USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Boston's immigrants, 1790-1865 : a study in acculturation > Part 11
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KEY
Original brick houses
a. Burgess' Alley
Sheds, outhouses
Court buildings
Arched passage
d. "Jacobs Ladder" to Humphrey Place.
FORT
HILL
1
3
C
C
a
P
BROAD
STREET
FIG. 5 HALF MOON PLACE IN 1849*
* Derived from material in the Report of the Committee of Internal Health.
p. 167.
Street buildings (b, Fig. 5), but the less fortunate denizens of Burgess Alley (a, Fig. 5, Figs. 7, 8) made their way through an arched crevice in the house in front of them (Figs. 5, 9). From Half Moon Place there was, as well, a battered staircase, "Jacob's Ladder," which led to the comparative heaven of Humphrey Place above.41
41 Cf. Fig. 6; also Norman J. Ware, Industrial Worker, 1840-1860 . . . (Bos- ton, 1924), 13.
b. Entrance to Half Moon Place
c. Bakers Alley
FIG. 6 VIEW OF HALF MOON PLACE
FIG. 7 BURGESS ALLEY, NORTH VIEW
FIG. 8 BURGESS ALLEY, SOUTH VIEW
FIG. 9 ENTRANCE TO BURGESS ALLEY
II2
BOSTON'S IMMIGRANTS, 1790-1865
Remodeled or new, these dwellings promoted a steady suc- cession of evils, constant factors in the deterioration of the physical aspects of Irish life in Boston. No standards of de- cency and comfort were too low for erstwhile occupants in Ireland of crammed "hovels . . . without floors, without fur- niture and with patches of dirty straw." 42 The one evil of which Boston houses were free was excessive height, for most had only two or three stories - a blessing not to be underesti- mated.43
Immigrant rents were everywhere high beyond all reason because of the system whereby middlemen demanded dual and sometimes triple profits, and secured returns greater than on any other real estate in the city. In the Fort Hill district in 1845, the meanest accommodations commanded $1.00 or $1.50 per week per room; an attic could not be gotten for less than $1.50, and a cellar, for $2.00, all paid weekly in advance. 44
The failure of building to keep up with the increase of population and the steep cost of apartments bred overcrowd- ing. In 1845 Shattuck warned that the area north of Beach Street could never hold more than 80,000 people with safety.45
42 Cf. Robert B. Forbes, Voyage of the Jamestown ... (Boston, 1847), 22. 43 A few in Broad Street were six floors high, but these were exceptional (Report of the Committee of Internal Health on the Asiatic Cholera . .. [Bos- ton, 1849], 14).
44 Cf. Twelfth Report Benevolent Fraternity of Churches (Boston, 1846), 17; Report of the Committee on Expediency, 12, 13; Report of the Bureau of Sta- tistics of Labor, 1870, 165 ff., 175; Report of the Committee of Internal Health, 14; Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1871, 521, 526; Boston Pilot, November 8, 1856.
45 Shattuck, Letter, 15. In that year the number of persons per house was already at its maximum, and did not decline appreciably in the next ten years.
