Chicago in the Guilded Age; Vice & Segregation

 

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Minna Everleigh

 

Chicago was a place of explosive growth during the industrial revolution and especially after hosting the world’s fair. With a huge influx of immigrants from Europe and Southern Negroes the city suddenly had new issues to contend with. The large expanse of growth especially of men looking for work initially gave way to pastimes for these men; Saloons, brothels and gambling halls. These vice areas in the city would cause reformers to object and politicians to turn the other way as long as their pockets were lined with cash. Vice is described by Merriam-Webster as “moral depravity or corruption”. The city of Chicago was surely corrupt at this time.

Their moral depravity wasn’t limited to bribes, drink, and women or gambling, their treatment of immigrants, Negroes, and especially the poor was failing as well. The idea of the white upper class Chicagoan was to keep the poor, the immigrants, and the Negros out of their neighborhoods and away from their schools. “I know the Irish killed a certain Blvd, I know the Jews hurt another one, and I know the gambling element killed another one”¹. Not to mention that prostitution was rampant all over the city, especially on the Levee and near State Street.

From 1917-1918 50,000 blacks moved to Chicago. This sudden explosion of Negro culture was not welcomed to many Chicagoans. Prior to this time the city already had a long history of segregation against Negros. In 1908 there were riots after the release of two Negros from jail. The white community rebelled in an uproar and began rioting and burning the black business and neighborhoods. This riot resulted in 7 deaths. In the opinion of many whites in Chicago, especially those that were not poor, they felt that segregation was very beneficial to the lifestyle they wanted. “Every colored man who moves into Hyde Park knows he is damaging his white neighbor’s property.”² Their desire was for the Negro to stay on the Southside near the vice areas of the city.

Segregation, slums, ghettos, and vice were all a problem. The corruption and segregation wasn’t limited to Chicago, but was in other big cities as well in the North. As Mark Twain said “It was glittering on the surface, but corrupt underneath.”³ This was the guilded age. Corruption seemed to trump during this time. Bosses ran neighborhoods, taking bribes, influencing political committees, and ‘rubbing the backs of those that rubbed theirs.’

The movement of Negros to the large cities gave way to the “Jazz Age”, morality and morals again shifted, not only for men, but woman too. Young women showed their ankles and cut their hair and went to speakeasies, and danced. Many of these often wealthy high school and college age kids would mingle with Negros in Negro “Black & Tan” clubs. Segregation wasn’t a problem for them. Segregation seemed to mostly be a priority for the older conservative progressives.

Vice I would say seemed to be the law of the land of Chicago. In every neighborhood, in every adult age group, in every race, there were places that catered to the vices of those that lived there. The leaders of these neighborhoods thrived on money, and collected to allow the continuance of the wicked pleasures that appealed to their residents. The City of Chicago would need to deal with their segregation issues, but they first had to start cleaning up their act. Until they were led my moral men, not only segregation but the corruptness held fast by their vices would continue to run the town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

1)http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vice?show=0&t=1348597849

2)  Chicago Commission of Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago (Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 208

 3) http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraid=9&smtid=1

 

Additional sources:

George Brown Tindall & David Emory Shi, America a Narrative History (New York: W. W Norton & Company, 2010)

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Cultural Divide

 

The Cultures of the North and South were influenced by the climate, soil, religious beliefs, ideas, politics and traditions, and geography of the people living in those areas. There wasn’t necessarily a coverall culture for the North or the South, because the subgroups in those areas all embraced the benefits that worked for them. The general thought of Union vs. Confederacy is that of Slaveholding or emancipation, and that is the ideology of an initial look at the culture, but culture itself goes much deeper.

Geography has a bearing on how countries grow.  Although both the North and South depended on agriculture, the difference was the population and the size of the plots that the areas had, for example the north had smaller land plots and limited seasons to farm. The North also was more densely populated, and was going through the industrial Revolution. Even the South itself was divided into upper and lower (deep) south.

The upper south revolved around tobacco growing, and diversified farming, with the focus being livestock, wheat, and corn. The lower Deep South focused on Plantation agriculture and produced sugar, rice and cotton since it was easy to grow. By 1850 3/4ths of the Worlds cotton was from the Deep South. Because of the continuous reaping and sowing in the South, they became dependent on slavery. The development of the cotton gin, didn’t quell the need for slaves, the Deep South just grew more cotton.

The South was all about Class, with slaves being below “hillbillies”. The highest, the planters class of the south were dependent on the slaves they owned. They made up about 2% of the South population. They lived in grand plantation homes and had great wealth. “…The plantation household was the center and model of social, economic and cultural production”¹ Their male children would focus on law and business and military and their daughters would learn socials graces. But 88% of the Southern population was actually at the bottom of the class system. They had a handful of slaves and worked right alongside them. As you can see there was a very small “middle class” at this time.

