- Explain the strong connection among the
new forces of industrialization, urbanization, and immigration. Show how each
one tended to reinforce the others, creating a significantly new kind of urban
environment.
REFERENCE: Eric Monkkonen, America
Becomes Urban (1988).
- Describe the experience of the New Immigrants
and explain why they were often regarded with suspicion or hostility. The
emphasis might be on the factors that made them different from most earlier
immigrantsparticularly their strange cultures, religions,
poverty, and the fact that they crowded into urban slums.
REFERENCE: John Bodnar, The
Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America (1985).
- Relate the cultural conflicts over religion
and values to the new social and cultural environment of the city. Show how
urban life tended to undermine traditional standards of belief and behavior
(for example, about drinking or divorce) while creating new institutions and
values, including popular culture.
REFERENCE: Gunther Barth, City
People: The Rise of Modern City Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (1980).
- Consider the complicated effects of urbanization
on womens roles and familynew opportunities arose but they imposed
new strains on marriage and child-rearing.
REFERENCES: Elaine May, Great
Expectations: Marriage and Divorce in Post-Victorian America (1983);
Steven Mintz, A Prison of Expectations: The Family in
Victorian Culture (1985).
