Themes in American History

Tours of the Tenement Museum

Piecing It Together: Immigrants In the Garment Industry

When I started to study about New York history, I was very excited that I finally have a chance to know more about the city which I love deeply. However, when I read either textbook or other resources that are related to the details, I had to deal with my lack of imagination. These difficulties and my curiosity dragged me to the Tenement Museum that is located in the lower east side Manhattan. Among 7 interesting tours, I chose one called ‘Piecing It Together’. There are two apartments that I visited for one and half hour tour. One is Levine family’s who lived there by late nineteenth century, and the other is Rogarshevskys’ who lived there by early twentieth century.

First of all, when the Lower East Side became the most densely populated area in 1860s and 1870s, people who are mostly European immigrants were squeezing small apartment. At this point, these are four or six story tenements that could possibly contain minimum 16-24 families. In other words, each building would contain over 150 people, and one block where these tenements occupied with would contain over 2,500 families.

The Levine’s family’s place is one examples of this period. This tenement, Levine’s family (his wife and 5children) had lived, is very small and includes one room which is barely 8 feet wide. However, this family couldn’t even use whole this tiny place for themselves because its living room was a garment workshop that at least 5 people used to work all day. To me, it is just hard to believe that over 10 people stayed all day in that small place to survive.

Second, because of the Tenemente Law, the condition of these living place was getting better although it was still imperfect place for a family with 7children. By 1910, when Rogarsheysky’s family was living here, it seems much better than Levine’s. To be specific, municipal engineers helped the city safer and healthier from all kinds of diseases, crimes and so forth. Moreover, the law insisted on landlords to get minimum facilities for fire escape, indoor plumbing and also at least one window for each room so that people inside could get fresh air and sunlight. Even though Rogarsheysky’s place is still too small for 9people but shows us many improvements from 20 years before that time. Compare with Levine’s family, one another big difference is they went to outside for work. In early twentieth century, new mass production techniques developed and people started to work at factories or buildings that had assembly lines or machines. Nevertheless, there were no regulation or law to protect workers’ right, especially for women. Rogarsheysky’s daughters represent this generation who were very much Americanized and smart enough to raise their voice for their rights. Over all, Rogarsheysky might have had better circumstance for living with his family than the past. However, even this time period, early twentieth century, immigrants from Europe, especially many Irish in Lower East Side Manhattan, were struggling very much with their low wage jobs and reluctant living circumstances.

Finally, no matter what had been changed those period when both Levine and Rogarsheysky’s family lived, their life were very tough. At this point, whoever lives in the Lower East Side, they earned and saved money to escape this small, dirty and crowded town for better life. Ironically, two generations after, people are willing to pay over 25,000 a month to live this downtown area. Nowadays, this place is one of the most fancy and antique places in the city where many people desire to live.

In conclusion, it was a great opportunity to take a look two immigrated families’ living place. Although I can’t feel 100% how much hard time they went through, this experience gives me an idea that how miserable working and living conditions immigrants had to cope with without any choice to survive. We have to remember that the foundation these immigrants built made the United States stronger and greater.

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(Picture from the Franklin D. Roosevelt  library, courtesy of the National Archieves and Records Administration.)

Just as prosperity was visible during 1920s in the city through construction and rapid growth of industrialization, the economic crisis in twentieth century brought the great depression  in the U.S.; causing through the Stock market crash of 1929 until 1939, and unemployment that resulted poverty throughout the nation. The working class people and upper class people were widely affected and failed them in terms of raising their life standard and led them into the depression. It was the period of both unemployment and poverty, and increased government involvement in the economy.The most serious problem was an unemployment that heavily fell on unskilled, the young, and color people. In Chudacoff’s book, he states that between 1929 and 1933, both Mayors of Detroit and New York City preferred spending available money and borrow for relief even by reducing other municipal services of the city. This decreased the expenditure on parks and recreation departments in 795 cities and towns by 50 percent. Likewise Chicago was one of the hardest hit cities in American by the Great Depression because of the city dependence on manufacturing and crisis that existed the stock market crash. An unemployment in Chicago was near 50 percent after the four years of crash which led thousands of people to move and gather for social protest.

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Immigrants had an important impact on many cities of the Untied State. For example, New York is a diversity city

which accepted many immigrants from over the world; especially people from Europe, Germany and Ireland, and so on

in 1820-1860. Immigrants contributed labor force for the development of New York City. They were used to work at

factory and port for delivering goods.

The first purpose was getting rich fast for people ,who went to  California in 1845-1863. Because of gold rush, many

immigrants moved into California, therefore it became a bigger and wealth city gradually. At the time, most immigrants

were from China. They were in order to get rich and have a better life, most people abandoned their families and moved

to California. However, later on, they became a particular force which built railroad from west to central of the

Untied State with gold rushed up.

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New York City was a city port that accepted many immigrants. By the 1850’s more than half the residents of New York were foreign born (Chudacoff pg.64). San Francisco became part of the United States in 1848 and soon after came the Gold Rush. San Francisco also accepted many immigrants but it seems that the Chinese was the main fastest growing group of people. White miners in the gold fields began to ask the state protection from competitive Chinese miners. San Francisco then imposed tax on “foreign” miners to encourage the Chinese to leave (Chudacoof pg.67). A similar action was taken on freed slaves that lived in New York and other cities; freed slaves had to pay an annual tax, even though they were “free.”

European Immigrants Arriving in New York, 1850's

Chinese Miners in San Francisco

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Immigration had important effects on the economic life, housing and culture of cities. One of the similarities between New York City and Boston is by the 1850s, more than half of the residents were foreign born(Chudacoff 64). On the other hand, in the 1820s and 1830s, Boston established free elementary schools in 1818, New York followed in 1832(Chudacoff 52).

Another similarities of these two cities are until the 1850s, the settled areas of even the largest cities, such as New York and Boston, rarely extended beyond the two miles from the city center—the average distance a person can walk in half an hour. Thus historians have labeled this early urban configuration the “walking city” because of its size and major mode of conveyance(Chudacoff 57-58). Moreover, an almost annual excess of new arrivals over those departing doubled and tripled populations of most established cities between 1840 and 1850. Crowding in settled areas swelled. By 1850 there were 135.6 persons per acre in New York, while 82.7 in Boston(Chudacoff 59).

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