1) Read Chudacoff, Chapter 8
2) Leave at least 2 comments in response to this post pointing out how (based on the reading) 
the city became more modern between 1890 and 1930. Be as specific as possible and include examples. Read the comments that have come before you and offer something new to the conversation.
The expansion of industry and services in cities gave rise to a mass-consumer culture, especially among city dwellers. This allowed for a marketing of goods, such as “automobiles, radios, washing machines, refrigerators and photographs” (186). Advertising played a significant role of the growth of consumerism, using strategies of emotions towards the target consumer, promoting feelings of well-being when the product is purchased and the feeling of inferiority and inadequacy when the product is not owned. These marketing and advertising strategies are still used today. This emphasis on spending has “replaced older values of frugality, hard work and self-denial” (189). The allowance of credit buying on products further promoted the values of consumerism and materialism.
Street improvement, traffic regulation and new road construction was an important step towards the modernization of cities. City and state governments made huge investments towards this goal. Chicago “opened 112 miles of streets at a cost of $114 million” (181). Although the streetcar was in decline in the 1920s, automobiles took it’s place. “Cars counted for between 20 and 30 percent of daily traffic” (181) in areas such as Boston and New York, despite the fact that the majority of the population still depended on mass transit for transportation needs. Along with investments for intrastate by the local government to improve streets and roads, Congress passed the Highway Act of 1921, which allocated federal aids that would help modernize interstate highways.
I agree with Eleazar; the cities became more modern because of heavy industrialization. In fact, the 1920 federal census revealed that “for the first time a majority of the nation’s people (51.4%) lived in the cities”(175). Not only were immigrants immigrating to cities, but those living in the rural area were also migrating to the cities. This caused the “nativists” to put for a stop to the immigration. For the first time the Congress and the Businessmen (who normally wanted the immigrants to lower wages) participated together in “closing the doors more tightly” (177).
Another way the cities became more modern is because they “modernized” their style of entertainment. People went from going to the saloons, riding different bicycles, or going to central park for amusement to attending sport events, magic shows and even theaters: “The rise of show business parallel the rise of sports… presenting magic and animal acts, juggling stunts, comedy… motion pictures also attracted enormous crowds” (187). “Motion Pictures” marked the revolution of technology.
The city became more modern due to the increase of services and different industries. This fostered the diversification of the consumers as strategies were instigated to attract residence to specific services. Therefore a lot of migrating-to-the-city occurred.
There was improvement/modernization of the streets – installation of traffic orders – so that transportation by vehicles could be easier and more organized, like we see today – in a modern society. There was also, like Anita said, evident modernization in the cities means of entertainment.
In my opinion, being “modern” refers to anything out of the usual during a time period. So everything, from reforms to advancements, was a change towards modernization. Technology was one of the most used sources of energy for leisure and news during the early 19th century. New forms of payments allowed “people to purchase automobiles, radios, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, and phonographs”(Chudacoff p186) which were used to make household work easier for women. Also, statistics show that “dwellings wired for electricity rose from 10 percent in 1920 to over 50 percent by 1930”. That’s a big jump in the span of one decade. This trend shows how reliant people were on electricity, just like modern day today.
I will also agree with Anita that cities were modernized in that they focused more towards entertainment. There was a giant bust of leisure activities and most of it rooted towards some sort of film, musical, or musical concert. “Motion pictures also attracted enormous crows in the 1920s”(Chudacoff p187) and “Movie helped popularize urban culture as national culture”(Chudacoff p188). Also, these movies involved unique plots which were considered more secular.
Well for one .. thousands and thousands of people gave up their home town lives and lands and moved to cities like Los Angeles , Pittsburgh , Detroit, Chicago and Denver convinced there was a better life here. Urbanization was a huge factor and toke front more then ever before. Industrial economies started to take a boom and boosted the populations of many areas with steel , oil and automobiles.
Another way for modernization was the street and highway construction which constituted the second largest item in municipal and state budgets. The city of Chicago widened and opened 112 miles of streets at a cost of 114 million. This gave opportunity to encourage car travel, and easier transportation.