Year
Persons per House in Boston
Year
Persons per House in Boston
I790
7.97
1845
10.57
1800
8.31
1850
9.16
1810
8.51
1855
10.16
1820
9.84
1860
8.92
1830
9.99
1870
8.46
1840
10.04
("Report and Tabular Statement of the Censors . .. 1850," loc. cit., 32; Curtis, op. cit., II; Carroll D. Wright, Social, Commercial, and Manufacturing Statistics
II3
THE PHYSICAL ADJUSTMENT
Yet ten years later more than 90,000 resided there.46 The Irish sections were the most congested in the city and immi- grant homes felt a consequent strain upon living resources.47 They were "not occupied by a single family or even by two or three families; but each room, from garret to cellar [was] . filled with a family . .. of several persons, and some- times with two or more. >> 48 Every nook was in demand. Attics, often no more than three feet high, were popular. And basements were even more coveted, particularly in the Fort Hill area; by 1850 the 586 inhabited in Boston contained from five to fifteen persons in each, with at least one holding thirty- nine every night.49
Underground dwellings enjoyed refreshing coolness in the hot summer months and coal-saving warmth in the winter - important advantages in resisting the vicissitudes of Boston's climate. But with these benefits went many drawbacks. Built entirely beneath the street level, they enjoyed no light or air save that which dribbled in through the door leading down, by rickety steps, from the sidewalk above. Innocent of the most rudimentary plumbing, some normally held two or three feet of water, and all were subject to periodic floods and fre- quent inundations by the backwater of drains at high tide. Above all, there was little space. Some windowless vaults no more than eighteen feet square and five feet high held four- teen humans. That marked "A" in Figure Io, for instance, was no more than six feet in any dimension, with no ventila- tion except through bedroom "B" (Fig. II). In some, two or more bedrooms huddled next to a parlor-kitchen which often served as bar or grocery as well. These were by no means exceptional. A committee of philanthropists reported in 1849
of the City of Boston . . . [Boston, 1882], 10; Shattuck, Report . . . Census of Boston . . . 1845, 54).
46 Curtis, op. cit., 7.
47 Compare Wards 6, 9, II, with 1, 3, 7, 8 in Map IX, Dissertation Copy.
48 Report of the Committee of Internal Health, 12; Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1870, 167.
40 Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1870, 166-168; Report of the Committee of Internal Health, 173; Courrier des Etats-Unis, May 6, 1851.
II4
BOSTON'S IMMIGRANTS, 1790-1865
that cellars generally contained a "grocery and vegetable shop; and not infrequently, a groggery and dancing hall ... ," and mournfully concluded, "As might be expected, intemperance, lewdness, riot . .. enter in and dwell there." 50 Despite a suggestion in the following year that such holes be outlawed,
bed. A
bed.
Ved. B
FIG. IO PLAN OF A CELLAR IN BREAD STREET
FIG. II BEDROOM "B" IN FIG. IO
their number increased and they continued to draw high prices.51 Indeed, the Irish population could not have been housed without them.
The most serious danger inherent in immigrant quarters was the complete neglect of sewerage equipment and sanitation of any kind. In many cases, especially in houses "originally designed for warehouses and . . . converted ... as econom- ically as possible," the absolute lack of facilities obliged the occupants "to supply their necessities as best they" could.52 Where drainage systems existed, they were inefficient and in- sufficient. The roads near Fort Hill were ungraded and in vicinities such as the South Cove and the Mill Pond the marshy ground had settled so that "the imperfect sewerage . .. orig- inally provided" had become "altogether useless." >> 53
Usually residents relied on yard hydrants and water-closets "exposed
50 Report of the Committee of Internal Health, 15; also Fig. 10.
51 "Report and Tabular Statement of the Censors . .. 1850," loc. cit., 15; Report of the Committee of Internal Health, 172, 173.
52 Report of the Committee of Internal Health, 13, 14. 53 Ibid., II.
II5
THE PHYSICAL ADJUSTMENT
to the transient custom of tenants or outsiders" alike.54 Many houses had "but one sink, opening into a contracted and ill- constructed drain, or .. . into a passage way or street, and but one privy, usually a mass of pollution, for all the inhabit- ants, sometimes amounting to a hundred." 55 No one was re- sponsible for the care of these communal instruments, and as a result they were normally out of repair. Abominably foul and feculent, perpetually gushing over into the surrounding yards, they were mighty carriers of disease. To make matters worse, lack of direct access to the streets in court dwellings made the disposal of rubbish a burdensome problem, most easily solved by permitting it to decay at its leisure in the tiny yards, a process which converted the few feet between adjoining buildings into storehouses of accumulated filth.56
The description of Half Moon Place by the Cholera Com- mittee (1849) shows the result such conditions produced. "A large part of the area is occupied by . .. twelve or fourteen privies, constantly overflowing, and by ill constructed and worn out sinks and drains, into which are hourly thrown solid substances, of all sorts, which choke them up and cause the liquid ... to run over. Into the area .. . a steep . . . staircase affords a passage to Humphrey place, some fifty feet above. Side by side with the staircase, and fully exposed, a large, square, plank drain makes a precipitous descent, con- ducting, half hidden, half revealed, not only the waste waters of the houses in Humphrey place, but also, the contents of its privies to the area below; which, as may be supposed, is redolent of the fact." 57
Tenants relied on their own resources in securing heat, and therefore few succeeded in warming their rooms to any degree of comfort. Coal and wood were expensive, particularly since,
54 Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1870, 176.
