rss feedEpisodes from "History of Urban and Suburban America," Furman University (Fall 2008): 1 through 10 of 31
- Murder of Geographic Proportions
June 25, 1897 to November 8, 1897
NEW YORK, New York
Crime/Violence, GeographyWhat is more interesting than a story that involves a jealous love triangle that results in the murder of a man and the arrest of another who has been betrayed by a friend and lover? It is the realization that this is not a plot line for a fictional soap opera, but a real account that occurred in the Lower East Side of New York City in 1897. Martin Thorn and William Guidensuppe were both competing...
- Failure of the Arcade Railway 1865 to 1875 NEW YORK, New York Migration/Transportation, A T Stewart, Boss Tweed
In the second half of the nineteenth century, two of New York City's most prominent citizens, A T Stewart and William "Boss" Tweed, were also at the heart of city's constant growth and subsequent overcrowding. Men like Stewart and Tweed invested in new construction projects throughout the city, which in turn brought more people into the city. Meanwhile, New York's horse-drawn street cars, already...
- Great Migration, Religion, and Churches in New York City January 1, 1893 to December 31, 1909 NEW YORK, New York Civil War, Religion, Great Migration, African-Americans
The "Great Migration" of African Americans to the north in the early 1900's was the result of years of enslavement. The migration introduced new eager American citizens to the north during a time when new faces were foreign faces. For African Americans, the lure of freedom from Jim Crow laws, a higher and fairer wage for labor, and a fresh start to life was reasons enough to move to "the promised...
- The Dangers of Living on the Lower East Side 1890 to 1910 NEW YORK, New York Immigration, City Life
A mother anxiously calls out her children's names in the street. Her neighbors frantically stand at her side, their eyes darting back and forth across the busy streets looking for the lost little ones. Finally, what seems like hours later, there is a banging at the tenement door. It is a New York City policeman, toting the lost children by the hands. Historical photographer Lewis Wickes Hine...
- Reforming "The Bend" 1888 to 1897 NEW YORK, New York Urban Society, Urban-Life/Boosterism, Government, Progressive Reformers
"Where Mulberry Street crooks like an elbow within hail of the old depravity of the Five Points, is "the Bend," foul core of New York's slums." These words, written by Jacob A. Riis in his groundbreaking 1890 work, How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York, describe a desolate corner of the urban decay that characterized New York's Lower East Side in the late 1800s. Riis, a...
- Boys and Baseball February 9, 1883 NEW YORK, New York Adolescence, New York City 1880s, City Life
Boys do not like sitting around and talking. They would much rather be running, jumping, throwing, and screaming. So it comes as a complete surprise to see that on February 9, 1883, a group of adolescent boys, aged anywhere from ten to sixteen, gathered together as delegates of eleven of New York's grammar schools to form a baseball club. The boys came from the city's schools, known by numbers and...
- Triangle Factory Fire March 25, 1911 New York, New York Immigration, historical memory
The immigrant women working in Triangle Shirtwaist Factory called it a "prison." Its safety and working conditions were abysmally low, but these conditions were not unique: New York was an epicenter for industrialization, containing thousands of unsafe factories filled with recent immigrants. In 1909, many factory workers organized a strike to protest unsafe conditions, and most factories met their...
- Growing Pains in New York's Lower East Side 1880 to 1901 NEW YORK, New York Urban-Life/Boosterism, Immigration, Church/Religious-Activity
An early 1900s postcard photograph from New York's Souvenir Post Card Company captures the Lower East Side's crowded and chaotic environment. As American Jewish historian Hasia Diner notes, "at the right moment in time, under the right conditions, ordinary places become transformed into spaces throbbing with meaning." Such was the case with New York's iconic Lower East Side. The photo shows Hester...
- The New York Milk Committee Preaches Pure Milk by Moving Pictures March 24, 1913 New York, New York Health/Death, Women, Progressive Reformers, Urban Society, Food Regulation
Urban infants in the 1840s had only a 50 percent chance of living to the age of five. Progressive reformers believed that high infant mortality was linked to adulterated and infectious milk, a concern that remained even after New York passed regulation laws. On March 25, 1913, the Committee of Women's Organizations of the New York Milk Committee held a meeting to educate mothers living in the tenements...
- Class Tensions Arise in the Markets of Hester Street January 1, 1898 NEW YORK, New York Women, Progressive Reformers, Marketplace
"The true heart of the Lower East Side beat in the street," and Hester Street was no exception. It served as the hub of life in the Lower East Side – teeming with women shopping, children playing and peddlers manning their pushcarts full of food. While the tenements towered high above blocking out the sky, the streets were overrun with peddlers and their pushcarts and their female clientele milling...