Essay Questions for Thinking through Sources 18

Make Comparisons: These five documents provide information and evidence about the consumption practices that developed in industrial cities at the turn of the twentieth century. What do they reveal about how class shaped urban dwellers’ access to and participation in the consumption of goods and leisure activities? How did consumption differ between wealthy, middle-class, and working-class people? Did their practices share features in common?

Consider the Relationship between Industrialization and the Emergence of New Urban Cultures: What do these five documents suggest about the ways that industrialization was inextricably linked to urban cultures and the consumption practices they describe? How did the rise of industrial capitalism in the United States facilitate and shape each of the developments these sources document?

Consider Gender: What do these sources suggest about the ways that industrial cities and urban cultures affected traditional notions about manhood and womanhood? In what ways did the transformations provide new opportunities for women and men, and in what ways did they reflect existing assumptions about gender? What do the sources reveal about how gender prescriptions differed according to class and ethnicity?

Notice What’s Missing: These sources illuminate the social and cultural changes that took place in the early twentieth-century city by describing a variety of settings and social groups. The text-based documents represent the middle-class perspectives of their authors. What perspectives and voices are missing that might complicate your understanding of urban life and culture at the turn of the twentieth century? Where might you look to find additional sources and what might you expect them to reveal?