The rise of the city
In 1820 America was a land of farmers. Barely 5 percent of the people lived in towns or cities. But after that, decade-by-decade, the urban population swelled. By 1870, only 25 cities had a population exceeding 50,000 residents. By 1890 58 cities have populations exceeding 50,000 residents. By 1900, one out of every 5 Americans lived in cities of over 100,000 residents. Nearly a tenth of the nation, 6.5 million persons, lived in just three great cities: New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. The rise of the city had begun. The newfound cities at the turn of the 20th century provided a setting for and urban culture unlike anything seen before in the United States. The city itself became an arena to the nation's vibrant economic life. Here is where the factories went up, and here is where the new immigrants settled, making up about a third of the residents of major American cities in 1900. In the new bundle of joy also lived the millionaires and the growing white-collar middle class. The migration from the farms to the city seem inevitable to the nineteenth-century Americans. Josiah Strong declared, "The greater part of our population must live in cities. In due time we shall be a nation of cities." Urbanization was directly linke
Electric lighting then entered the American home thanks to Thomas Edison's invention of the serviceable light bulb in 1879. The city life was a very segregated life. It also allowed it to move faster through congested city streets. Although prostitution and homosexuality was illegal, just as they both should be today, they were pretty much unaffected by law since they were very difficult to control. The most dramatic evidence that the times have changed was the electrical lights that done away with the gloom of the city at night. Homosexuality also flourished in the new cities. New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art started in rented quarters two years later, moved in 1880 to it's permanent site in Central Park. Only way to go was up and now they had the means to do it. Now, urban multitude, by rooting for the home team, found a way to identify with the city they lived in. If you can't expand outward, expand up. To help these new communities thrive, they made for themselves special services to aid them in their day-to-day lives. Bu they found a way of feeling a sense of belonging. After it's success, the trolley quickly replaced the horse car and became the primary means of public transportation for most of the greater American cities.
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Acceptance Essays
