Themes in American History

The great depression, which was to affect the rest of the world, began with the Stock Market Crash of 1929. The depression was both the time of unemployment and poverty, and a period of increased government involvement in Economy. At the height of Depression Chicago had half a million unemployed, and in new york the jobless figure topped a million. With so many taxpayers lost their jobs, the American cities lost a major source of income.

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Let’s first describe the word “Gang”. It comes from “gonge,” a term originally meaning a journey, but later referring to a “gonge” of sailors in the fifteenth century. The “Father of Gang Research,” Frederic Thrasher gave the word its industrial-era meaning in the 1920s and made “gang” into a term which meant kids of the street. But the US gangs had other predecessors than unsupervised street urchins.There are four kinds of “gangs” which were predecessors of the gangs of today.

1. Secret Societies;

2. Gangs of Outlaws in the Wild West;

3.Racist gangs like the Klu Klux Klan; and

"Draft" rioters lynch a Negro in 1863. New York Public Library Picture Collections

4. “Voting Gangs” tied mainly to the Democratic Party in large cities.

Voting Gangs in New York City New York Public Library Picture Collections

Number three and four characterize New York and Chicago.

The final predecossor of gangs were what Eric Monkkonen calls “voting gangs” in New York City and most of the east. This was an Irish invention, using the pub culture of males to help the Irish become politically dominant. Gangs of roughs, were encouraged, organized, paid by politicians to “help” in elections. Opponents were beaten up, voters intimidated, and voting booths destroyed (see left) and votes stolen.

It was these mainly Irish“ gangs” which were the core of the draft riots of 1863. Chicago’s Democratic Party formed “Social Athletic Clubs” modelled after New York’s Tammany Hall thugs. In Chicago, the Democratic Party borrowed the New York “Voting Gangs” custom and took them to new heights, or lows. “Social Athletic Clubs” were groups of young men, oftened organized in sports and sometimes had clubhouses. Politicians used the SACs as they had in New York, to make sure the favored candidate won.

In the 20’s, New York and Chicago were the major capitalist urban hubs of American society and organized crime. Both were cities of stark contrasts between extreme wealth and abject poverty. For many in the early 1920’s business was booming, and Al Capone and other famous gangsters and bootleggers ran their respective cities like puppet masters.

Well Dressed: Al Capone Laughing

Capone was the poster-boy of the media and he loved the attention. He was born in New York and moved to Chicago in 1920 to join Johnny Torrio’s gang. In 1925, he took over when Torrio retired after an assassination attempt. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre on February 14, 1929, might be regarded as the culminating violence of the Chicago gang era, as seven members or associates of the “Bugs” Moran mob were machine-gunned against a garage wall by rivals posing as police. The massacre was generally ascribed to the Capone mob, although Al himself was in Florida. was the true rags to riches story that has been the plotline in one too many gangster movies throughout the years. In his time, however, Capone’s fame was still a novelty.  The Bureau’s investigation of Al Capone arose from his reluctance to appear before a federal grand jury on March 12, 1929 in response to a subpoena. On March 11, his lawyers formally filed for postponement of his appearance, submitting a physician’s affidavit dated March 5, which attested that Capone had been suffering from bronchial pneumonia in Miami, had been confined to bed from January 13 to February 23, and that it would be dangerous to Capone’s health to travel to Chicago. His appearance date before the grand jury was re-set for March 20.

On October 18, 1931, Capone was convicted after trial and on November 24, was sentenced to eleven years in federal prison, fined $50,000 and charged $7,692 for court costs, in addition to $215,000 plusinterest due on back taxes. The six-month contempt of court sentence was to be served concurrently.

Al Capone's criminal record and fingerprint card

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      Throughout the 20th century, New York educational system has undergone much transition in response to our changing society. Though there have been many problems raised throughout the years in regard to what our school systems should be teaching our children, there have also been many developments. 
      In the earlier part of the 20th century, African-Americans were segregated within schools. They were placed into lower-class school systems with little extra-curricular activities, limited resources, and lower quality teachers. 
However, education has continued to evolve in order to meet society’s demands in the final decades of the 20th century. The transformation of society has created numerous problems in the educational system. These problems consist of the segregation of races, religions, social classes, and politics. At this time, religion played a major role on the educational system in the sense that all types of religious groups were represented in the American school system, but they were challenged with how they could be loyal to their religions beliefs. With the ‘Pledge of Allegiance’ present, some people felt as though the values of Americans and the “Creators'” beliefs should be taught in the classrooms.
 
