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
In 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Ninety-four primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-that explore the challenges, opportunity, and turmoil of late-nineteenth-century America.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Eighteen primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-that explore the industrial, racial, and technological progress of the late-nineteenth century.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,...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: People: Assimilation and the Crucible of the City: Zitkala Sa
A photograph and an autobiographical excerpt about the changes experienced and challenges faced by Native Americans at the turn of the twentieth century.
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Gilder Lehrman Institute: Immigration and Migration
[Free Registration/Login Required] A lengthy essay discussing the differing opinions about immigration and the role of immigrants in the United States in the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century. Find out about the...
OpenStax
Open Stax: The Impact of Expansion on Chinese Immigrants and Hispanic Citizens
As white populations moved westward in the 19th century, Chinese immigrants and Hispanic Americans faced racism and discrimination and were unable to compete on an equal basis for land. Eventually, both groups settled into urban areas...
Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: Religious Revival: The "Social Gospel"
Social reform and teaching in the church which reflected social reform joined forces in latter part of the 19th century. Read about how an urban revivalist movement addressed such problems as poverty, child labor, and working conditions.
The Newberry Library
Newberry Library: Chicago Workers During the Long Gilded Age
Learning module in which students use primary source material to examine the plight of workers in Chicago during the 19th and 20th Centuries, their efforts to make changes to working conditions and public response to those efforts.
Department of Defense
Do Dea: Ap Us History: Unit 6: Becoming a Modern Nation
This extensive learning module examines the role of large-scale industrialization, urbanization, and mass migrations in creating new demands on government and social organizations to design reforms, and looks at the global and domestic...
Curated OER
Unesco: Netherlands: Seventeenth Century Canal Ring Area of Amsterdam
The historic urban ensemble of the canal district of Amsterdam was a project for a new 'port city’ built at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries. It comprises a network of canals to the west and south of the historic...
Have Fun With History
Have Fun With History: Industrial Revolution
Multi media learning module with videos for students and teachers to learn about the Industrial Revolution and how America moved from and agricultural society to an urban machine-based production in the 19th Century.