Lesson 5. 2

a growing network of railroads fed city growth.

Railroads helped move people and raw materials for industry.

Chicago and Kansa City developed into meat packing centers.

Pittsburgh became a center for iron and steel manufacturing.

Seaports such as New York and San Francisco grew as trade with the rest of the world increased.

In the most crowded cities, the poorest people including more immigrants lived in tenements.

A tenement is a type of residence that is often run-down and crowded.

A slum highly populated, poor, run-down, urban area

Tenements were usually crowded with several families sharing a cold-water tap and a toilet.

Middle class made up of people who enjoyed a comfortable life but not great wealth.

Middle class were the families of doctors, lawyers, and misters, as well as teachers, mangers office clerks,

Some middle class moved to the suburbs-residential area that sprang up outside city center.

They lived in houses with hot water, indoor toilets, and by 1900 electricity,

The top of the economic and social ladder were the very rich

They built mansions in the cities and huge estates in the country.

Their wealth and the poverty that lay beneath it is one reasons why this era became known as the Gilded Age.

The word gilded refers to something covered with a thin layer of gold.

The rapid growth in the cities led to some serious problems

Garbage and horse manure piled up in the city streets

Sewers couldn't handle the flow of human waste

All the filth acted as a breeding ground for quickly spreading diseases

In Chicago around the 1900's numerous amounts of babies died do to whooping cough, diphtheria, measles.

To control the spread of diseases, official screen schoolchildren, sent visiting nurses to mothers with young children, and set up public health clinics.

poverty lead to crime in the cities.

Orphaned and homeless children sometimes restored to committing minor, or less serious, crimes.

Gangs roamed the poor neighborhoods.

Many dedicated people worked to improve urban life and help the poor.

Establishments called settlement houses offered many types of assistance to the urban poor.

One of the most famous was Chicago's Hull House, founded by jane Addams in 1889.