Urban Life

Urban Life Cities, Social Class, etc

Urbanization • 3 types of cities – Commercial centers – Mill towns – Transportation hubs

• New York City

Water Power? • Lack limited industrial development – Seaports expanded and diversified – Boston, Philly, Baltimore

• Access creates growing cities – Trenton, Lowell, Wilmington

The West • Transportation hubs • Generally, commercial centers rather than industrial ones

Class structure • Drastic differences • Capitalists • More wealth does not equal more suffering

Middle and working classes • developing

Urban working class • Housing patterns • Slums • Transformation of working class family life

The Middle Class • • • •

Their homes Conveniences “Certain values” Men and women – “Cult of domesticity” – Contraception?

Urban tensions • Violence – Ethnic and racial tensions – Police?

Free blacks • Small elite groups in some cities – MINORITY

• Jobs • Racial “differences” • Abolition – De juro and de facto

• Voting • Civil Rights