55 Report of the Committee of Internal Health, 13.
56 Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1870, 165; Report of the Com- mittee of Internal Health, 169, 174; Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1871, 521, 524; Figs. IO, II.
57 Report of the Committee of Internal Health, 14.
II6
BOSTON'S IMMIGRANTS, 1790-1865
"being too poor to be economical" and "obliged to buy in small quantities" they had to "pay ... at least double . for wood and coal ... [by] the bundle and the basket . . there being neither money , nor place for storage of arti- cles bought in larger bulk." 58 For many the only means of outwitting the cold was to remain in bed throughout the day.59 Under the circumstances small rooms were an advantage. But rooms were not only small; they were also low, dingy, and suffocating. In the Fort Hill buildings, air and light were complete strangers; either the hill behind or the Broad Street houses in front excluded them. Ventilation shafts were often no more than two feet square. Windows, where they existed, were always closed to keep out the stench of the yards in sum- mer, and the bitterness of the wind in winter. In passage structures, of course, only the top floor saw the sun at all.60
In the absence of care and of proper facilities remarkable exertions were required to maintain a minimal standard of tidiness. Rooms were unpainted; closets were rare; furniture, inadequate. Want of any equipment beyond the rudimentary bed and table, a few chairs, and the ubiquitous washtub, neces- sitated scattering clothing and other articles wherever they might fall or, at best, hanging them on pegs. Baths were un- heard of; inside water was uncommon, and the apartments with their own water supply few indeed. Walls were damp, roofs leaked. Stairs were generally dilapidated, windows were often broken, and many buildings had not felt the hand of the repair man in ten or more years. Decay and slothfulness led directly to the prevalence of fires which involved great loss of life and much suffering.61
Slovenliness and disorder were inevitable in the squalor of such conditions. "In such a state of things, there can be no
58 Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1870, 164.
59 Benevolent Fraternity of Churches, Fourth Annual Report of the Execu- tive Committee ... (Boston, 1838), 18.
60 Report of the Committee of Internal Health, 14; Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1870, 176.
61 Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1870, 164 ff., 175 ff .; Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1871, 521, 522, 525; Boston Pilot, August 9, 1856.
II7
THE PHYSICAL ADJUSTMENT
cleanliness, privacy, or proper ventilation ... ; and, with the ignorance, carelessness, and generally loose and dirty habits which prevail among the occupants, the necessary evils are greatly increased both in amount and intensity. In Broad Street and all the surrounding neighborhood . . the situation of the Irish . . . is particularly wretched. . . This whole district is a perfect hive of human beings, without comforts and mostly without common necessaries; in many cases, hud- dled together like brutes, without regard to sex, or age, or sense of decency; grown men and women sleeping together in the same apartment, and sometimes wife and husband, broth- ers and sisters, in the same bed. Under such circumstances, self-respect, forethought, all high and noble virtues soon die out, and sullen indifference and despair, or disorder, intem- perance and utter degradation reign supreme." 62
Inadequate housing, debarment from the healing sun, and inescapable filth took their toll in sickness and lives. Boston had been a healthy city before the 1840's, a city in which the life-span was long and disease rare. Smallpox, for instance, no longer existed by 1845. Although an unusually large num- ber of cases had cropped up in 1839 and 1840 because of the relaxation of regulations in 1838, there had been no major epidemic since 1792.63 But after 1845 the pestilence flourished, particularly among the Irish.64 Nor was this the only scourge
