The Rise of the City

The industrialization of America led to incredible population growth in urban centers; by 1900, 40 percent of Americans lived in cities.

As the United States industrialized in the nineteenth century, immigrants and workers from the countryside were housed in tenements.

Many political machines in cities were affiliated with the Democratic Party, which recruited new immigrants, particularly the Irish.

The World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago was an international fair whose grandeur symbolized emerging American exceptionalism.