Chapter 15 Section 3The Challenge of the Cities

Suburb Residential

communities surrounding cities

Most people lived in the cities As they made

more money and transportation improved, they could live further from where they worked

Tenement

Low cost apartment buildings designed to house as many families as the owner could pack in

A group of dirty, run-down tenements could transform an area into a slum

Dumbbell Tenement Named for its

dumbbell shape

Each building narrowed in the middle, and gaps on either side formed air shafts to bring light and air inside the rooms An improvement

but… Still not an open

balcony Garbage collected

at the bottom of the shafts

Describe living conditions in a

dumbbell tenement Overcrowded

Unsanitary

Disease ridden

Run down

Low cost

How did Jacob Riis expose the conditions

that existed in tenement houses?

Mastered new technology of flash photography

Showed the photographs to people in lecture halls

What were three technological

developments that enabled cities to

house more people?

Elevator

Subway

Cable car

Elevated trains

Electric trolleys

Bessemer process

Political Machine

An unofficial city organization designed to keep a particular party or group in power and usually headed by a single powerful “boss”

What contributed to the rise of political

machines?

As city governments grew in size, wealth, and power, they became prizes to control. The machine enabled a local faction of one party to maintain control

Who benefitted most from Boss Tweed’s

control of New York City?

Tweed and his allies benefitted the most His political

machine was self-serving and bad for the population of New York City

Graft

The use of one’s job to gain profit

Why did some people criticize graft?

Graft is distasteful because it involves using one’s position of power to exploit others.

List 4 challenges that people living in cities

faced. Overcrowding

Disease

Danger of fires

Contaminated water

Lack in indoor plumbing