The
early skyscrapers were a range of
tall, commercial buildings built between 1884 and 1939, predominantly in the American cities of
New York and
Chicago. Cities in the United States were traditionally made up of
low-rise buildings, but significant economic growth after the
Civil War and increasingly intensive use of urban land encouraged the development of taller buildings beginning in the 1870s. Technological improvements enabled the construction of
fireproofed iron-framed structures with deep
foundations, equipped with new inventions such as the
elevator and
electric lighting. These made it both technically and commercially viable to build a new class of taller buildings, the first of which, Chicago's tall
Home Insurance Building, opened in 1884. Their numbers grew rapidly and by 1888 they were being labelled
skyscrapers.