Modern Boston History Exam

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Week 2.2 The Gilded Age History 385

Julie de Chantal

Context of the Gilded Age in the US The Gilded Age is a period spanning from the 1870s to the 1890s. It is situated between the end of the Civil War and the Progressive Era, which I will discuss in lecture 3.2.

The term Gilded Age came from a novel written by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner titled The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. The novel written in 1873 was a satire of the corruption and greed which emerged in the post-Civil War era.

The title was a reference to Shakespeare’s poem King John, which discusses the excesses of human beings by saying:

“To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw a perfume on the violet, to smooth the ice, or add another hue unto the rainbow, or with taper-light to seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, is wasteful and ridiculous excess.”

In this sense, when Twain and Warner talk about a Gilded Age, they talk about an era of excesses and wastefulness. These excesses are specifically those of the industrialization and the rise of the industrialists. It is an age of exploitation of the workers, of lack of safety on the job, and of poverty. During this period we also see a resurgence of nativism but with a glimpse of hope as people begin to assimilate in Boston.

Industrialization During the Gilded Age, there was a large push for industrialization. The technological advances of the antebellum and Civil War era continued, and led the country into the second Industrial revolution.

If you remember, Bostonians led the first industrial revolution in the 1820s-1830s with the development of the textile mill. The first industrial revolution was mainly based on the steam engine and its application to the industry. The revolution led to the development of a working- class, which did not really exist until then (people were primarily artisans who owned the means of production). During the revolution, the fact that the industrialists own the means of production led to the development of the proletariat. The second industrial revolution was based on the steel industry and the development of petroleum. Unlike cities like Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Detroit, Boston did not focus solely on steel in the second half of the nineteenth century. Instead, the city has a booming fishing and naval industry (naval yard in Charlestown). The port ranked 2nd in the nation in volume, after NYC. The port was at the center of a large nationwide shipping industry and a relatively large manufacturing industry.

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Massachusetts ranked 3rd behind New York State and Pennsylvania in terms of overall industrial productivity. It was the 1st in terms of its industrialization per capita. The transportation system that developed in the state (trains in particular), allowed manufactures around Boston to ship their products almost everywhere in the nation. By the end of the 1800s, every Massachusetts town of more than 5,000 people had a railroad connection. In 1867, the state saw the creation of the consolidated Boston-Albany Railroad, which, with the completion of the Hoosac Tunnel route in the Berkshires in the 1870s, connected both state capitals. The railroad hired a growing foreign and native-born workforce.

After the Civil War, the invention of the sewing machine revolutionized the clothing industry and the division of labor. People could work from home instead of having to work in a factory setting. With the need for ready made clothing that emerged during the Civil War, by 1870, Boston became the center for the manufactures of low cost garments. Women especially could take in piece work, and work from home at their own pace.

Various industries flowered in the city: piano factories, ironworks, shipyards, and distilleries for example make up the new economy. James Michael Curley, the future mayor of Boston (we will talk about him in length in later weeks), said of his time in the industry:

“We slaved away in overalls and undershirts in the blistering temperatures required in those days in the manufacture of pianos. During the nine months I worked there, my weight dropped from 134 pounds to 80. I was paid $7.50 a week until put on piecework, and when my pay increased to as much as $16 a week the boss put me back on the former schedule.” He complained and was fired from his job.

Urbanization Overall, the abundance of jobs in the state and in the city attracted a large number of workers, making Massachusetts the most densely populated state of the 19th century. It especially attracted farmers from the surrounding areas who left their family farm for better opportunities.

Historian Stephen Ternstrom studied the fluidity of the migration to and from Boston in the 1870s and 1880s. He estimated that due to the movement out of the city, the net-in migration was 12 times higher than expected (the population of the city increases by 20 to 25% for each decade in the last half of the century). Immigrants also arrived in the city in larger numbers. The proportion of foreign-born increased from 1% in 1830 to 25% in 1870 not taking into consideration the number of children of foreign-born people born in the city (first generation Irish for example). In the years following the Civil War, the bulk of immigrants arriving in Boston still came from the “old immigration countries”: Canada, England, Ireland, France, and Germany. This changed in the late 1880s, when a larger number of Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe, Italians, Portuguese, and Greeks began to arrive in the city. As you can imagine, this new immigration led to a rise in nativism targeting new comers.

