Chicago, New York City, and Detroit
Today, Detroit, New York City and Chicago have many similarities They're highly populated cities with high crime rates, many homeless people, noisy streets and terrible traffic. In contrast, they attract many tourists with their tall skyscrapers, and their famous attractions. As well as similarities, there's also, many differences. Today, Chicago and New York City are known for having many job opportunities and luring people in with promising careers. Whereas in Detroit, it's known to be quite hard to find employment. These cities have gone on a long journey to get to where they're at today. I'll be discussing Detroit's history from around 1880 to 1910 and comparing it to the way Chicago and New York City was in the book, Sister Carrie written by Theodore Dreiser.
From 1880 to 1910 Detroit changed dramatically. The city was under development and was on its way to becoming a successful, and higher populated, city. According to Detroit Historical Society, in 1880 Detroit's population consisted of over 100,000 citizens. At this time, Detroit also had a diverse community of many different nationalities and it was known as an immigrant city.
Detroit Historical Society also states that by 1890, Detroit's population nearly doubled reaching over 200,000. Detroit, at this time, made its ranking in the 15th largest populated city in the nation. Many people of different backgrounds from around the world came to settle here. By 1901,
An outburst in growth of America’s big city population, places of 100,000 people or more jumped from about 6 million to 14 million between 1880 and 1900, cities had become a world of newcomers (551). America evolved into a land of factories, corporate enterprise, and industrial worker and, the surge in immigration supplied their workers. In the latter half of the 19th century, continued industrialization and urbanization sparked an increasing demand for a larger and cheaper labor force. The country's transformation from a rural agricultural society into an urban industrial nation attracted immigrants worldwide. As free land and free labor disappeared and as capitalists dominated the economy, dramatic social, political, and economic
Requiem for Detroit? is a historical documentary, released in 2010 and directed by Julien Temple, about the decline and collapse of Detroit, one of America’s largest cities. It chronicles Detroit’s journey through its success in the automobile industry all the way through its urban decay and industrial collapse to the present day. As the film draws a close, Temple also suggests some ways forward for Detroit. He presents possibilities and clearly shows which he thinks is most likely through his use of interviews with subjects and visual representations of these offered opinions. The intended reading that Temple offers viewers is a complex one, with many anti-consumerist and anti-corporate ideas and leanings. Despite the ‘doom-laden’ feel of much of the text, Temple paints optimism for the potential for a progressive and productive future for Detroit. Throughout the documentary he clearly expresses this intended reading through effective use of motifs, shown by visual and sound techniques, music and interviews with both privileged and non-privileged characters.
1. The American city was changed drastically in the first half of the 20th century with the beginnings of the industrial revolution and the ongoing flow of foreigners into an already crowded United States.
In this novel, Larson helps readers make sense of what was new about big cities at the end of the nineteenth century—transportation, communication, electricity, anonymity—by showing how these aspects of
The United States grew at a dramatic rate between the years 1880 and 1900, within the cities. U.S. cities grew by approximately 15 million people in the two decades before 1900. Many historians claim that most of the population growth was due to the expansion of industry. It is also believed that the majority of the population explosion was immigrants that were arriving from all over the world. A good amount of people from the rural areas of America also moved to the cities during this period in the search of work. Between 1880 and 1890, it is suggested that almost 40 percent of the townships in the United States lost population because of migration.
Throughout the mid 1800´s Chicago was undergoing substantial growth. The city had a population of 30,000 in 1850 and within 30 years had grown to nearly 90,000. Middle class individuals settled the outskirts of the city expanding it's borders. Lower class individuals continued to settle in the downtown districts. This resulted in an extremely dense concentration of people and wooden structures which would contribute to the extensive damage caused by the fire.
Many things emerged in cities because that was where most people worked and was the greatest population place. Hull House allowed for better working conditions
Cities in the Midwest grew as they attracted huge numbers of immigrants. In 1860, the city's population was around 110,000. In 1890, more than a million people lived in Chicago. Chicago became one of the largest city in this period.
United States 5-9). Between 1910 and 1930 alone, 1 million blacks moved to the North. Because of the great number of blacks in the North, they still did not find many open jobs and, and lived in dirty and run-down places. Crime, despair and poverty all became normal to the black community (African Americans 2).
Erik Larson’s book Devil in the White City is full of magic and madness that has shaped the society of the late 19th century that is specific to in Chicago. The issues that have been handled through this time frame that are addressed in this book is that how Chicago was known to be the black city at first, and how the city hoped that hosting the World’s fair would increase their reputation. Secondly, the magic of a man named Daniel Burnham that did put the plans of the world fair in Chicago into life and the obstacles that he had overcame. Next, once the world fair was complete, it has made Chicago “The White city,” by its dazzling designs and attractions that made it memorable. Then, the madness of H.H. Holmes and how his evil deeds has
Majority of the people that started working in the plants came from the south. These people were looking for work and the state of Michigan provided that for them, with no education needed to start working. This provided the men to take care his whole family. The job provided benefits, great pay, day care, and offer to pay for the schooling if interested while working for the car industry. More and more people started to move and settle in Michigan. When the country was going through its toughest time dealing with the recession people were laid off. People weren’t buying cars at that time because no one could afford it. When people have low income and the air that they breathe is polluted you might have some issues with the economy. With pollution and poverty running so high nothing will get solved but the problem could get worst if it is not prevented and halted. As the economy has gotten worse, the pollution got worse as
Factories enabled a large number of people to be supervised together and replaced hand tools with power-driven machinery. The availability of factory jobs in the north caused a great influx of workers to the region during this era. One group of people, immigrants, particularly met the demand for labor in the north. Between 1840 and 1860, over 4 million people entered the United States. About 90 percent of these immigrants headed for the northern states where job opportunities were abundant. The new advancements in railroads and steamboats, the increase in commercial farming, and the development of large factories triggered the relocation of multitudes to northern cities. Each one building upon another, the events that took place in the north during the 1800s instigated an extreme growth of cities and urban societies, proving population growth to be a key effect of the industrialization in the United States north.
The first chapter introduces Chicago, in the 1800s as a place where flocks of single women are coming to Chicago looking for jobs. This city was described as very unsafe. Two people a day, on average, died at railroad crossings, disease was very common, and people died from
As the economy began to boom, a change in the way society lived had also changed. Instead of living in large cities, citizens began moving outward in the urban areas further away. Although most of the urbanization movement can be contributed to the raise in population, there were also many other changes that were occurring. Stagecoaches began having more frequent routes to all of the major cities and also most of the smaller outlying cities.
Detroit is a very well-known and diverse city. “Somewhere behind its neglected, graffiti covered skyscrapers are charming reminders of a city that was once among the world’s wealthiest” (Gray). This city has been through a lot. Detroit was first founded by the French in 1701 and then used as a fur trade post. Jumping a little in the future, it has had riots and protest for equal rights among its busy streets. Detroit is also known as the Motor City. “By the mid-twentieth century one in every six working Americans was employed directly or indirectly by the automotive industry” (Sugrue). Yet after everything this city has endured Detroit is thought of as a place of fear. It has a lot of history and has a lot to offer if people would let