The black society of the south was dependent on the plantations they live on. They influenced by their exposure to the European religious beliefs of the United States, their heritage, and if they were African slaves, African free or Creoles.  African ancestors also identified themselves by communities or nations within Africa that were all different. Slaves struggled with identity and culture in the South. Utilizing Christian hymns learned from their American landowners, they drew on their sense of culture, many having spent time in the Caribbean. People contributed a sense of their culture through religion and voodoo. Mixing with the European influence of classical instruments, these slaves started out singing “Plantation songs” and spirituals that incorporated the “blue note”. Slaves evolved into a culture that depended on music for socializing and that became “blues”. This was a unique culture that emerged from slaves in the United States, and existed only here at that time.

Blacks in the North had different experiences as well. There continued to be prejudices towards them, especially from the Irish who had immigrated in droves and competed for work. “Irish… were blamed for the Anti-black riots.”² But they definitely had more privileges, in some states they could vote and many free blacks in the North Atlantic became seamen. The slaves that came to the north brought with them their cultural heritage.

Northern whites were experiencing the industrial Revolution, although there were some who were criticized for being prejudice, and believed in separate but equal, abolitionists did not believe in slavery/ The first woman’s convention had already been held at this time, as women were seeking rights as well. The north tended to focus more on education, as northern forefathers, although with the massive immigration rates, there were many  poor in the north who worked long hours digging canals, building railroads or working in mills or steel factories. The northerners were the ones responsible for shipping all the cotton that the southerners were producing. There were indentured servants who were indebted to work for someone for 7 years before they could be free to live life in the northern states as they wished.

Religion, climate, geography, and economics played a part in all the differences and similarities between what would become the Union and Confederacy. Different ideologies and political and religious beliefs would be what would lead to the division of the north and the south.

1.      Eugene D. Genovese and Elizabeth Fox Genovese, Fatal Self Deception: A Slaveholding Paternalism in the Old South (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 5

 

2.      Eugene D. Genovese and Elizabeth Fox Genovese, Fatal Self Deception: A Slaveholding Paternalism in the Old South (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 114

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Freedom of Oppression

The General course of American culture that prevailed in the years that started with the American colonization, and led to the Revolution would be freedom of oppression, intertwined on the fronts of religion, politics and economy: The liberties included not only religious freedom, but civil as well. The desire for upward mobility, power, and economic independence would help to define views of equality based on the beliefs and behaviors of particular peoples, and their patterns of belief based on their racial, religious and social attitudes.  

            For the founding fathers equality meant for white men, so the equality did not transcend region and class. “When the declaration of independence declared that all men are created equal, the writers…really did mean men, their lights: not females, not some black- or yellow-skinned “savage,” but civilized white males.”¹ The founding fathers believed in what  is referred to as a “natural aristocracy” ² and the men of this order were the best to rule the new democracy. They thought that particular men exuded a certain type of intellect, power, strength and moral excellence, which made them more qualified in being leaders. The definition of equality surely was in the eye of the beholder.

            While the founding fathers were seeking an end to the British oppressiveness, they at the same time showed little empathy for the equality of women, slaves or Native Americans. Much of the “freedom of religion” was based on American exceptionalism of the Puritans who felt that they their ideas were unique and extraordinary. So while they wanted freedom from the Crown, they would not tolerate Antinomianism. “What to some might seem like an American Dream of religious freedom was to others a nightmarish prescription for anarchy.” ³

The Puritans felt that the natives were outside the law of moral obligation; the differences in cultures caused misunderstanding, fear and conflict. The Native Americans were new to the ideas of territorial or material acquisition as a reason to engage in battle. The Puritans felt little regard for the heathen souls of the “savages”.

Not only were Native Americans left out of this ideology of liberty, but women and slaves were as well. “Woman were marginalized from the public sphere that was the natural home of upward mobility and the existence of slavery both limited the arena of upward mobility and gave whites and economic and psychological gauge by which to measure themselves.” ⁴. The same Puritans who had fled from England to be free to live a good life free from the restraints of the corrupt church, were the ones restraining and enslaving Africans for their own material gain. The Puritans wanted a utopia, which was free from evil, but was definitely capitalist in its approach. They would take away the freedoms of these African slaves to achieve this.

Even up through the Revolution it was the poor who were targeted for enlistment. A stable job would keep the poor class man enlisted. Washington recognized men with reward money to stay enlisted for at least three years. These men of the Continental Army knew that if they didn’t win, there would be no financial gain. This role of Economic gain/ upward mobility was definitely an influence. Soldier, tobacco and tea growers, cod fisherman, slave trader all had a desire for capital, and didn’t want The Crown and her taxes interfering with their desire for economic power.

The Declaration of Independence gave the freedom from the oppression of England that they had longed for.

            “That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain

inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot

by any compact, deprive of divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life

 and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing

 and obtaining happiness and safety.” ⁵

 

            1. Jim Cullen, The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 51.

 2. A letter from Jefferson to Adams, Quoted in Jim Cullen The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 51

3. Cullen, 27.

4. Cullen, 70.

5. Virginia Assembly, Virginia Declaration of Rights. June 12, 1776

 http://www.constitution.org/bcp/virg_dor.htm (accessed August 30, 2012).

 

 

 http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/trumbull.htm