SSUSH12A Immigrants and Tenements

SSUSH12A Immigrants and Tenements

How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York City Born in Denmark in 1849. Immigrated to the United States in 1870. Traveled to America in steerage on the Steamship Iowa (costing $50 for passage). Arrived in the U.S. with about $40 and spent half of it to buy a pistol for protection. Struggled to find work and was destitute for the first several years he lived in the U.S. Became a Newspaper editor by the mid-1880 s. Jacob A. Riis Published his book in 1890.

How the Other Half Lives: THE first tenement New York knew bore the mark of Cain from its birth. large rooms were partitioned into several smaller ones, without regard to light or ventilation, the rate of rent being lower in proportion to space or height from the street; and they soon became filled from cellar to garret with a class of tenentry living from hand to mouth, loose in morals, improvident in habits, degraded, and squalid as beggary itself..

The death of a child in a tenement was registered as plainly due to suffocation in the foul air of an unventilated apartment. Immigrants and Tenements How the Other Half Lives: All the fresh air that ever enters these stairs comes from the halldoor that is forever slamming, and from the windows of dark bedrooms.

How the Other Half Lives: as we grope our way up the stairs and down from floor to floor, listening to the sounds behind the closed doors -- some of quarrelling, some of coarse songs, some of profanity. That short hacking cough, that tiny, helpless wail --what do they mean?.... a sadly familiar story -- before the day is at an end, the child will die of the measles.

How the Other Half Lives: Here is a room neater than the rest. The woman, a stout matron with hard lines of care in her face, is at the wash-tub. "I try to keep the child clean," she says, apologetically, but with a hopeless glance around. There is no Monday cleaning in the tenements. It is wash-day all the week round, for a change of clothing is scarce among the poor. The true line to be drawn between pauperism and honest poverty is the clothes-line.

How the Other Half Lives: The bulk of the sewing work is done in the tenements of Jewtown, which the law that regulates factory labor does not reach. In a dimly lighted room with a big red-hot stove to keep the pressing irons ready for use, is a family of a man, wife, three children, and a boarder who cut, sew, and press clothes.

How the Other Half Lives: The rent is ten dollars a month for the room and a miserable little coop of a bedroom where the old folks sleep. The girl makes her bed on the lounge in the front room; the big boys and the children sleep on the floor.

More than half of all the Bohemians in this city are cigar makers. Immigrants and Tenements How the Other Half Lives: While the wife is usually the original cigar maker; Men, women and children work together seven days in the week in these cheerless tenements to make a living for the family, from the break of day till far into the night.

All sorts of frightful stories were told of the shocking conditions under which people lived and worked in these tenements. Immigrants and Tenements How the Other Half Lives: Doubtless the people are poor, in many cases very poor; but they are not uncleanly, rather the reverse; many live much better than the clothing-makers in the Tenth Ward.

New York City s Tenement Museum Built on Manhattan s Lower East Side in 1863 by German immigrant Lucas Edward Glockner. Home to nearly 7000 working class immigrants between 1864 and 1935. Abandoned building discovered by historians and social activists Ruth Abram and Anita Jacobson in 1988. Excavation, Research, and Restoration has continued for 25 years. Museum opened in 1992 and has 6 apartments restored to their original appearance (1869 1935).

1865-1886: John & Caroline Schneider owned and ran a Saloon in the basement and lived in the rear.

97 Orchard Street: 1865-1886: John & Caroline Schneider owned and ran a Saloon in the basement and lived in the rear.

1869: Joseph and Bridget Moore from Ireland lived in one of the tenement apartments for only 1 year, during which time their 5 month old daughter died.

1869: Joseph Moore worked as a Bartender in the Irish part of the city controlled by Tammany Hall.

1869 1884: The Gumpertz Family (Mom, Dad and 3 Children) from Prussia lived in the tenement in the area known then as Kleindeutschland (Little Germany).

1874: Julius Gumpertz disappeared leaving his wife Natalie to care for the family and pay the rent.

1892 1905: Harris and Jennie Levine came from Poland and settled in the tenement with two children.

1892-1905: Jennie gave birth to 3 more children while she and Harris ran their tenement dress shop

1907 1935: Abraham and Fannie Rogarshevsky came from Lithuania to live in the tenement with their 6 kids.

1907 1935: Although Abraham died in 1918, Fannie remained the janitress of the tenement until 1935.

1913 1918: The Greek family of Abraham and Rachael Confino came to live in the tenement after immigrating from the Ottoman City of Kastoria.

1918: The Confino family of ten eventually moved uptown to a Sephardic Community in East Harlem.

1864-1905: The Privy Yard was the rear area of the tenement where the toilets were located.