I agree with Eleazar and Anita that modernization had a lot to do with industrialization, especially the massive amount of it. With everything becoming more industrialized, technology followed with it. Its less hands on and more technology doing it for us. Hence, new inventions, new methods that helped our city grow and become more and more modern.
When I think modern, I think skyscrapers. By 1929, there were 377 buildings that were at least 20 stories high. (pg 183) Corporations, modern times and the life of the city all relates to the image of skyscrapers. This created a new type of building and an abundance of new businesses.
I think advertising played a noteworthy role towards a more modern society. Advertising grew to be more forceful as people moved from rural areas to suburban or urban areas, the incomes of white-collar and industrial skilled workers rose, and new mass production methods created more afforded products. The modern culture’s revolvement around materialism began in the early 1900’s with the shift from companies focusing from brand loyalty to the “I need to have that!” feeling approach.
The changes in advertising not only effected materialism, but also the idea of consumerism. It is about the social consciousness that prompts a want to purchase things more and more. People became more invested in items such as fridge, stove, washing machine, and ready to wear clothing. With more convenience, however, came with more things to do. For example, the machines allowed people to be more efficient with their time, but also demanded more effort. Whereas previously, people would only be able to wash their clothes once a week, washing machines allowed them to wash on more occasions, upping the standard level of cleanliness.
Also, today, we live in a very fast paced world where people want everything at a drop of a hat. We expect a lot of things to happen instantaneously and to multi-task. The growth in consumers buying such appliances during the early 1900s seems to be the jump-start towards the frenetic world of today where we consider those same appliances as necessities and more.
The streets were greatly improved due to the increase in the focus of the local pavements, highways, and traffic regulations. This gave large cities increase in efficiency of transportation of people and goods. Encouraged travel to the large cities, such as Chicago and New York also boomed the economy of the cities.
“Automobile wheels destroyed whatever was left of older”(p209),this indicate the massive transformation in transportation around 1920 due to cars production that relatively at law price which also contributed in expansion of urban cities beyond the mass transit. The oil industries also along automobile industries forced the city and state government to heavily invite in new roads and high-ways many manufactures relocated from the city central which makes more skyscrapers to rise. In New York city alone , the editors of American city counted 377 building in 1929. The picture on page216 showed the crowed line up outside of Chicago’s colicky park to cheer for white Sox indicate ,as Chudacof pointed out , the shorter work hours and higher production gave poeple spendable income and more time for leisure activities. . In 1923,300,000 fans attended the six game world series of football which chows that people were interested in entertainment activities.
No doubt that skyscrapers building and advertisements industry are clear sign of modern city , And also the life style changed and became more easy in providing affordable automobile, refrigerators, washing machines. the entertainment industry had changed people’s . For instance the radio had brought more enjoyment into households, “radio were a fixture in approximately 40% of all American households and radio production had become a billion-dollar industry”(p218).
The industrialization of the big cities also helped the economy prosper as well. With a large labor force, arger service and manufacture sectors were implemented which decreased the unemployment rate, and America as a whole were slowly but surely moving away from focusing on agricultural business.
The rise in interest in sports also modernized society’s leisure lifestlye and culture. It grew substantially in the 1920s when the New York Yankees vs. New York Giants World Series baseball game attracted 300,000 and a heavyweight championship between Demsey and Tunney drew in a record breaking 120,000. Sports became integrated daily part of life as millions flocked to tennis courts, golf links etc for professional and leisure purposes. (p186-187)
I agree with all the comments above stating how skyscrapers etc and new forms of transportation led to modernization of the urban life and how traffic control and forms of street improvements regulated these changes. One form of regulation called zoning helped improve problems caused by increased road traffic and spatial crisis as the cities became more congested and clogged. Every major cities by by the late 19202 implemented zoning regulations which “controlled heights of buildings, determined boudaries of commercial and residential zones, and fixed density limitations.” (p 185)Even though it was also used as an “exclusion tool” it helped facilitate and control city growth in a healthy manner.