      Furthermore, Philadelphia has a rich history of transit and some of the best neighborhoods in the city.
The  mass production of automobiles and trucks, building a highway system. Spin-offs included motels and drive-in facilities. For example: Telecommunications-Creating systems ranging from the telephone and radio to television and satellite communications. A byproduct was navigation aids for ships and airplanes.  
Also, developing a system of research centers, hospitals, clinics, and special diagnostic and emergency services for virtually the entire population. This extended our life span by many years.

                                                                                 Philadelphia Architects and Buildings

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(Picture from the Franklin D. Roosevelt  library, courtesy of the National Archieves and Records Administration.)

Just as prosperity was visible during 1920s in the city through construction and rapid growth of industrialization, the economic crisis in twentieth century brought the great depression  in the U.S.; causing through the Stock market crash of 1929 until 1939, and unemployment that resulted poverty throughout the nation. The working class people and upper class people were widely affected and failed them in terms of raising their life standard and led them into the depression. It was the period of both unemployment and poverty, and increased government involvement in the economy.The most serious problem was an unemployment that heavily fell on unskilled, the young, and color people. In Chudacoff’s book, he states that between 1929 and 1933, both Mayors of Detroit and New York City preferred spending available money and borrow for relief even by reducing other municipal services of the city. This decreased the expenditure on parks and recreation departments in 795 cities and towns by 50 percent. Likewise Chicago was one of the hardest hit cities in American by the Great Depression because of the city dependence on manufacturing and crisis that existed the stock market crash. An unemployment in Chicago was near 50 percent after the four years of crash which led thousands of people to move and gather for social protest.

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n the center of the Great Depression many families tried desperately to pull themselves together and rise above the hardship that was taking place in the city during the 1930’s. This period brought a lot of shame, embarrassment, and abandonment to many families as many people were forced to stand on bread lines and dumpster dive for food. The crisis affected everyone and there were no jobs to be had at this time. Big banks went out of business, the gap between the rich and the poor was shrinking, and resources were being depleted.

On the other side of the country, a different type of depression was taking place during the 1930’s. In many areas of Texas and surrounding states, a huge dust storm had covered a vast portion  of the residential areas. Crops belonging to farmers were ruined by mountains of dust covering them rendering them useless. Many families were affected by the storm and were forced to leave their homes to avoid starvation and malnutrition.

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NYC had developed very quickly in the 20th century because of the development of steel, skyscrapers and the subway system was able to be built. Because of the density and diversity of NYC it was able to build more and quicker than other cities like Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania the focus was not as strong, thus skyscrapers were built here and there but they were not all organized in one area like they are in Manhattan.  

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In Savannah and the Low country of Georgia, a legacy of decorative art among African Americans, including carvings, canes, quilts, baskets, furniture, and grave decorations, continued into the early twentieth century. During the 1930s and early 1940s, a period in which regional cultures were emphasized in literature, music, and the arts, the less conventional works of southern, self-taught artists, especially African Americans, were exposed to a wider audience and received greater appreciation. Trained artists in the Savannah area often collected the work of self-taught artists. (http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org)

Street Scene, Savannah

Margaret Augusta Murphy, the daughter of Savannah artists Lucile Desbouillons and Christopher P. H. Murphy, painted the watercolor Street Scene, Savannah between 1930 and 1940.

 By 1914 New York City had become the center of Modernist art. Characteristically, modernist art has a tendency to abstraction, is innovative, aesthetic, futuristic and self-referential. It includes visual art, literature, music, film, design, architecture as well as life style. It reacts against historicism, artistic conventions and institutionalization of art. In this period, art was not only to be dealt with in academies, theaters or concert halls, but to be included in everyday life and accessible for everybody.( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_modernism)

http://www.chicagomaroon.com/2008/5/30/new-york-changes-before-sloans-eyes

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NYC and Chicago’s subway system are two of the oldest transit systems in America.  Compared to NYC’s subway system, the Chicago ‘L’ is less complex, composed of eight lines and connecting the outer counties to the commercial center of downtown Chicago.  NYC in the 20th century utilized technology and innovation to create a massive underground network that connects all five boroughs, while Chicago limited it’s transit system to eight lines, an elevated rail, and one connecting center called The Loop. The first Chicago ‘L’ s  first locomotive operated on June 6, 1892 when it departed 39th Street Station and arrived at Congress St. Terminal.  It’s drawback during the early years of operation was that none of the lines entered the city center but instead dropped everyone off at a subterminal where the majority of workers still had to walk to their jobs.  State regulations impeded the expansion of the subway system because property owners had to approve the expansion of elevated rails directing going into their neighborhood and over public streets.  After the development of the Loop (a center that connected the eight lines) and the introduction of an express line in the 1940’s, ridership and the efficiency of the rail increased.