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With the arrival of a larger number of immigrants and migrants, the city launched urbanization projects. As I mentioned last week, since the 1850s, the city had filled the Back Bay. (You can see the difference in the map between 1852 and 1880). The city still needed more territory for the construction of appropriate housing.

Prosperity? Prosperity was difficult to achieve for many Bostonians. If 40 to 50% of all Boston families were considered to be middle-class families, ⅓ of the population was poor. Poor Bostonians faced job shortages due to seasonal layoffs, economic depressions, and intense job competition. Immigrants lived in congested neighborhoods rife with diseases and plagued by substandard living conditions. It usually took between 2 and 3 generations (50 to 75 years, if one counts 25 years per generation) for working-class families to become middle-class families.

Furthermore, ethnic groups coalesced into what historians described “clannish” enclaves. Due to segregation, Irish lived in Irish neighborhoods, Italians lived in Italian neighborhoods, Chinese immigrants lived in Chinatown, Jews lived in Jewish neighborhoods, African Americans lived in Black neighborhoods, etc. This situation situation bred nativism, resentment, and intergroup hostility as people were seen as being unable to assimilate.

Middle class reformers were in part responsible for this rise in nativism. They particularly feared that migrants and immigrants would depress the wage standard of native born workers and that their alien lifestyle would degrade family life. They saw Jews and Chinese for example, clinging to their traditions, eating traditional foods, and speaking foreign languages. They saw them living in poverty, taking on any job at very low wages. It is important to understand their attitude. They did not understand the concept of privilege like we do today. They could not understand that immigrants faced systemic discrimination and economic difficulties. They simply thought that these people did not make enough “effort” to become “civilized.” As a response to this perceived problem, they solicited the help of the government in regulating the city.

Intervention of the government Both city and state governments attempted to improve the lives of Bostonians during the Gilded Age. In the case of Boston and Massachusetts, the push for reform began well before other states. Elsewhere, reform movements began during the Progressive era (1890-1920).

Early on, Massachusetts regulated what it considered to be “public good.” For example, • in 1869 the state established a railroad commission to mediate between railroad and

public interests. • It created the Board of Gas and Electric Light Commissioner in 1885, and added

additional regulatory power to the Board in 1887, 1893, and 1894. The Board Commissioner allowed rate fixing, control of competition, and governed stock sales of utilities companies.

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• In the same years, the state created commissions on hospitals and asylums, a commission on libraries, another one on charities, a regulatory office for penal institutions, and the Bureau of Labor statistics.

Seeing that industrialists took advantage of workers in the state, the legislature also began to regulate labor

• In 1866, it created the Factory Inspection act, which allowed the state to inspect factories to ensure safety and enforcement of laws.

• It reduced the workday of women and children to 10 hour in 1874 (the usual workday could go up to 16 hours at the time). This is a first in terms of regulating women’s and children’s hours. (They reduced the work hours of women to create a “family friendly” environment where women could go back to take care of their children “not too late” in the day).

• In 1886, the state passed bills which included a weekly payments measure (pay check every week), an employers’ liability act, and a law outlawing contract labor.

• In 1887, it passed an act making Labor Day a holiday.

To expand access to the vote, the state abolished poll taxes in 1891, and passed the Corrupt Practices Act in 1892, which intended to reduce the influence of industrialists and money in politics.

Irish Boston By the 1870s, a large number of Irishmen had been living in the city for long enough to have acquired their citizenship. You have to remember that citizenship required a person to have been in the Untied States for 5 years. By the Gilded Age, a large number were active in politics (voting, participating in rallies, even running for office). As you remember up to the Civil War, Republicans controlled politics at the city and state level. After the war, the number of Irish became such that the vote shifted toward the Democratic party.