The rise of religious fundamentalism shaped urban cities. People were having a looser interpretation of the Bible and new religions were surging that still exist today. “Fundamentalist churches, along with prohibition and the Klan, were part of a larger organizational impulse that pervaded all of urban society” (195) Also, “city populations were too large and diverse to sustain a unified sense of community that many believed once existed in small towns and villages.” (195)
I agree with everyone above about the streets and traffic regulations and how they help the city become more modern, espcially because traffic is a really big deal in the city today. Also skyscrapers helped to improve to look of the city as well as help mantain our growing population during that time.
During this time, cars became the “distinction between urban and suburban space.” (185) Therefore, there was more traveling in and out of the cities. As a result, many service stations, motor camps, and tourist restaurants were built alongside the highways. Cars helped farmers and their family be less isolated from city life because they they had access to “urban stores, goods, and services.” (185)
I think the idea of modernization also grew mentally, instead of working incredible amount of hours and having close to no leisure time, the growth of entertainment was due to the people having more time to relax. More people were interested in musicals, theaters, sports events, things that wouldn’t have been very popular in the early 1800’s.
Of the the biggest visual aspect that was modernized was the way of transportation. Cars, even though they did not go nearly as fast as they did now, the speed astounded the public. The car itself was not invented by an american, however Henry Ford invented the production line, which expanded the number of car owners greatly. Slowly the “walking city” would be transformed by this new modernization.
Being modern to me is doing things different than before. As cities was changes so was households. Housewifes was now given more supplies such as dishwashers,stoves,vacuum, etc. All of these new inventions made life a little easier but it also gave housewives more to do since now they could vacuum the carpet more often, do they own laundry, wash more dishes. Now the job was to keep the house to perfection.
Cities streets development made a major step in the development of this nation. I agree with vial lion on that fact because for the first time people was able to travel to different cities, states more faster without being so congested. For the first time in american history. We had a route that you to travel up and down and side to side to different coast.
Another thing was enertainment that Anita mention. Now people was going to theaters now to see a live preformace but a movie. More and more was working classs and middle class spending free time outside of their home. So the entertainment now mainly wasn’t going to the circus, listening to jazz, or museum it was baseball games, movie theaters, radios .
Baek brought up advertisement. And with the radio I felt many people was now able to know what was out there. Advistment help push many products and by doing so many many people want to try these new products. Unlike today with many competetion there wasn’t so much so with each new product the more they was shown the more people wanted to try and see if they fulfill they purpose.
Throughout the 1800 they was public transportation that help people move from one place to another. Not everyone had to live where they work. But with the invention of car more and more people was able to move out of cities due to the fact that they had a way of transportation to and from the city. With more and more people moving out of the city they was forming they own community and establishing a way of life. The suburban areas allowed many of other races to move to an area where is was people of they own race coming together to live and do business without the interference of other races. This was a big change because many people wasn’t living on top of each other. But as new products came so did jobs which gar many an opportunity for a better life.
I agree with the comments above on industrialization as this was one of the most important role in the modernization of cities during between 1890 and 1930. Agrarian activities were diminishing while commercial activities were rapidly increasing. The industrial economies in steel, oil and automobile centers increased the population in cities like : Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Detroit.
I agree with everyone that industrialization led to the city becoming more modern between 1890 and 1930. These years really enlarged cities and the impact they had on everyone around them; people had to get jobs in the cities and almost everyone began migrating to the city. The result was a strict policy of having closed doors to immigrants. The growth of the city and the mass amount of jobs in the city led to growth in architecture such as skyscrapers for living areas and business areas.
Furthermore, the increase in jobs in the city led to an increase in population such as cars an the subway. The subway was made in 1904 and it helped poor people in New York City get to their jobs uptown and to central park as well. The car (automobile) also revolutionized “the walking city.” More and more people were able to commute to their jobs in New York City. As a result, industrialization and transportation go hand in hand; industrialization and transportation helped each other grow!