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Perhaps the Great Depression helped NYC dodge yet another bullet on its journey to becoming the greatest city in the world. In the late 1700s Thomas Jefferson had decided that a swamp on the Potomac River was to be the capitol of the country. That had removed most political responsibility, NYC didn’t have to have monuments, the President’s home, or the meeting house of congress at its center. Instead, it devoted it’s space to making money, and the entities who owned the central locations simply had the most of it.The Great Depression had done the same, but in a slightly more specific manner. Instead of having Hollywood in Manhattan, various musicians, film companies and media companies moved west. At the start, in the 1910s, companies moved to escape licensing issues. Eventually, aided by the Great Depression, Los Angeles, and more specifically Hollywood, became the new Media center of the country. This allowed NYC to become a true financial center, instead of a jack-of-all trades.

Hollywood studios in 1922

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Collection of the New York Public Library, Maps of New York City and State

One aspect of New York City development during the twentieth century to another American city was passing zoning ordinance in 1916 (Chudacoff 214).  As stated on the NYC.GOV website, “In 1915, when the 42-story Equitable Building was erected in Lower Manhattan, the need for controls on the height and form of all buildings became clear setting the stage for the nation’s first comprehensive zoning resolution”. To deal with population density and growing Skyscrapers the concept was born. According to NYC.gov, “The concept of enacting a set of laws to govern land use and bulk was revolutionary, but the time had come for the city to regulate its surging physical growth. The groundbreaking Zoning Resolution of 1916, though a relatively simple document, established height and setback controls and designated residential districts that excluded what were seen as incompatible uses”. New York was the first city to pass this ordinance and became a model for other cities in the United States. It took additional eight years for other major cities to establish zoning regulations in order to control heights of buildings and fixed density limitations (Chudacoff 214).

. [Chicago : Chicago Zoning Commission, 1922]. maps : photocopies ; on sheets 80 x 100 cm. Blue line prints.”]In 1922, for example, the Chicago Zoning Commission, in order to facilitate the creation of Chicago’s first zoning law, compiled the first land-use map of Chicago. This picture is one of the  Government Maps of Chicago in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s

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Prohibition took organized crime to astonishing levels during the 20th century when it was passed in 1918. NYC and Chicago saw the development of powerful mobsters in the 20th century. In NYC Many residents hoped that Prohibition (1920-1933) would reduce crime, improve health and safety, promote economic prosperity, and increase public morality. However it failed Mob-controlled liquor quickly replaced legitimate tax-paying alcohol producers and retailers. Gangster-owned speakeasies replaced neighborhood drinking establishments and within five years after Prohibition was imposed, there were over 100,000 speakeasies in New York City. Mobsters opened large nightclubs with elaborate floor shows and popular bands. Speakeasies and nightclubs flourished because law enforcement officers were usually bribed.

In Chicago, There was a great profit to be made in providing a forbidden product so people built their own stills and created networks of transportation and distribution through speakeasies. Chicago’s most notorious gangster, Al “Scarface” Capone, built an empire from the sale of prohibited liquor despite the efforts of the Chicago police in raiding warehouses and speakeasies and destroying contraband liquor. speakeasies often kept their illicit businesses going through bribery. Everyone from prominent politicians to cops on the street took cuts in the profits made from trafficking alcohol during prohibition. In Chicago, thousands of police and other officials were on the take, some of them getting over $1,000 a week.

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One of the major difference between NYC and the rest of the cities in America has always been the population, but this difference expanded in the 1900s. All throughout American History, NYC has been the land of opportunity for the “hard workers” as well as the “dreamers” – but none more so during the 1900s. In the 1920s, musicians and artists from all over the country came to NYC, to try and be successful. With the radio reaching into every American’s house, NYC was the right place to be. America was introduced to the jazz and the blues. NYC was already home to Broadway theater, but it was only in the early 1900s, that the rest of America started taking notice of it.