62 Report of the Committee of Internal Health, 13.
63 Cf. Lemuel Shattuck, Letter to the Secretary of State on the Registration of Births, Marriages, and Deaths ... (s.l., n.d. [Boston, 1845]), 23; Massachu- setts Sanitary Commissioners, Report of a General Plan for the Promotion of Public ... Health ... (Boston, 1850), 69 ff .; "Memorial of the Boston Sani- tary Association," Massachusetts House Documents, 1861, no. 153, p. 13; Shat- tuck, Report, 144.
64 Deaths from Smallpox in Boston - five year periods, 1811-65:
Years
Deaths
Years
Deaths
1811-15
6
1841-45
185
1816-20
O
1846-50
349
1821-25
2
1851-55
33I
1826-30
5
1856-60
40I
1831-35
I7
1861-65
250
1836-40
197
(Derived from data in Charles E. Buckingham, et al., Sanitary Condition of Boston . . . [Boston, 1875], 84; "Memorial of the Boston Sanitary Association," loc. cit., 5, 15).
118
BOSTON'S IMMIGRANTS, 1790-1865
miserable living conditions bred to plague the city. Year after year endemic or contagious maladies returned to haunt the depressed areas.65 In 1849 the cholera spread from Philadel- phia and New York to Boston. Despite feverish efforts to halt it, the epidemic swept through the congested courts in the hot summer months, reaping a full harvest of victims with a severity "fully accounted for by the deplorable conditions of the emigrants from Europe." 66 It thrived best in places "least perfect in drainage, the worst ventilated and the most crowded," that is, in Irish districts.67 The distribution of 61I fatal cases and ninety-six other identifiable ones coincided to a remarkable degree with Irish slum sections. The worst out- breaks occurred in the rear of 136 Hanover Street, Burgess Alley (200 cases), Mechanics Court, and the rear of Battery- march Street, especially prominent points of Irish concentra- tion.68 Most of the patients in East Boston likewise resided in neighborhoods like Liverpool Street and "in every instance . .. the houses were without proper drains. .. . " In all, more than 500 of the 700 fatalities were Irish, or the children of Irishmen. 69
More vicious in the long run than the spectacular ills were those which, conceived in squalor, quietly ate away resistance before delivering their final blow. Most important was tuber- culosis. This disease had declined in Boston until 1845, but thereafter revived in the hovels of the Irish on whom it fat- tened year after year, reaching the unprecedented peak of 4.57 deaths per thousand living in 1855.70 The impact of miserable environment was even more pernicious upon the
65 Cf. Massachusetts Sanitary Commissioners, Report, 90, 92.
66 Jesse Chickering, Report of the Committee . . . 1850, Boston City Docu- ments, 1851, no. 60, p. 29.
67 Report of the Committee of Internal Health, 8, 165.
'Cf. ibid., Map, 163-169; Dissertation Copy, Map XII.
69 Cf. Report of the Committee of Internal Health, 9, 57-160, 180.
70 Shattuck, Report, 146; Massachusetts Sanitary Commissioners, Report, 91 ; Buckingham, op. cit., 122 ff .; "Report by the City Registrar . .. 1864," Boston City Documents, 1865, no. 42, p. 27. The close correlation of deaths by consump- tion with the poor housing conditions of the Irish may be seen infra, Table XVIII.