I agree that the creation and regulation of traffic and roads led to the city becoming more modern between 1890 and 1930. Besides the fact that these both modernize areas themselves, they led to a population burst in the city. Many more people were able to come and go to and from the city. Many people received more jobs in the city and people even began to live in the city. The roads made commuting to the city more efficient and truly made New York City the place to be and the center of modernization.
^As stated above by Eleazar, “Chicago ‘opened 112 miles of streets at a cost of $114 million’ (181).”
I agree with Harpreet that I believe modernization means doing something different than before. I also agree that the inclusion of sports into New York City culture made New York City more modern between 1890 and 1930. Sports may not seem like anything important to modernization, but it added something different to New York City culture, that is, it added leisure. Sports such as baseball were being played in central park and many different games were springing up. Over 300,000 people flocked to see the Yankees play the Giants in the world series. Coupled with the creation of central park, sports modernized the city into a garden of eden of leisure.
As many people before me have said the paving of roads was a huge modernization for New York City. Then with the making of cars this changed transportation enormously. Going back many hundreds of years there was only ways to travel by boat and foot, then by railroad and eventually cars. Of course cars from the early 1900’s weren’t like the ones we have today. Actually most cars back then were electric because gas was too expensive. However we still use cars today. That just goes to show how effective there modernization and now our way of living was.
As with roads and cars everything has a link. The fact that advertising was becoming bigger the more people bought things. As other people have noted above me, advertising had a big affect in the consumption of goods. The more people saw, the more they wanted. Modernization is not just making something new, but its improving what was there before. Advertising was used in newspapers before but it became more used and more important for businesses.
I agree with Rebecca about cars becoming the “distinction between urban and suburban space”(Chudacoff 185). This caused for the construction of different resources along highways and roads outside of the main areas of the city. I think that this was a positive thing because not only did it increase profits of businesses, but it also helped people that were traveling as a way to rest between long rides.
I agree with Eleazar, the many improvements were important steps in mordernizing the cities. Huge investments were needed for these improvements, and the governemment invested. The Highway Act of 1921, helped because it allowed federal aids that were there for the cities modernization
The increase of the population was favorable to the cities modernization, because it favored the creation of skycrapers and the introduction of subways.
By the 1900 NYC was experiencing expansion in all areas of life. From the founding of the Ford motor company in 1903 to the first World Series being held between Boston and Pittsburgh. As more people were getting around either in cars or public transportation the bar was raised; people expected more out of their lives. The growth in consumer goods and better less expensive transportation lead to a better quality of life.
Ford’s mass production in cars was a great innovation for early 1900s. Its inexpensive design and low in price allowed most American families enjoyed this urban life achievement. High-speed travel encouraged suburban expansions and demands for addition roads. According to Chudacoff, city and state governments invested heavily in street improvements and highway building.(P210)
Residents wired for electricity also rose to 50% by 1930. Refrigerators, washing machines and stoves were a great transformation for urban housewives.
I also agree with Kimberly on the role of transportation on urbanisation. The modes of transportation progressed from mere walking to omnibuses, rail ways, street cars, cable cars and finally subway trains.
As other have mentioned housing became better and more accommodating; real estate investors were of course benefiting but the completion in between them cause for a standard to be set for future generations. Through the construction of skyscrapers and new housing apartments building codes eventually became better and safer and technology improved. All of these things put New York modern society on the map; it became something that cities around the world began emulating.
Many forms of urbanization came to exterminate to the older forms of life during the 1890s to the 1930s. The amount of people in the cities became the majority of the people in the United States. Rural areas became distant as more people came to cities. People that inhabited the rural and farm life came to be known as “hicks” a derrogatory word associated with stupid and ignorant people. But ofcourse whoever called them that were ignorant themselves. African Americans made up 90% of the unskilled labor force in some cities. As many of the people came road improvements and pavements were made. With that can the influx of automobiles and with that came traffic congestion, that called for the need of more pavements and roads.
I completely agree with all the comments before. Many improvements modernized the city and made it known for what it is today. The establishment of assembly lines were a huge implement to factory production.
