Farmers and Urbanites 1877 to 1900

During the last decade of the nineteenth century, a growing number of people moved from rural areas to the cities to respond to the Industrial Revolution’s need for laborers. In 1880, nearly 75 percent of the population lived in small communities. While the population exploded overall, the next twenty years narrowed the population gap between rural and urban areas to within fifteen million people.

As people moved toward the booming cities, they found similar long hours of back breaking work. Families were larger in rural areas, and every member of the family took part in the workload. The culture of work in the cities was an enormous challenge to overcome, as people in rural areas worked depending on the season and the weather. In these strange new cities, factories operated day and night, aided by the invention of artificial light. Air quality for these workers also was a dramatic difference; rather than sunlight and fresh air, they were laboring in dark, often damp factories with poor ventilation, which caused respiratory problems uncommon in rural life.

Life in the country and small towns was quieter and more family centered than life in the city. In the country, families worked together, played together, and ate together. In the cities, working class families spent their days laboring in different factories. Working class folks both in rural and urban areas rarely had time for leisure activities, but when they did, they found different forms of entertainment. Baseball and football were becoming national past times, as were plays and musical performances.

Ethnic diversity was growing both in the cities, as immigrants poured in to fill labor jobs, and in the country, with immigrant farmers and laborers. In the cities, immigrants had more resources, as people of the same ethnic backgrounds formed communities within the cities. Community development was also important to the farming population, as people gathered in schools and churches to discuss issues affecting their lives. People all across the nation were forming advocacy groups from the Grange to the American Federation of Labor.

At the same time, inventors were contributing to finding new ways of producing and marketing goods. Innovation changed the way people in cities lived and worked with the invention of street cars and the incandescent light bulb, but farmers and rural areas also benefited from technological advancements, such as hay balers, harvesters and milking machines. With the invention of refrigerated railway cars, farmers could sell their livestock and produce to larger markets. The same invention provided food and goods to people in cities that were grown in distant regions.

Times were changing for farmers and city dwellers alike. Some prospered and others barely survived. The gap between the classes was growing throughout the nation.