ABSTRACT
Industrialization and population growth brought sweeping social changes to the walking city in the decades after 1820. After 1810, slaves who were freed by the Gradual Manumission Act increased New York City's free African-American population even further. This chapter discusses the most distinguishing characteristic of the urban middle class was its family life. It explains the commercial opportunities expanded in nineteenth-century cities, affluent men thrived by harnessing the labor of unskilled laborers, including immigrants, free blacks, and the slaves of Southern cities. The chapter discusses the Urban politics was reshaped during this period by the increased assertiveness of working-class men, who joined both in formal electoral activity and in mob violence. The Civil War, like all wars, had a disruptive effect on urban America. At first, the war effort speeded Southern urbanization. Richmond's population tripled, partly because of the establishment and expansion of the Confederate government's bureaucracy.