Music was only one reason a lot of people were driven to NYC.  Industrialization, the growth in Transportation, and the opportunities available due to the New York Stock Exchange are some of the other reasons, that a lot of people were attracted to NYC. According to the census, the population in NYC grew by more than 2 million from 1900 to 1920, and by almost 2 million from 1920 to 1940, while the second most populous city at that time – Chicago, grew by a little over 1 million from 1900 to 1920 and by merely 700,000 from 1920 to 1940. Immigration is another big reason why NYC has always had a higher population growth than the other countries. During this period, millions of immigrants entered the city from Ellis Islands, although most of them did not live in NYC.

P.S: This video was shot in July 1903 by Edison Studios

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In the early twentieth century, during the Progressive Era, city government established city planning department in order to cope with everyday infrastructure problems, including traffic congestion, air pollution, and substandard housing. The problems of American cities were particularly acute, as much of the growth of those cities occurred with no comprehensive plan. In addition, the sudden quickness of that growth, especially with governments working with a laissez-faire economic policy that pretty much allowed business and industrial concerns free reign, led to many problems in both the physical and social environment.

America's First Garden City

In 1923, the Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA) was organized and offered grand vision for restructuring urban regions. They asserted that uncontrolled expansion was causing unnecessary congestion and that decentralization would relieve pressures of housing and traffic. Stein felt that “Dinosaur” cities like New York were outdated as a consequence of modern technology. These cities required vast amount of financial expenditures for transit and utility systems. They were overly congested and required intensive land utilization that resulted in highly inflated property values. An endless spiral of speculative real estate investments led to more intensive land use and even more congestion. On the other hand, the Garden City Movement in 1898 advocated the concept of “garden cities”. Those garden cities were surrounded by “greenbelts” of parks, farms and open land. The cities would contain enough business and industry to achieve a degree of economic self-sufficiency. They saw “garden cities” as a means to achieve a rational distribution of population and economic growth. In 1928, just prior the Great Depression, they tried to bring Howard’s garden city to the United States by creating Radburn, New Jersey.

Radburn was designed as a community for the affluent. In addition, restrictive covenants prohibited the selling of houses to Jews and to African Americans. Its advocates were bowing to the pressures for privacy, exclusivity, and safety and protection. It was also designed to minimize the requirement for automobiles. Automobiles were relegated to main arterial streets that were on the periphery, thus enabling the separation of pedestrian and vehicle traffic. People were able to wander through the local parks and pathways without worry of traffic, and underpasses were built under major streets. Radburn project represented the growing concern for minimizing the discomfort and dangers posed by the automobile. It became an inspiration for Resettlement Administration during the Great Depression.

Le Corbusierian "Radient City" from Plan Voisin of Paris designed in 1925

New city planning in the twentieth century has also been influenced by the modernist movement. In 1939, at the New York World’s Fair, General Motors had an exhibit that many consider the highlight of the fair. In its highways and horizons building, General Motors constructed a miniaturized scale model of a United States of the future – Futurama. The scale model consisted of a half-million individually designed buildings and thousands of miles of multilane highways. It was the future city of towers and highways, highly influenced by Le Corbusierian “Radient City”. Futurama articulated the view that the success of future city rests on the development of better and more efficient transportation. It was an illustration of the continued progress in high way design and construction, the expanded use of automobiles and the increased contributions of industry. This model greatly influenced in the building of post-World War II America and in urban renewal, interstate highways, and suburbia. Robert Moses, who was New York’s Park Commissioner and urban planner. He was influenced by “trafficgenerating” capacity of highways and driven the building of highway systems that served the city, for example the Long Island Expressway, the Triborough and Verrazano Bridges. Futurama became the prototype for the urban reconstruction of New York.

General Motor’s Futurama model of the city of the future, images from the New York World’s Fair’s brochure of 1939-1940

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By the 20th century, Philadelphia had become one of the world’s largest industrial centers. But pollution, disease, and inadequate housing alarmed city officials. Unlike the high-rise tenements of New York. The three-story tall bandbox houses were often hidden from street view. Local government was slow to react. By 1920 most of south Philadelphia was filled with block after block of row and twin houses. unlike New York has the public place like central park and recreation park. philadelphia only has a few public squares and playgrounds provided off-street recreation and open green space.

