped by individuals, all pursuing their own goals and bent on making money.

Which institution was the first major art museum in the United States?

The Corcoran Gallery of Art → Art museums and natural history museums became prominent institutions in this era. The nation's first major art museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, opened in Washington, D.C., in 1869, while New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art settled into its permanent home in 1880.

Why were audiences at the Metropolitan Opera in New York shocked by an opera presented there in 1907?

The Metropolitan performed the sexually scandalous opera Salome. → In 1907, the Met shocked audiences by presenting Richard Strauss's musically innovative and sexually scandalous opera Salome.

Which city was the first to build an underground railroad line?

Boston → Boston had the nation's first subway line, which opened up in 1897.

What was significant about the formation of the Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) in the early twentieth century?

Bridging of class lines → The WTUL, founded in New York in 1903 and financed by wealthy women, trained working-class leaders like Rose Schneiderman, who organized unions among garment workers. Although the trade-union women were often frustrated by the patronizing attitude of elite sponsors, they and their well-to-do allies joined together in the broader struggle for women's rights.

Why was Margaret Sanger indicted for publishing her newspaper column "What Every Girl Should Know" in the 1910s?

Her frank discussion of birth control violated obscenity laws. → Margaret Sanger's column focused on birth control information. She was indicted for violating the era's obscenity laws, although the resulting publicity actually helped her launch a nationwide campaign of contraception education.

What impact did city politics have on immigrant communities in the United States in the late nineteenth century?

Integrated them into urban society → Ward politics as practiced in the big cities served an integrating function by giving immigrants a voice in government in exchange for their votes. In so doing, ethnic communities were involved in, rather than isolated from, urban culture, and immigrants were granted some power over public policy. Immigrants usually settled in ethnic communities on their own, not at the urging of politicians.

Which ethnic group was the largest in Boston in the late nineteenth century?

Irish → The explosive growth of America's urban population made cities a world of newcomers, including millions of immigrants from overseas. The biggest ethnic group in Boston was the Irish; in Minneapolis, Swedes; and in most other northern cities, Germans.

Why was the reform effort aimed at wiping out urban prostitution in the early twentieth century shortsighted?

It ignored the multiple factors that led women to prostitution. → Women entered prostitution as a result of many factors, including low-wage jobs, economic desperation, abandonment, and often sexual and domestic abuse. Women who bore a child out of wedlock were often shunned by their families and forced into prostitution. Some workingwomen and even housewives undertook casual prostitution to make ends meet. The reforms did nothing to change these conditions, which meant prostitution continued.

How did the city of Chicago address its sewage problem around the turn of the century?

It reversed the course of the Chicago River. → Chicago engaged in an ambitious sanitation project around the turn of the century, reversing the course of the Chicago River to carry sewage into Lake Michigan and away from city residents.

Who founded Hull House in 1889 in Chicago as part of the settlement movement?

Jane Addams → Jane Addams, along with Ellen Gates Starr, founded the Hull House on Chicago's West Side in 1889.

Who were the "muckrakers" of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century?

Journalists who promoted reform → Some urban journalists worked to promote reform. Theodore Roosevelt dismissed such writers as muckrakers who focused too much on the negative side of American life, but muckrakers' influence was profound. They inspired thousands of readers to get involved in reform movements and tackle the problems caused by industrialization.

Working separately in the 1880s and 1890s, researcher Helen Campbell and photographer Jacob Riis both sought to call attention to what problem?

Miserable conditions in urban tenement housing → Both Campbell and Riis worked to make Americans aware of the conditions faced by urban families living in tenements. Campbell published Prisoners of Poverty in 1887 and Riis's book, How the Other Half Lives, used flash photography to show middle-class American tenement living up close.

Where in the United States did the blues music popular in the 1910s originate?

Mississippi → African American bandleader W. C. Handy electrified national audiences by performing music drawn from the cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta. This music became known as the blues.

