is
Exposition of 1889 for the corresponding period, though rather more than
half a million below the total at the French capital. The monthly
average at Chicago increased from 1,000,000 at first to 7,000,000 in
October. The crowd was typical of the best side of American life;
orderly, good-natured, intelligent, sober. The grounds were clean, and
there was no ruffianism. Of the $32,988 worth of property reported
stolen, $31,875 was recovered and restored.

CHAPTER VI.

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL MOVEMENT

[1890-1893]

The century from 1790 to 1890 saw our people multiplied sixteen times,
from 3,929,214 at its beginning, to 62,622,250 at its end. The low
percentage of increase for the last decade, about 20 per cent.,
disappointed even conservative estimates. The cities not only absorbed
this increase, but, except in the West, made heavy draughts upon the
country population. Of each 1,000 people in 1880, 225 were urban; in
1890, 290. Chicago's million and a tenth was second only to New York's
million and a half. Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and St. Louis appeared
respectively as the third, fourth, and fifth in the list of great
cities. St. Paul, Omaha, and Denver domiciled three or four times as
many as ten years before. Among Western States only Nevada lagged. The
State of Washington had quintupled its numbers. The centre of population
had travelled fifty miles west and nine miles north, being caught by the
census about twenty miles east of Columbus, Indiana.

[Illustration: Frame of twelve story building.]
The New York Life Insurance Building in Chicago.
(Showing the construction of outer walls.)

The railroads of the country spanned an aggregate of 163,000 miles,
twice the mileage of 1880. The national wealth was appraised at
$65,037,091,197, an increase for the decade of $21,395,091,197 in the
gross. Our per capita wealth was now $1,039, a per capita increase of
$169. Production in the mining industry had gone up more than half. The
improved acreage, on the other hand, had increased less than a third,
the number of farms a little over an eighth.

School enrollment had advanced from 12 per cent. in 1840 to 23 per cent.
in 1890. Not far from a third of the people were communicants of the
various religious bodies. About a tenth were Roman Catholics.

Improvement in iron and steel manufacture revolutionized the
construction of bridges, vessels, and buildings. The suspension bridge,
instanced by the stupendous East R