Urbanization & Modernization of American Cities: Immigration, Transport, Architecture, Esquemas y mapas conceptuales de Historia del Arte

¡Descarga Urbanization & Modernization of American Cities: Immigration, Transport, Architecture y más Esquemas y mapas conceptuales en PDF de Historia del Arte solo en Docsity! Urbanization The Creation of Modern American Cities at the Turn of the Century • In the 20th Century this nation was modernized and many aspects of the society we now live in were created in the 20th century. • A large part of that modernization process was tied to the creation of modern American cities. – Immigrants came from Eastern and Southern Europe - Italian, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Jewish - as well as Asian. – By 1900 immigrants constituted a third of the residents of the major American cities – New capital goods were essential in the creation of modern American cities. Architecture • Skyscrapers – With steel girders, durable plate glass, and the passenger elevator available by the 1880s, vertical construction became possible. • Chicago pioneered skyscraper construction, but NY, with its unrelenting need for prime downtown space, took the lead after the mid- 1890s. – Completed in 1913, the fifty-five story Woolworth Building marked the beginning of the modern Manhattan skyline. Electricity • The first use of electricity once generating technology made it commercially feasible in the 1870s, was for better city lighting. • Electric lighting then entered the American home, thanks to Thomas Edison’s invention of a working incandescent bulb in 1879. City Governments • Municipal (city) government became more centralized, better administered, and more expansive in the functions undertaken. • Cities built: water aqueducts, sewage systems, street paving, bridge building, extensive park systems. • Immigrants tended to settle by ethnic group. • Ethnically based institutions of many kinds sprang up to meet the immigrants’ needs. – Wherever substantial numbers lived, newspapers appeared. – Company could always be found on street corners, in barbershops and clubrooms, and in saloons. City Politics City politics ran according to patronage - giving gifts to those who support you – Patronage had an overwhelmingly negative connotations because it amounted to bribery – Patronage had some positive aspects – • for poor people or people without a lot of political power who otherwise could not get the government to respond to their needs – • used their political support to prompt city councilmen and alderman to implement policy benefiting them. City Entertainment • Amusement parks went up on the outskirts of cities across the country as an affordable way to escape from everyday urban life. • Most famous was Luna Park at New York’s Coney Island (1903). • Theatre – Vaudeville became very popular as entertainment for the entire family • Movies – The first films, a minute of so of humor or glimpses of famous people, appeared in 1896 as fillers for vaudeville shows. – Within a decade millions of city people were watching films of increasing length and artistry at nickelodeons. Turn of the Century New York City • At the turn of the century New York was being modernized and the city we currently know was being formed in this era. • New York City originally was only comprised of Manhattan. • Around the turn of the century (1898) the outer boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx were incorporated into the City of New York. • All of the following images were taken in New York around the turn of the 20th century. Image 1 Image 2 Image 5 Sources • Image list and website. • Image 1 – Times Square • Image 2 – Coney Island • Image 3 – Prospect Park • Image 4 – 11th Avenue http://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-in-ea rly-1900s-2015-10 Image 5 – “Five Cent a Spot” Unauthorized Lodgings in a Bayard Street Tenement. Jacob Riis, City Museum of New York.