In the late nineteenth century, many cities cut death rates from typhoid, yellow fever, and cholera by instituting what?

New sewage and drainage systems → After the New York City's success combating cholera in 1866, city and state officials began to champion additional public health projects. Clean-water initiatives in many cities led to the installation of new sewage and drainage systems that cut death rates from numerous diseases, including typhoid and cholera.

What allowed engineers and planners in the second half of the nineteenth century to develop a new urban geography in the United States?

New technologies

Joseph Pulitzer worked in which industry in the late nineteenth century?

Newspaper → Americans at the turn of the century could read not only books but also an increasing array of mass-market newspapers. Joseph Pulitzer, owner of the St. Louis Post Dispatch and New York World, led the way in building his sales base with sensational investigations, human-interest stories, and targeted sections covering sports, fashion, and high society.

In the early 1900s, a baby born to a Slavic woman in an American city had what chance of dying in infancy?

One in 3 → A baby born to a Slavic woman in an American city in the early 1900s had a 1 in 3 chance of dying infancy. Reformers mobilized to demand changes that would improve conditions and mortality rates for such urban populations.

What was the ultimate basis for the cohesion of urban political machines?

Party loyalty

Which of the following bore primary responsibility for developing the infrastructure of late-nineteenth-century American cities?

Private enterprise → American cities were almost entirely built by private individuals and companies, leaving only unprofitable enterprises such as sewage systems, street paving, and park building for city government to carry out with public funding.

What did the New York Tammany ward boss George Washington Plunkitt mean by "honest graft"?

Profiting from insider status → Plunkitt declared that he had no need for outright bribes and that he favored the easy profits that came from being a savvy insider. Close political friendships and connections, rather than the transfer of bribes, made Plunkitt's success in building wharfs on Manhattan's waterfront.

Congress passed the Mann Act in 1910 to achieve what purpose?

Prohibit the transportation of prostitutes across state lines → In response to fearful talk about "white slavery," Congress passed the Mann Act in 1910 to prohibit the transportation of prostitutes across state lines.

The nation's first electric trolley car system was built in which American city?

Richmond → In 1887, engineer Frank Sprague designed an electric trolley system for Richmond, Virginia. It used electricity from a central generating plant, fed to trolleys through overhead power lines, which each trolley touched with a pole mounted on its roof.

What was the purpose of the phenomenon that took shape in the United States in the late nineteenth century and came to be known as progressivism?

To combat the problems caused by industrialization and urbanization in the United States →Progressivism was an overlapping set of movements united by their common desire to combat the ills of industrialization and urbanization.

To what does the term "private city" refer in historians' discussions of urban life in the United States in the late nineteenth century?

Urban areas shaped by individuals and profit-seeking businesses → Historians sometimes use the term "private city" to refer to urban environments that were shaped by individuals and profit-seeking businesses that established innovations such as trolley cars, electric lighting, and skyscrapers in the nineteenth century.

What prompted urban reform movements in the 1890s?

Widespread suffering from the depression of that decade → The scale of urban problems became dramatically evident in the depression of the 1890s, when unemployment reached a staggering 25 percent in some cities. Homelessness and hunger were rampant; newspapers nationwide reported on cases of starvation, desperation, and suicide.

What political boss made Tammany Hall a byword for corruption in the late nineteenth century?

William Marcy Tweed → In the 1860s, the infamous political boss William Tweed made Tammany a byword for corruption.

What did Florence Kelley hope to achieve through her leadership of the National Consumers' League (NCL)?

Worker protection → Kelley believed that only government oversight could protect exploited workers. Under her crusading leadership, the NCL became one of the most powerful progressive organizations advocating worker protection laws.

Immigrants to the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries occupied cheap housing near what institution?

Workplaces → Immigrants settled in urban neighborhoods based on proximity to places of employment. They faced grim choices as the middle class fled to the suburbs and private real estate interests erected crowded tenements to house them.