Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o6QKpNK9Cc Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• A government inspection in 1860s revealed poor farm practices throughout American South. • In 1867, the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, a fraternal organization complete with secret rituals formed and initially devoted to educational events and social gatherings. • Local affiliates known as "granges" and members as "grangers.“ • In wake of Panic of 1873, Grange evolved into an advocacy group. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• (Left) Grange Hall in Maine, circa 1910. • During the 1870s, the Grangers advocated cooperative purchasing, espoused pooling of savings, built cooperative grain elevators, and made a short-lived attempt at equipment manufacturing. • Failed to address core issue of overproduction. • Peaking around 1875, as political force the Grange replaced Greenback Party of the 1870s, the Farmers' Alliances of the 1880s and the Populist Party of the 1890s. • Returned to its social functions and remains in existence today. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• Thomas Jefferson envisioned an America of small, independent farmers and educated enough to participate in a republic. • Age of Industry brought on urbanization. • Industry’s need drew small farmers off their land while technology pushed them. • Factories concentrated in northeast, Great Lakes, and California coast. • In 1860, 1/6 of Americans lived in urban areas; by 1920, more than 50% did. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• Cities revealed the best and worst of American society. • New technologies, e.g. skyscraper, electric light, automobile, and telephone, transformed life. • Immigrant communities began life in America in urban slums. • Pollution, disease, crime, overcrowding plagued cities. • Corrupt municipal governments failed to respond to the needs of their citizens. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• Industrialists demanded fast, cheap housing located close to work. • As cities spread across the land, they also spread upward toward the sky. • In 1861, Elisha Otis developed the fast elevator. • Designed by Cass Gilbert and completed in 1913 's Woolworth Building, was called “Cathedral of Commerce;” it was the tallest building in the world until 1930. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• Steel became the material from which American cities sprung. • Chicago architect Louis Sullivan became foremost skyscraper designer—”Form follows function.” • (Left) The Wainwright Building in St Louis (1892) served as the model for the next 20 years of skyscraper. • Chicago after great fire of 1871 allowed for a new American city. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone (1876) added a new dimension to communications. • Conduct of business altered immensely. • (Right) Thomas Alva Edison’s electric light (1897) proved to be one of the most profound inventions in human history. • Cities consumed light bulbs at incredible rates. • Rural environs lagged urban in access to new technologies. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• Immigration to the reached its peak from 1880-1920. • “Old immigration” had brought thousands of Irish and German people to America; bulk of new immigrants arrived on the East Coast from Southern and Eastern Europe. • The Gilded Age immigrants had little experience with representative democracy, were illiterate, came with little money, and most were not Protestant. • Until legislatively excluded, Chinese and Japanese immigrant filled West Coast cities. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven • Letters from America encouraged extended families to people ethnic enclaves—Chinatown or Little . • Most new arrivals first lived in tenements. • Harsh American urban living still better than the lives left behind in Asia or Europe. • Short timers, “birds of passage,” earned money to send back home and returned to their former lives. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• Factory owners welcomed hordes of cheap labor, but nativists objected to America’s changing face. • Political cartoons played on Americans' fears of immigrants, (left) an1896 edition of the Ram's Horn, depicts an immigrant carrying his baggage of poverty, disease, anarchy and Sabbath desecration, approaching Uncle Sam. • In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. • In 1917, immigration literacy tests. • In 1921, caps put on new immigrants. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• Huge disparities between the life of urban middle-class and tenement dwellers. • A 1878 magazine contest invited designs for mass housing; James Ware’s dumbbell tenement won. • Structure thinner in the center than at its extremes to allow light to enter the building. • Ware’s light “vents” often filled with trash and design facilitated the spread of fires. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• Overcrowding spread disease, tuberculosis e.g., and urban infant mortality rates reached 25% at end of 19th century. • Lack of sewers meant cities stank. • Trash dumped in streets. • Poverty bred crime. • Monotonous life pressed young people into games. • City police forces often understaffed and underpaid. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• City officials limited in ability to cope with problems. • Political bosses circumvented democracy and corrupted city governments—the political machines. • Bosses had to keep constituents happy, and dealt with issues as needed. • Found power-bases in new immigrant communities. • Worked with bug business and provided sweetheart contracts for public works projects. • "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours." Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• Political machines broke their own laws. • Made arrangements with criminal operations to run prostitution and gambling rings, some profits of which entered politicians’ pockets. • Voter fraud and election rigging widespread. • “Vote early and often.” Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven • Age’s most notorious political boss was William “Boss” tweed of New York's Tammany Hall. • Harper's Weekly Magazine cartoonist Thomas Nast cartoons condemned the corrupt regime of Boss Tweed and helped to end the era of machine politics at Tammany Hall. • Attorney Samuel Tilden convicted Tweed in 1876. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven • Protestant churches feared the influx of Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, and Jews. • Urban Protestant churches lost congregation members. • Growth of social gospel movement. • Progressive-minded preachers tied church teachings to contemporary problems. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• Many ministers became politically active. • Minister Washington Gladden supported workers’ right to strike during Great Upheaval of 1877. • Ministers called for an end to child labor, the enactment of temperance laws, and civil service reform. • The Third Great Awakening differed from the previous two because it centered in cities and dealt with issues pertinent to them. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• Born in 1867, Frank Lloyd Wright (his chosen not birth name) left secondary school to work at the University of Wisconsin's Engineering Department. • Studied civil engineering. • Moved to Chicago in 1887. • Worked under Louis Sullivan and revised his maxim, "Form Follows Function" to his own theory of "Form and Function Are One." • While in Chicago married Catherine Tobin (first of 3 wives). Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• Wright's early houses focused on horizontal plane, with no basements or attics. • Built with natural materials, never painted. • Low-pitched rooflines with deep overhangs and uninterrupted walls of windows brought the horizontal homes into their environments. • In 1909, commenced a notorious relationship with Mamah Borthwick Cheney. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CVKU3ErrGM Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven • During his life, Wright created 1,141 designs, of which 532 were completed. • His organic architecture, marriage of form and function, became synonymous with great design. • His best known public legacy is the Guggenheim Museum in New York City Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• In 1609, while employed by the Dutch East India Company the English explorer Henry Hudson discovered a fertile area at the mouth of the river that now bears his name. • New Netherlands declared. • In 1624, Peter Minuit (right) made one of the greatest real estate purchases in history. He traded small ornaments, jewelry, etc. allegedly totaling about $24 U.S. with local Native Americans for Manhattan Island. • In 1664,England’s King Charles II granted the land to his brother, the Duke of York, before he owned it. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• During the American Revolution the British occupied New York City for almost its entire duration. • After implementation of the Constitution it became the new country’s first capital. • (Left) Central Park was the first landscaped public park in the United States. • in 1853 the state legislature authorized the City of New York to use eminent domain to acquire more than 700 acres of land in the center of Manhattan. • The park’s creation displaced roughly 1,600 poor residents, including Irish pig farmers and German gardeners, who lived in shanties on the site. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• In 1857, the Central Park Commission held the country's first landscape design contest. • Accepted the "Greensward Plan," by Frederick Law Olmsted, the park's superintendent at the time, and Calvert Vaux. • Sought to create an English pastoral landscape. •19th century New York's most massive public works projects. • First opened for public use in the winter of 1859. • Public use restrictions eased over time—zoo in 1871 and concerts in 1880s. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• In 1850s and 60s, New York City hosted many large abolitionist rallies. • Led to anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party, particularly the Irish. • From Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860, Democratic Party warned New York's Irish and German residents to prepare for the emancipation of slaves and the labor competition they would bring as they fled north. • 1863’s conscription laws added fuel to the city’s fire. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven • Anti-war newspaper editors attacked conscription and incited the white working class. • Cost of war substitute ($300); cost of slave ($1,000). • On Saturday, 11 July 1863, the first draft lottery held. • City erupted following day, and the Draft Riots went on for 5 days. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WAUjmhxUHI Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• Draft Riots lasted from July 12th to July 16th. • Black women attacked but the rioters singled out the men for savage treatment. • Old racial scores got settled. • Longshoreman tried to eliminate all traces of black presence on the docks. • At least 120 civilians were killed and another 2,000 wounded. • Riots unequivocally divided white workers from blacks. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuRQH_hLcTw Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

• Karl Struss, “Nocturne,” 1913. Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven • John Marin, “,” 1912 Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven • , “Brooklyn Bridge,” 1915 Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven • Joseph Stella, “Brooklyn Bridge,” 1916-17 Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven • Joseph Stella, “Brooklyn Bridge,” 1939 Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven • Georgia O‘Keefe, “Brooklyn Bridge,” 1949 Explorations in American History: Buildings that Stretch towards Heaven

A Great Day in Harlem, 1958