The Everyday Life of Lower East Side Jews on the Turn of the 19th and 20th Century – Selected Aspects in the Light of American Daily Press

Abstract

The main aim of the article is to analyze the everyday life of New York Lower East Side at the turn of the 19th and 20th century in American daily press of the time. The article’s chronological framework begins with the 1880 when the mass migration era started and ends with the outbreak of the World War I. The author attempts to answer the following research questions: How the everyday life of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe looked like in the eyes of American tabloid journalists and social workers? With what kind of daily problems Lower East Side Jews needed to cope with? What were the living conditions of the early 20th century New York Jewish slums inhabitants? And how they manage to create the institutional completeness among the district? The research methods are: historical, sociological analysis and interpretation of American daily press and magazines, among others “New York Times”, “The Sun”, “The Evening World”, periodicals and reports of municipal and state commissions published those days like: Report of the Tenement House Committee as Authorized by Chapter 479 of the Laws of 1894, Transmitted to the Legislature January 17, 1895 (Albany 1895); Family desertion: report of the Committee on desertion (National Desertion Bureau), National Conference of Jewish Charities (New York 1912); Tenement House Fires in New York (New York 1900); and Report of the Mayor’s Push-Cart Commission (New York 1906).