Instead of seeing the shift as a question of representation (more people voting to have their interests represented by the party that best represented them), Yankee Republicans believed that the Irish did not have a true political affiliation to the Democrats. Instead, they felt that the Irish only voted to gain something (i.e. jobs). Republicans thought that, if the state removed the spoils (the jobs), the Irish would no longer vote for the Democrats, hence maintaining the Republican hegemony in Boston. They could not have been more wrong. In 1884, Boston elected its first Irish mayor, Hugh O’Brien.

Hugh O’Brien Hugh O’Brien was born on July 13, 1827, in Ireland. He came to the United States in 1830s with his parents. He was the editor of the Shipping and Commercial List and served as an alderman from 1875 to 1883 (city councilman). In 1884, he was elected as mayor of the city.

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It is important to understand that there was an Irish intelligentsia in Boston before O’Brien became mayor. One of the community leaders, John Boyle O’Reilly, was especially important in that sense.

John Boyle O’Reilly John Boyle O’Reilly born in Dowth Castle, in Ireland in 1844. In his home country, he received a good education for the time, dropping out at age 13, when he apprenticed at a local newspaper. In 1861, he joined the army in Ireland and received military training. In 1865, he joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood, also called the Fenians, which was a secret society of rebels dedicated to an armed uprising against British rule. He was arrested in 1865 during a raid on the Fenians, was sentenced to death, then saw his sentence commuted to 20 years penal servitude. He served 2 years in English prisons before being shipped to Western Australia, where Britain sent a number of prisoners.

On the ship, they started the publication of the Wild Goose, a handwritten newspaper. The title of the newspaper referred to the “Wild Geese,” the Irish soldiers who had left to serve in continental European armies since the 16th century. He published 7 issues of the newspaper, each issue was made in 1 copy. Then the issue was read aloud to the convicts. The Wild Goose included songs, stories, articles, advice, poems, and even comedy.

Upon arrival in Australia, he was booked at the Fremantle Prison but after a month transferred to Bunbury Prison, where he was assigned to a party of convicts taken with building the Bunbury- Vasse road. At the prison, he developed good relationship with the warden who made him a probationary convict constable. In this position, he kept records and accounts, ordered merchandise from local stores, and held administrative duties. He was a messenger which allowed him to travel between the work camp and the district convict prison. In 1868, he formed a strong friendship with a local Catholic priest. The priest offered to arrange for his escape of the colony.

On February 18, 1869, he ran away from his work assignment, and met up with a helper in a local town. They rode to the Collie River where a rowboat was waiting for them. They rowed out of the islet into the Indian ocean, for about 12 miles up the coast. He hid in the dunes, waiting for an American ship to depart. The ship departed the next day, but the captain turned on his promise, leaving them stranded in their rowboat. He managed to make arrangements with another ship and finally escaped two week laster, on March 2nd, 1869. He transferred ships many times; once in Saint Helena, once in Liverpool, and landed in Philadelphia on November 23, 1869. From there, he settled in Charlestown (Boston). Soon he started working for the Pilot, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston. He worked as a writer, then became the editor, and finally part owner of the paper. His writings and his influence on Irish Bostonian were really important in the political development of the community

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Control of other aspects of the politics (O’Reilly) A majority of his writing meant to instill a collective sense of self-confidence in his constituents (the Irish). He felt that Boston was to become a fully Catholic city and that, according to him, the day was not so distant that the “last descendant of the Puritans would be exhibited in a glass case as a national curiosity.” He even said that he would not be surprised to see Plymouth Rock used as a cornerstone for a Catholic church. He was a witty writer who knew how to push the Yankees’ buttons!

He especially used his writing as a way to denounce injustice. For example, he wanted the Irish to gain political representation in the city. When he spoke of political representation, he did not only speak of political power. He spoke about representation on all levels

For example, ½ of the population of Boston was Catholic at the time, yet, only two inspectors and four sergeants were Irish Catholic. Out of the 70 officers employed by the city, only one was of Irish birth, and he held the lowest rank in the force.

