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Thursday, August 12, 2010

Where the Immigrants Lived

If you were an immigrant traveling to America via New York city in the last half of the nineteenth century, New York might have been but a pause on a longer journey. But if you planned to stay in New York and check out those heralded “streets paved with gold” you often ended up—you often looked for—an area of the city where there were others of your kind. And that place for Italians, Jews, Irish, Russians...was Five Points. If you’ve seen the horrendously violent movie, “The Gangs of New York” (I do NOT recommend it--I couldn't get through it) you know that in the 1840’s and 50’s this area of what is now the Lower East Side was not for the faint of heart.


Five Points, and Mulberry Street, the area where the Scarpellis live in my novel Masquerade, at one time was a neighborhood for the middle class. But when they had water problems because of an underground spring, the area was abandoned to the poor. It was the first American slum. In 1880 there were 37,000 tenements housing nearly 1.1 million people. Most were one or two room apartments.  There was no running water and the bedrooms often had no windows at all.  The buildings were so close together people could hand things across the alley, window to window.
More than 100,000 immigrants lived in rear apartments (behind other buildings) that were wholly unfit for human habitation. "In a room not thirteen feet either way slept twelve men and women, two or three in bunks set in a sort of alcove, the rest on the floor."  There were also rooms where people could sleep for five cents a night, stranger next to stranger.
Most people--if they could get a job--worked 12-14 hours a day. There were thousands of homeless children on the streets, often abandoned by their parents.  I can't imagine the angst of those mothers and fathers, not being able to provide food or shelter... In the summer months 3-4 babies would suffocate in the airless tenements every night.

Mulberry Bend was one of the worst stretch of slums and in 1896 it was demolished to be turned into Columbus Park. Chinatown and Little Italy encroached, as did federal buildings to the south. If you'd like to see more pictures and a virtual tour, go here, to the Tenement Museum site: New York Tenement Museum

In future blogs I'll tell you a little about the children, how people earned a living, and the man who took it upon himself to change things. //Nancy Moser

14 comments:

  1. Thank you for your entertaining blog. I visited New York for the first time last year and I am enjoying learning more about how people lived in the past. Cheers from Tropical Australia.

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  2. Glad to hear from you, Frances. Tropical Australia? I live in Kansas (in the middle of the United States) and it's pretty tropical here too. 102 degrees today. I can hardly wait for winter.

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  3. Hi Nancy:

    I look at those pictures of NYC and can fully understand the orphan trains that took children to the Midwest to live and WORK on farms.

    As bad as those neighborhoods were, they had to be better than starvation in Ireland. Certainly word of the true conditions in NYC had to have been sent back to the home country. I have a strong feeling that “streets paved with gold” was meant as sarcasm even back then.

    I’m finally reading “Masquerade” as it has become available at long last on Kindle. I’m still in England and can’t wait to see the reality in NYC.

    I’m hot in Oklahoma and you’re right. Winter in Kansas is such a joy!!

    Vince

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  4. Your blog is fascinating!
    It's hard to imagine the poverty our ancestors endured. I've been able to find a bit of info from some of mine who came from Ireland and made their way to Florida, but I could tell they lived in similarly squalid conditions there. If not a bit more peaceful....
    I really enjoy your blog. I'm gleaning some ideas on research sources also-- never thought of museums. Thank you!

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  5. As to poverty among our ancestors, I'm reminded of a letter I have from a Nebraska woman writing home to Virginia to ask her parents to send her worn-out clothes so she can make a winter coat for her son, and then apologizing for bothering them. Reminds me how blessed I am with my four coats to choose from once the snow flies.

    Vince, you mentioned the orphan trains. . . and you make a good point that it was one answer for the homeless children, and the research I did for Sarah's Patchwork reminded me that there were some happy endings to the orphan train riders. Of course my orphan train rider got her happy ending. . . but I'm into "hope" when it comes to writing fiction :-).
    Stephanie G.