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By 1900 Boston led the way in realizing a vast regional park system. Daniel Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago gave a further boost to the metropolitan and regional park concept by proposing a park system extending some thirty miles from the center of the city and a lakeside park system of over twenty miles that would establish the unique character of the Chicago lakefront. And in the 1920s, in New York, the Regional Plan of New York and Environs and the New York State Parks Council and the Long Island
State Parks Commission, led by Robert Moses, developed a model system of metropolitan parks and parkways that would shape the lives and recreational habits of millions of people for decades
to come.

Regional park systems were also flourishing in the West. Perhaps foremost was the establishment of California’s East Bay Regional Park District in 1934, based on Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.’s “California State Park Survey.” The East Bay Park District was the first American regional park district with consolidated authority and independent taxing powers. It established a national model for administrative and regional park quality.

Building on these successes, communities all across America developed metropolitan and regional park systems that preserved unique natural areas and provided needed recreational facilities.

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Electricity was not very wide spread by the early 20th century. As technology developed and there became more demand for household appliances, so did the demand for electrical wired housing. In 1920, city housing was only 10% total electrically wired, but in just 10 years it jumped up to 50%. However in rural parts of the country where farming was prominent, houses rarely had electricity. Because of this, many of the new innovations in washing machines, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators and radios were primarily promoted to urban and suburban society rather than to rural society (Chudacoff 186). With the usage of these appliances many more women raised their own standards of cleanliness, by tending to choirs more often due to the convenience created by these appliances, which also resulted in demand for greater spread and supply of electricity. Although it is not a new invention, electricity has changed the developed world so much that it would be very challenging to live without it.

1920's Washer Machine

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New York in the 1920s had nearly 6 million residents and was a center of manufacturing and culture. Immigrants entering through the port fed the city’s thriving economy. As part of the great migration from the south to northern cities thousands of African Americans moved to New York between 1917 and 1925. In addition to the lure of jobs, many were drawn to the cultural life of Harlem, on the city’s East Side. NYC was known in the 1920’s for a little something called the Harlem Renaissance. This movement of African American culture was a thriving Jazz center of the United states. Boson on the other hand was known for their influence in baseball. Babe Ruth was one of the star players for the Boston Red sox.

Babe Ruth starting pitcher for the Red Sox.

Louis Armstrong known throughout the Harlem Renaissance.

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found via Google Images Search.

At the start of the twentieth century there were great innovation in transportation that changed the way in which people lived across the US. This was especially clear in major cities like New York City and Boston. Both cities were able to adapt the latest changes in transportation very quickly, which allowed each city to grow its population and size.

In New York new bridges and automobiles allowed people from outside of Manhattan to commute to the city very easily. While in Boston, there were 6 neighboring communities to Boston that were combined to make Greater Boston. In New York City many people enjoyed taking trains and other various forms of public transportation from the outer boroughs into the city. While in Boston people preferred to drive. In both cases many new houses were built as developers scrambled to meet demand. Many of these houses are still in existence today and can be seen all over the outer city areas.
Today, these changes have had profound effects on each city and have allowed them both to thrive and prosper.

NYC's 5 Boroughs

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GuDExkBmnU

Music reflects the time and social aspects of that period of time. There was a big development in twentieth century, because the need of leisure was in demand in the fast developing New York City. The Harlem Renaissance was a big cultural movement in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. Harlem was the African-Americans’ neighborhood. African-Americans’ music, for example, the Jazz, was very popular at that time. Music changed the social status of African-Americans. They became more accepted and appreciated in the city. Also in that period, Blues, another type of African-American music was blooming in Chicago. More African-Americans moved from the southern states to the northern states, such as from Texas to Chicago. At the beginning, this kind of music was not popular and just for entertains African-Americans. However, after more and more people visited the city and listened to their performance. The music became popular. Music played an important role to African-Americans in the American society. It let people get to know more about African-Americans and accept them were also the citizens.

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NYC has most modern subway system. In 1904, first subway was built on a route from city hall to Bronx.  After that number of extensions occurred in following years. From 1913 onwards, city signed contracts with private companies for the growth of subway lines. In1940 city got independent subway system after acquiring BRT and IRT(private companies). It was the latest and most innovative subway development of that time. Chicago “L” subway system is the second longest rapid transit system in total track mileage in United States.  After 1911 the Chicago line came under the control of president of Chicago Edison electric utility. He knew that trains were the city largest consumer of electricity. He improved the whole system including free transfers and through routings. He also bought three other Chicago electric railroads and ran them via “L” tracks.    

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