Representation in schools was also disproportionately Yankee. Despite the fact that ½ of the children were Catholic, only 8 of the 24 school committeeman and 200 of the 1,341 teachers were Catholic. Not a single Catholic headmaster was of Irish Catholic origins. O’Reilly was particularly interested in education because he understood that education shaped children and the public’s view of the Irish community. For example in a geography lesson, in one of the schools, O’Reilly reported that children were taught that Great Britain was “noted for its love of law and order, and fair dealings, whereas Ireland was famous for its peats, potatoes, poverty, and political disturbances. “ (You can see the difference between the two images here).

In order to change the image of the Irish in the city, O’Reilly publish lists of Irish accomplishments (for example list of people whose property exceeded $15,000). He also wrote puff pieces to talk about great Irishmen living in Boston. He even argued once that the Irish were the ones who rowed Columbus to the continent, linking the Irish to the discovery of the continent, making them somewhat more important than the Puritans in the founding of the Americas.

O’Reilly’s relationship with Yankees Contrary to what we can imagine, O’Reilly was part of the intelligentsia of the city and had relatively good relationships with the Brahmins (which would have been unimaginable 20 years before). He wrote a lot of poetry for all sorts of commemorations (Crispus Attucks monument for example or the memorial to Wendell Phillips). He was basically seen as an horary Brahmin, if you will, because of the power that he yielded in the city.

The Massachusetts Civil Service Reform Yet, despite all of this, the Yankees’ view of the Irish community did not change much, and the state pursued other ways to suppress the vote of Irish.

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In 1881, President Garfield was assassinated by a disgruntled office-seeker, Charles J. Guiteau. To make a long story short, Guiteau felt that because he had worked for Garfield’s electoral campaign (not really true, he wrote one speech that he read himself in front of a small audience), he was owed a position in government (ambassador to Paris, for example, which was an important position). When he did not get the position that he felt he was owed, he lost it, and assassinated Garfield.

In response to the assassination, Senator George H. Pendleton of Ohio sponsored the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act which was signed into law in 1883 by President Chester A. Arthur. The Act required that all civil service jobs be opened to all qualified citizens and be awarded based on merit after the completion of competitive exams. The federal act, however, only applied to a limited number of civil service jobs at the federal level. Quickly state legislatures followed the federal initiative. New York Assemblyman Teddy Roosevelt acted first to protect the state against the encroachment of power by the Tammany Hall (a Democratic political machine controlling New York City). Massachusetts was the second state to pass a civil service law in 1884 (the year that Hugh O’Brien was elected).

The Massachusetts law was stronger than its federal counterpart. Whereas the federal act only applied to 10% of all federal positions, the Massachusetts Civil Service reform extended to all state and municipal jobs, which counted approximately 4,600 positions. If the Yankees though that the restriction of positions would effect the Irish vote, it did not. From that point on, Irish voters began to elect more and more politicians to represent their interests in the city.

Development of Boston During the Gilded Age, Boston’s landscape is heavily transformed not only because of the push for urbanization but because of the catastrophic Great Fire of 1872.

Great Fire of 1872 Fires were common in large cities. During the Gilded Age, the rapid and poor construction of buildings, the overcrowding, and the dirt and rubbish in the streets increased the risk of fire. Since people used horses, hay and manure on the street also increased the risk. As you may remember, the city had taken measures to reduce the number of fires. For example the city fire code regulated the size of the walls, and the type of materials used in the construction. Regulations, however, were rarely enforced, since the city did not have a commission specifically dedicated to enforcement.

For the most part, buildings had been built before the code was put in place, and were not subject to the regulation unless the owners had plans to renovate. At the time, wooden roofs, especially mansard roofs, were common, and allowed fire to jump from one building to another. Merchants kept large inventories in their attics since they were not taxed for what was in the attic. For that reason, attics were cesspools of flammable goods like fabrics, paper, wool, etc. Buildings were also often overinsured which meant that if it burnt completely, their owners would get more

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money than if they attempted to save the structure. In that sense, there were few if any incentives to construct fire-safe buildings. (Arson was also a common way to get money if you went broke or bankrupt!).