119
THE PHYSICAL ADJUSTMENT
children of the slums than upon their parents. This period witnessed a rise in infant mortality, attributable primarily to three products of foul surroundings - intestinal disorders, pneumonia, and bronchitis.71 All three appeared overwhelm- ingly among the Irish, and, in the opinion of Dr. Howard Damon, superintendent of the Boston Dispensary, the first, including "diarrhea, cholera infantum, and dysentery," cer- tainly depended "upon two very distinct causes of insalubrity, - overcrowding and imperfect drainage." 72
Irish longevity, low enough in the homeland, dwindled be- cause of the debilitating crossing and the disheartening condi- tions in America. So many died soon after arrival that it was said the Irish lived an average of only fourteen years after reaching Boston.73 Their coming consequently raised the death rate unexpectedly after 1845. Before then it had increased from 2.04 per cent for the ten year period ending 1830 to 2.20 per cent for the decade ending 1840, and to 2.53 per cent for the five years ending 1845, a rise due almost exclusively to the ever larger proportion of elderly people.74 Far from lowering the mortality, as the injection of a young and medium- aged group should have, the immediate effect of immigration and of the diseases and hardships attending settlement in Bos- ton, was to boost it even further to 2.94 per cent for the five- year period ending 1850. This was twice as high as for the
71 Percentage of Total Deaths Due to Infant Mortality:
Ten Year Period
Percentage Deaths Under One Year Old of Total Deaths
Percentage Deaths Under Five Years Old of Total Deaths
1820-29
8.73
25.69
1830-39
12.66
35.17
1840-49
12.76
37.52
1850-59
23.84
46.49
(Buckingham, op. cit., 53 ; also Shattuck, Letter on Registration, 19).
72 [William Read], Communication . .. on Asiatic Cholera . . . 1866, Boston City Documents, 1866, no. 21, p. 37. One thousand cases of children's intestinal diseases, located Dissertation Copy, Map XII, coincide almost exactly with the Irish areas. Cf. also Buckingham, op. cit., 64-69.
73 Ware, op. cit., 14.
74 Massachusetts Sanitary Commissioners, Report, 82. For the increase in elderly people, cf. infra, Table XIX.
120
BOSTON'S IMMIGRANTS, 1790-1865
rest of Massachusetts, and higher even than the English slums. After 1850 when the initial shock of transplantation wore off, the rate tended to revert to the level of 1845, with 2.74 per cent for 1850-55, 2.39 per cent for 1855-60, and 2.42 per cent for 1860-65. But though immigration had decreased the pro- portion of aged people in the city, the death rate still remained above that of most comparable communities.75
Mortality was actually not uniform in all groups. In sec- tions inhabited by Americans and other non-Irish it was as low as outside the city, particularly before 1850 when the Irish had not yet spread, carrying disease with them. In that year the death rate was only 1.3 per cent in the Beacon Hill district, where there were but 561 foreigners, chiefly servants, in a total population of 2,615, and only 1.92 per cent in the Back Bay area, where there were 1,348 aliens in a population of 5,12I, and these chiefly German; but in Broad Street and Fort Hill where 2,738 out of 2,813 were not natives, and almost all Irish, it was fully 5.65 per cent.76 One out of every seventeen Broad Street Irishmen died in 1850. As the popula- tion scattered, the proportion of deaths in the various regions evened out somewhat; the disparity in 1855 was not as radical as in 1850, and in 1865, even less so. But distinctions did not completely disappear. In 1865 there was still a differential of 1.39 per cent between the North End and Beacon Hill.77 On the basis of nativity, disregarding geographical variations, this inequality was almost as pronounced. While the rate for the whole city was 2.64 per cent in 1850, that for native Amer- icans was 2.23, for non-Irish foreigners, 2.66, for Germans only 1.31, and for the Irish, fully 3.29.78 From either per- spective, Irishmen, although "not possessing, and scarcely thinking of the luxuries of life" and devoid of "the more de-
75 Cf. "Sanitary Reform," North American Review, July, 1851, LXXIII, 120; Buckingham, op. cit., 47; Chickering, op. cit., 28.
76 "Sanitary Reform," loc. cit., 121, 122; Tenth Report to the Legislature ... Relating to the Registry and Return of Births, Marriages, and Deaths . . . 1851 (Boston, 1852), IIO, III.
