Today we had the whole class period to work on our projects. My part is about the poor living conditions for people in urban areas. American cities at that time were becoming overpopulated and people had two options of living. They could either move to the outskirts of town and have transportation issues or they could live inside the cities and rent cramped boardinghouse rooms. An even bigger problem was the lack of safe drinking water for urban residents. In the 1860's many people had inadequate or no water at all. Sometimes large cities like New York did not have indoor plumbing so people had to use outhouses and collect their bathing water in pails from faucets on the streets. The water often led to cholera and typhoid fever and it wasn't until the 1870's and early 1900's when filtration and chlorination systems were introduced. With the growing population, the cities were unable to keep clean which led to sanitation problems. Horse manure and sewage covered the streets as well as garbage which people dumped out because of minimal trash collection. Foul smelling smoke from factories also added to the problem.
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