Context The Great Fire started at 7:20 pm on November 9th, 1872, in a basement of a commercial warehouse at 83-87 Summer Street. It was contained 12 hours later after it had burnt some 65 acres of the city. A total of 776 buildings, and a large portion of the financial district were burnt, causing some $73.5 million of dollars in damage. Contrary to most fires though, only 13 people perished. (The fire in Chicago in 1871 for example had killed 300 people, made 100,000 people homeless, and burnt 34 blocks of residential and commercial streets). Let’s look at what made the fire so difficult to tame.

Firefighters Today, we take the firefighter system for granted. In 1872 Boston, however, things were different. The city only hired a small firefighter force. They used horses to pull the carriages containing the pumps. Using animals meant that they can also get sick. At the time of the fire, most of the Boston firefighter horses were stricken by an epizootic flu. This turn of events forced the fire department to organize teams of men to pull each piece of equipment to the fire. This added delays in getting enough equipment to the scene of the fire after it began

Difficulties with the water supply Boston’s fire chief John Damrell had warned city officials that the water supply in the commercial district was outdated and inadequate. At the time, the city water supply came from Lake Cochituate, which filled the Brookline Reservoir. It had a capacity of 10 million gallons per day (mgd). The new water system which served Charlestown, Arlington, and Medford had a capacity of 30 mgd. Today’s network’s capacity oscillates around 208 mgd. With 10 mgd, Bostonians had enough water pressure at home, but it was not enough to fight a fire. In some areas firefighters stood helpless as blocks of buildings burned. They were unable to find a hydrant with adequate water pressure to pump from. Furthermore, the fire hydrants had no standardized couplings across the city. Some of the firefighters could not attach their hoses to the hydrants to quell the flames.

Width of the streets The narrowness of the streets was an impediment to the work of the firefighters. The buildings were often too tall for the firefighters to reach the upper floors with the fire ladders and hoses, and the top floor of each building was often of wooden roof packed to the rafters with dry materials.

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A little helping hand During the fire, a group of concerned citizens gathered in city hall to lobby the mayor. They wanted a permit to use gunpowder to demolish buildings in the path of the fire. Their idea was that they could break the path of the fire to stop it from spreading further. They were awarded the permit but failed. Several improvised teams of people, with no training nor prior experience with explosives, packed buildings with gunpowder kegs and lit the fuse. Soon the explosions caused injury and flaming debris lit adjacent buildings. Chief Damrell had to force them to stop them from using this strategy.

Alarms To top this off, some alarms in the city were not functioning well, and others were locked as to prevent false alarms. Prior to the widespread us of the telegraph, cities used bells to alert residents of a fire. This system was not really useful given that no one really knew where the fire was. In 1852, Boston installed the first telegraph alarm of which some are still active today. If you walk through the old neighborhoods of Boston today, you can see those light poles on the street.

Additional issues Looters and bystanders interfered with the work of the firefighters, and the gas lines used to light both streets and buildings could not be shut off properly. Gas lines exploded and fed the flames even more.

Overall situaiton The glow in the sky over the fire could be seen from the coast of Maine where ship captains noted the glow in their logs for the day. Fire departments from every states in New England, except Vermont (they were too far), arrived on trains with pumpers to help the firefighters. Firefighters brought the Amoskeag Steamers from Manchester, New Hampshire. The Amoskeag was the first steam locomotive in the United States to pull a fire engine. Those were usually for railroad use, not for civilian or street use.

Aftermath After the fire, the financial district was almost completely destroyed. A large number of businesses were destroyed, and insurance companies went bankrupt. Thousands, especially workers in the financial industry, were jobless and homeless.

Fire leads to a questions about the redevelopment of the city Within two years, the burnt district was rebuilt mostly through the investment of private capital from Boston commercial property owners. Most of the rubble was dumped in the Harbor to fill in what would become Atlantic Avenue. City planning officials attempted to resolved the issues that the firefighters had faced (water pressure, street width, access to standard fire hydrants, alarms, etc). The rebuilding led the city into the City Beautiful Movement, which emerged at the time. (We will get back to the movement in a minute).