77 Cf. Curtis, op. cit., 56-58; infra, Table XVIII.
78 Chickering, op. cit., 28.
I2I
THE PHYSICAL ADJUSTMENT
bilitating and fatal effects of mental anxiety and luxurious enjoyment," hastened in the midst of life to death.79
Nevertheless, the city's foreign population multiplied, partly from continued immigration, but essentially from the fertility of immigrants - a particularly fortunate phenomenon because it came just in time to compensate for decreasing native births. In 1845, when the rate was 1:30 for Boston, it was twice as high (1:15) for the Broad Street section. By 1850 the native ratio was one birth for every forty living, but for the Irish it was one for every nineteen and for the Germans, a very youthful group, slightly larger - one for every seventeen. Al- though the incidence of births was high among the Germans, their meager number had little effect upon the general trend. Only 2.80 per cent of the total births were German, 35.27 per cent were native, and fully 52.87 per cent were Irish in 1850. The frequency of births among immigrants reflected a high proportion of marriages. One Irishman in fifty and one Ger- man in twenty-seven wed in 1850- a rate higher than the native one in sixty-five, and attributable to the large number of young and middle-aged people.80
Fecundity was the only contribution of the Irish toward a solution of the community's social problems. Otherwise, their abject status spawned a brood of evils that burdened civic progress for many decades. Of these misfortunes, pauperism was the most important and the most pervasive, for thousands of Irish were constantly "idle and inactive, when there was an earnest craving for occupation. . . . " 81 Living on the brink of starvation even when at work, they necessarily called upon charity when discarded by the overstocked labor market, join-
79 Chickering, op. cit., 53. Their youth as a group kept the Irish death rate from increasing in the following years and led to Chickering's opinion that the American rate was higher than the foreign (ibid., 32). Chickering was also misled by the large and rapidly growing number of deaths among the Boston- born infants of Irish parents (Curtis, op. cit., 44, 46 ff.).
80 Cf. infra, Table XX; Chickering, op. cit., 17, 19, 23, 52; Report of the Committee on Expediency, 7; Dissertation Copy, 450.
81 Benevolent Fraternity of Churches, Twelfth Annual Report of the Execu- tive Committee .. . (Boston, 1846), II.
I22
BOSTON'S IMMIGRANTS, 1790-1865
ing the ranks of the unemployables who could under no circum- stances support themselves and of the aged for whom there was no security in an improvident economy.
Feeding idle mouths, particularly idle foreign mouths, was a difficulty complicated by the wasteful division of functions between Massachusetts' central government and its subdivi- sions. Although the care of the poor was essentially a munic- ipal matter, the Commonwealth had early assumed the obliga- tion of maintaining those without legal residence. The towns felt no incentive to economize where others paid the bill; in- stead, they rather welcomed, or at least did not vigorously op- pose, the incursion of impoverished strangers who merely lowered the per-capita cost of assisting residents and provided free work-house labor as well.82 Between 1845 and 1854, there- fore, local officials did little to halt the hundreds of beggars who made their way to the Massachusetts alms-houses. In that period Irish transient paupers outnumbered the sum of all others, of whatever status or nationality.83
But soon enough, Boston, like other municipalities, suc- cumbed to the process which naturally and quietly transferred many to its care. Inevitably, state dependents acquired legal residence, and looked to the city for support. Accentuating the increasing burden even further was "the great influx of Foreign Diseased Paupers" requiring immediate medical attention, who forced Boston in 1847 to establish, at considerable cost, two hospitals on Deer Island, almost all of whose inmates were Irish.84
Meanwhile, attempts to reduce the state's expense both by excluding unbonded aliens and by devolving part of the finan- cial responsibility upon localities, failed.85 Successive com-
Cf. supra, 22; Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1839, no. 47, pp. 6 ff.
83 Cf. Massachusetts House Documents, 1851, no. 152, pp. 1, 2; Chart D. After 1854 the number of foreign state paupers declined as they acquired legal residence. Cf. also Table XXI, infra.
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