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  6. Vince, you said, "I have a strong feeling that “streets paved with gold” was meant as sarcasm even back then." That's an interesting theory. When immigrants sent letters home did they tell the truth, or did they embellish it out of pride? After all, they left relatives behind and must have endured a lot of "You'll be sorry if you go to America" arguments. In such cases, they might have made their experience sound better than it was, adding a little gold to those filthy streets. Those who wanted to follow to America probably would have been eager to believe only the good reports and ignore the bad.

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  7. Hi Nancy:

    One look at those pictures and all at once ‘Tammy Hall’ and the ‘Irish Bosses’ make perfect sense.

    BTW: reading the ‘Letters Home’ to the Old World would be absolutely fascinating. Such a book might have actually been published in Ireland.

    One of the most fascinating historical letters I’ve ever read was from an Egyptian lad who had joined the Roman Navy and was writing home to tell how wonderful it was. The pay was good, he was seeing the world, and he had good superiors. This letter was on papyrus and the sailor had paid a scribe to write it and I’m sure his parents had to pay a scribe to read it. This letter was found in the desert which was so dry the letter was preserved for almost 2,000 years! Can you imagine two sailors in a strange port saying: “Let’s go have a letter written and send it back home”. Does human nature ever change? : )

    Vince

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  8. Enjoying learning and being made aware of the realities of life back then, One reason I enjoy historical fiction so much.

    A J Hawke

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  9. Nancy is off on a trip that has put her out of reach of internet on a regular basis, so I'm chiming in in her absence. Vince, where did you read the Egyptian letter? I'd love to see & read it. What an amazing find. I nearly minored in archaeology in college. . . can only imagine the thrill at finding such a treasure.

    AJ, it's great to hear from you. Like you, I'm drawn to historical fiction because the realities of life back then give me perspective on my own problems in 2010. Not to belittle the trials we all face today, but it does help me to remember that I'm sitting here in an air conditioned room able to talk with people from all over the world. . . as opposed to sitting on the stoop in early NYC wondering if I'll ever see the family I left behind again.
    Stephanie G.

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  10. Thank you for visiting my blog. and I am excited to see if A Most Unsuitable Match comes up for review. I'll make sure to snatch it up quick.

    I can honestly say that your blog article touched home with me. My great grandmother came to America through Ellis Island. She stayed in Five Points until her husband, Michael, followed her over with his child and niece that he was raising. Because of her experience for the short time that she was in Five Points she refused to leave her home in Ohio. She took great care to make sure she would never have to set foot on a boat or stay out of her home ever again.

    Thank you,
    Sara Cart

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  11. Hi Stephaine:

    Below is a link to a site that has the letter posted. It seems the Roman Army/Navy had its own postal service of sorts.

    Also, the Egyptian took a roman name: Antonis Maximus.(He had an ego, did our Apion.)

    I think history is so interesting because so much of what we think we know is wrong!

    Letter from Apion, an Egyptian soldier in the Roman navy, to his father, Epimachus (150 C.E.)

    http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/JDTABOR/divine.html

    Vince

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  12. Thanks so much, Vince. I'm headed there now.
    Stephanie

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  13. I'm back home! Thanks, Steph for being my voice while I was gone.
    Sara, your great-grandmother's reaction to Five Points and wanting to stay put in Ohio sounds very logical to me. The stress of just getting to Ohio from Europe, and then having to wait in the squalid conditions of Five Points--as Steph said--never knowing if she'd see family again... We are so spoiled to be able to email family in a few seconds, or pick up a phone.
    BUT...as Vince was talking about letters, I fear that the death of letter writing can't be good for history. Everything we do is on the internet, yet the internet doesn't last. It's virtual. I couldn't have written my bio-novels on Jane Austen, Nannerl Mozart, Martha Washington, or Elizabeth Barrett Browning without access to paper letters. In our paperless society, what will future generations be able to find out about us?

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  14. It was interesting to read about the history of that area. It's was a sad and sick lifestyle that was a huge foundation to the history of NYC.

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