OpenStax
Open Stax: Growing Pains of Urbanization: Relief From the Chaos of Urban Life
Learn how different economic classes in urban centers spent their leisure time in the late 19th century. Includes a good discussion of machine politics and the role it played in the lives of the lower classes, as well as its negative...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Teacher Serve: 19th Century: Roman Catholics & Immigration in 19th Century America
Essay answers the question, "Why did so many Catholics come to the United States at this time?" The potato famine, urban industrialization, chance for a new life, are among some of the answers.
The College Board
Driven to the City: Urbanization and Industrialization in the 19th Century
Scholarly article discussing the trend towards urbanization in the United States and other industrialized countries in the nineteenth century.
Boston College
Boston College: 19th Century Skyscrapers
This site has many images of skyscrapers from the 19th Century made possible by steel technology.
OpenStax
Open Stax: Urbanization 1870 1900: Great Migration and New European Immigration
What caused the influx of African Americans and European immigrants into urban centers in the late 19th century? Learn about some of the discriminatory and anti-immigrant laws that were enacted to restrict their rights. Includes a chart...
History Teacher
Historyteacher.net: Immigration & Urban Society: Late 19c: Quiz (2)
10-question multiple choice quiz is immediately scored and evaluates your comprehension of immigration the late 19th century.
History Teacher
Historyteacher.net: Immigration & Urban Society: Late 19c: Quiz (1)
10-question multiple choice quiz is immediately scored and covers immigration in the late 19th century.
Other
Electric City Trolley Museum Association: Vehicle Collection
Find drawings and brief descriptions of various trolleys used across the country in the last part of the 19th century and early 20th century.
Other
Place in History: The Bowery Hall of Fame
Stroll through the Bowery in New York City and see what the tenements looked like in the late 19th century. This mini museum shows the life of the Bowery. Information about tenement areas in other cities is included.
Stanford University
Sheg: Document Based History: Reading Like a Historian: Jacob Riis
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students solve a problem surrounding a historical question by reading primary source documents. This historical inquiry instructional activity allows students to investigate the photographs of...
Schools of California Online Resources for Education
Score: Nativism in 19th C. America
For this lesson, students explore the reasons people immigrated to America in the nineteenth century, the urban growth that resulted, the development of public education, the contributions of immigrants, the wave of nativism, and the...
Other
Historyplex: Urbanization During the Industrial Revolution
Urbanization brought about many changes in the social, economic, and political lives of people during the Industrial Revolution. This article sheds light on the effects of urbanization and industrialization on the common people of that...
Other
New York City Subway: Early Transit in New York City
Pictures, primary source documents, and articles about the subway system and rapid transit in New York City at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century.
Other
Infed: Casework and the Charity Organization Society
Here's a brief history the the Charitiy Organization Society and the reasons behind its formation. Included is a discussion of the philosophy of social work in the late 19th century.
Other
Chicago L: The Original L Companies
As part of a larger site, this article gives the history of the famous Chicago "L" and its development in the last part of the 19th century. Hyperlinks to photos, many of which are period photos.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The Gilded and the Gritty: America, 1870 1912
Ninety-four primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-that explore the challenges, opportunity, and turmoil of late-nineteenth-century America. They examine the economic expansion in an America re-united...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Progress, the Gilded and the Gritty: America, 1870 1912
Eighteen primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-that explore the industrial, racial, and technological progress of the late-nineteenth century.
Other
Jake Biddington/ash Can School
This is a brief definition of the Ash Can School, a group of American urban realist painters of the early 20th century.
Other
On the Lower East Side: Observations of Life in Lower Manhattan
Links to contemporary essays about life on the Lower East Side of New York City in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These essays cover a range of topics and are well worth exploring to find out what problems writers were exposing...
Other
Wake Forest University: The Social Gospel, Part Ii
A continuation of Part I of "The Social Gospel", the underlying causes for the reform movements in the last part of the 19th century and early 20th century.
Digital History
Digital History: The Artist in American Society
See how the creation of visual art in its many forms developed over the first half of the 19th century. In addition of the painters in the Hudson River School of Art, read about the beautification of natural spaces such as parks, and...
Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: The Glamour of American Cities
You can't keep them down on the farm! Read about the glamour and allure of the city in the late 19th century where electricity and skyscrapers, along with other thechnological advances, enticed people into the city from the country.
Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: From the Countryside to the City
The growth of cities was rapid in the last half of the 19th century. Read about the good things and bad things that were a result of this urbanization.
Other
U.s. History Timeline: 1865 1900
A thumbnail look at the many things occurring in the United States in the last half half of the 19th century. The topics covered are Gilded Age Politics, the "New Imperialism," Industrial America, Growth of Labor, Urbanization,...