I feel the age of modernity didn’t just come about when people started to improve things like roads or cars. We stepped into the modern age when our entire mindset changed. Our focus changed to one that is self-interested. People started caring about entertainment more than ever, to the point where it’s almost a way of living for some people. Sure, technological advances happened, but the mindset of the people changed and that’s what I think modernity is notable for. Religion isn’t as important and played a less important role in our lives, as people strive to earn money to entertain themselves. Things like going to the movies and enjoying themselves.
I also feel that advertisements has an extremely important role. The visual object became more and more important. Things like pictures and movies were common. The visual aspect of advertisement helped shaped people’s minds. It showed them what THEY need and what’s important for THEM. For example, an ad promoting something would make the reader feel as if the item was beneficial for them. This changed their mindset into one that was more self-centered.
Except transportations, industrializzation, ads and so on, people began to use so common for us now – BAND-AID. Bandages for wounds had been around since ancient times, but an easy-to-use dressing with an adhesive was invented by Earle Dickson. Dickson perfected the BAND-AID in 1920, making a small, sterile adhesive bandage for home use. Dickson invented the BAND-AID for his wife, who had many kitchen accidents and needed an easy-to-use wound dressing.It made people s life easier and more comfortable than before
Air conditioner, lie detector and neon light were invented in 1902. people have used it more than 100 yeard! Thank inventors!
I agree with all the comments. As far as transportation goes, paving the roads and inventing cars was by far one of the best mentioned. Its interesting to see how they made highways and the various resources that were along the highways. People were now able to travel on there own or in small groups to rellocate themselves.
The picture in the “Assignments” section of the blog just goes to show how the consumer and citizen in general is becoming more sophisticated with each passing day. Before our midterm, the most popular thing to do was Barnum’s Museum. As we can see in the picture it features a “Jazz” theme with instruments and proper attire. Previously in the semester, times were hard and the main concern for an immigrant was struggling to make enough money to provide for their family. Now, as time progresses and the immigrant becomes more of a citizen of the city, previously sought out luxury items have become more common. For example, “Music halls, cabarets, and nightclubs brought performers and audiences closer together, dancing to new kinds of ragtime and jazz band music in an informal setting that celebrated pleasure and a more explicit sexuality” (Chudacoff 187). As culture evolved, so did the American citizen.
Following my previous theme of the “sophisticated consumer,” the introduction of radio brought markets and department stores to the consumer. Previously, door-to-door salesmen were the only way for stores to reach out to the consumer, besides the obvious newspaper advertisement. As Chudacoff highlights, “Radio brought the new world of entertainment and advertising directly into urban homes in the 1920s” (Chudacoff 188). As radios were becoming more of a common item in the American home, businessmen around the country jumped on this opportunity to reach out directly to the consumer. “Radio advertising brought the message of consumption into every listening household” (Chudacoff 188). America was becoming more of a consumption-based country, as opposed to its previous hard-working, saving philosophy.
i believe that we became industrialized and modern. Most people during this time actually lived in cities and rural areas were clearly the minority during this age. The mass production of many products increased. This lead to people migrating here because there were jobs opening up due to the new factories and such. this lead to a strict immigrant policy and closed doors so that not all immigrants would be allowed in. This also lead to the bulding of skyscrapers but this was later on.
Transportation was also a huge factor during these years, subway, paved roads and such really left a huge impact on the world we live in today in. They also made highways and it was a great way to connect todays world.
As several of my peers have already stated, The government’s involvement in changes between the 1890’s and the 1930’s became more apparent. The implementation of new building codes contributed to the safety of the general public. Workers began fighting for rights and women became a more influential community in the U.S.
Although this point has been discussed several times throughout the class, I feel that in order to properly discuss the modernization of the U.S. between the 1890’s and the 1930’s one must mention the progression of public transportation and how it influenced the construction and reinvention of the Urban city and the suburban communities. With the invention of the Public Railways and the access to car transportation, cities began to be built in accordance to convenience of travel. With out this modern marvel of transportation, modernization of our country would have been frozen in time and alot of the progress that succeeded the development of transportation wouldn’t have happened at all.