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Panic of 1873 The fires in Chicago and in Boston, with the destruction of the cities’ commercial and financial districts, added to the difficulties on the European financial markets, triggered the Panic of 1873. The Panic of 1873 triggered a long-lasting economic recession (1873-1879). This economic depression was known as the “Great Depression” until the depression of the 1930s.

In Boston, the housing market crumbled. Banks repossessed houses as families lost their sources of revenue. Townhouses and brownstones which had been built in the South End for single families were repossessed, and transformed from their single family purpose into boarding houses, apartment, or single rooms by their owners. In order to profit from their investment, these owners offered cheaper rent to families who could finally afford to live in the once-coveted neighborhood. It especially attracted immigrants and African Americans who could finally afford to live in the area.

Moral issues Yet what was seen as a deterioration of those neighborhoods alarmed reform minded white middle-class Yankees who were concerned with public health. The townhouses had originally been conceived with a single family unit in mind. The division of the premises into boarding houses or smaller apartments led to public health concerns as four to eight families shared the space previously occupied by a single family. Fifteen to thirty people often used the deficient hygiene facilities. Remember that indoor plumbing was not so common at the time. Observers complained about the poor bathing, laundry, and health habits of the tenants.

Reformers quickly argued that the overcrowding was one of the sources of the “lower moral standards” among the working-class population of the city. They claimed that it was difficult, if not impossible, to maintain modesty while sharing living quarters with boarders and children of all ages. (Remember that women needed to be modest, no matter what the circumstances!). The close proximity also made it difficult for children to fall asleep at what the white middle-class considered to be a decent hour, leading them to consider the conditions in the poor neighborhoods to be a cause of faulty childrearing. For that reason, those early reformers launched urban redevelopment projects which aimed to rebuild the city’s moral standards. This push for reform coincided with the City Beautiful Movement.

City Beautiful Movement The City Beautiful movement flourish between 1880 and the 1890s. It was a reaction to the decrepitude of the city. As you can imagine, the quality of the air was bad in every city in the United States. Streets were dirty and poorly maintained. This was especially true in poor neighborhoods where the city did not pick up trash or clean the streets.

The idea behind the movement was to embellish the city and to somewhat obfuscate problems of poverty. It aimed to make the city into the image of the white elite who led the reform

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movement. The movement drew on the contemporary Beaux-Arts and neoclassical architecture in order to make the city beautiful.

Aspects important to the architects Architects especially emphasized the following elements:

• Construction of sky scrapers • systematic arrangement of the streets • Efficiency of transportation • Systematic development of green spaces • technology to make the city livable and usable at night, yet pretty • city harmonious where whole buildings become pieces of art

Buildings To the architects of the time, the greatness of the city was seen through the construction of sky scrapers. These man-made structures called upon the genius of man and his mastery of physics. The advent of steel through the second industrial revolution allowed for the creation of taller and taller buildings. Yet, this proved to be a complex venture, especially in Boston, where most of the territory of the city had been filled with all types of materials through the years. As you can imagine, engineers and architects had to develop systems to stabilize the buildings in order to allow for vertical construction.

In 1880, the city authorized the construction of the Boston Public Library in Copley Square. The building is seen as an example of the City Beautiful movement. Throughout the years, the library had “lived” in several buildings. From 1858 to 1895, it was located on Boylston street. (This building was ultimately demolished in 1899). In 1880, city officials chose the newly filled Back Bay, and Copley Square as the new location for the institution. In 1888, Charles Follen McKim proposed the design based on the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. The French institution had been designed with a Renaissance style. The city approved the design and the construction began.

A side note, in 1870, the city opened the East Boston Branch of the Boston Public Library. With the branch, Boston became the host of the first branch library in America. The city expanded the reach of the library to other neighborhood, and between 1872 and 1900, opened 21 new branches.

