Urbanization essays

Urbanization essays As United States was entering the new century (1900) there had been many changes to the States. The industrial expansion was bringing many immigrants to America. Many of these immigrants were moving to the new big cities to be with their own people, and to work at the factories. Among other changes America was becoming an urban society, instead of a rural society, as many youths from the farms were also being drawn to the cities. Women reformers were tackling the problems of slums (tenement houses), employment, and the right to vote for women. Also at this point in time the United States of America was emerging as an industrial and military world power. The rise of industrial revolution greatly increased the national wealth and the need for cheap labor. The newly arriving immigrants filled this need for many corporations and businesses. Most immigrants had little or no money to buy land, so they would settle in the cities where they would work for very low wages, most believing that they would work until they were able to afford to buy land. (Tindall pg.936-37) Most immigrants spoke or knew little English, so this made them easy targets for hiring agents who kept a large percentage of their wages. As the cities grew and land became scarce the designers had to build upward to accommodate all the new arrivals and the results were tenement houses. These houses were nothing more than slums and cause infectious diseases to spread rampantly. Mortality rate for these immigrants were very high due to the conditions they were force to live in and many babies died before their first birthday. (Tindall pg.9) Because of the awf ul conditions that immigrants lived in, several reformers felt they had to help them (immigrants) and fought for changes to be made. The reformers started settlement houses and at first they believed that this could be the cure for the slums, unfortunately this would not be the case. So t...