Streets During the fire, city officials realized that most streets in Boston were too narrow to allow for the transportation of the pumps. During the City Beautiful Movement, the city expanded the streets to improve the flow of transportation. This expansion allowed for the passage of longer and wider vehicles. The expansion of the streets also allowed for a better control of the water and sewer system in the city, especially in the rare neighborhoods where the street arrangement is in a grid pattern.

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The images of Harrison Avenue in Chinatown show you how the expansion was done. The city indeed demolished buildings bordering the old street dimensions to expand the streets.

Transportation In the early 19th century, city officials began to develop public transportation. In the 1820s, they put in place the omnibus, which was a longer version of the horse carriage that people could take on a number of routes. With the advent of the steel after the Civil War, city officials had the idea of put those carriages on track (grooved tracks flush to the ground). This allowed for a more efficient control of the routes. In 1887, with the electricity, the city got rid of the horses and used the new technology to move trolleys around the city.

Neither the expansion of the streets nor the trolleys resolved the issues of congestion in the city. (As you can see, traffic was already a problem in Boston in the 1870s!!!). For that reason, city architects developed the idea of the elevated railroad in 1879, and put it in practice in the following decades. (The first line was put in place in 1901).

In 1897, Boston became the first city to have an underground railroad system in America. (The London Underground was the first subway system in the world, becoming operational in 1863). The system benefited the residents since it could continue to function in spite of the weather, and was allowed to run faster than over ground transportation. The only trouble was that the engineers needed to make sure that the buildings under which the construction was done were strong enough to support themselves when the trained passed (vibration).

Green spaces During the City Beautiful Movement, city architects planned green spaces for Boston residents to “resource themselves.” Remember that the city is seen as a dirty place. Residents became nostalgic of the country, of green empty spaces. As a result, the city constructed huge parks to fulfill this need.

Boston Common The Boston Common was the first public park in the United States, upon its construction in 1634. Remember that the park was at the center of the the political life of the town at first. During the City Beautiful movement, city officials planned to enlarge the park beyond the Charles River. However, to do so, they needed to fill some 62,000 cubic yards (47,000 cubic meters) and bring some 93,000 tons of soil to the location which prevented the work being done. The construction of the Tremont Street Subway resolved this issue. Land dug from the subway construction was used to fill the area.

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Technology Throughout the early 19th century, Boston used gas to light the city streets. Electricity quickly replaced gas but did not help as much as we think. At the time, electric bulbs were not extremely powerful. It was still dangerous to walk in the streets. However, the advent of electricity changed the way in which people interacted with the city. In homes, incandescent bulbs changed the pace of life. (Think about the expense needed to provide light at night when you use oil or candles).

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in Boston. The telephone was more efficient than the telegraph in terms of private communication. (the telegraph required a trained operator to communicate between people.)

The American Exhibition of the Products, Arts, and Manufactures of Foreign Nations In 1883, Boston held a small international exhibition to show the best of the city. The exhibition aimed to showcase the industrial power of the city as well as learn from others. The flyers, described the exhibition as follows:

the smallest of our international expositions, and yet with the largest number of foreign participants, though, apart from the Chinese and Japanese sections, the exhibits contained little of special interest. It was purely a local enterprise, conducted by some of the leading citizens of Boston, but with government sanction, an act of congress permitting the introduction of exhibits free of duty, while by the secretary of state letters were addressed to all diplomatic representatives, requesting them to bring the matter before the notice of foreign governments. The building, erected at the expense of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics' association, was afterward used for its own periodical exhibitions. Though not a money-making venture, it led to an increased demand for certain varieties of products, and created a demand for others.

Where does that lead us? Despite the work that reformers do at the time, the ills of industrialization and urbanization still show. Bostonians became increasingly worried as time passed. In the 1890s, Progressive reformers launched more reform efforts, hoping to rehabilitate the city.

Exam The exam is also available to you. You can download the instructions at any point during the week. The exam is not timed and you are allowed to use the materials from the class to answer the questions. You will write your exam in a Word document and submit it in the Assignment Section of Blackboard. The exam is due on Sunday at 11:59 pm.