New York panorama : a comprehensive view of the metropolis, Part 10

Author:
Publication date: 1938
Publisher: New York : Random House
Number of Pages: 630

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Many proposals were made, both during this period and later, to im- se a head tax on immigrants, to limit their numbers, and to deprive em of the right to vote. Labor unions sought a "protective tariff" against e influx of cheap labor. The "Know-Nothing" or American Party was tmed to protest against this tide of aliens, especially against such as wed allegiance to the Pope of Rome." In an effort to control the arrival "undesirables," New York passed about 1848 a law requiring a bond $300 which made the shipowners and passenger agents responsible for ose who were sick or destitute for a period of five years-a responsibility at was evaded by agents, who provided private "hospitals" and "poor-

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houses" of their own. After immigrants had acquired the vote, appea were made to them to vote for candidates of the same country of origin, for example this circular, issued about 1856 in New York City: "Iris men to your post, or you'll lose America. By perseverance you may becon its rulers. By negligence you will become its slaves. Your own country w lost by submitting to ambitious rulers. This beautiful country you gain l being firm and united. Vote the tickets Alexander Stewart, Aldermal Edward Flanagan, Assessor ; both true Irishmen."

In 1861 only 91,918 immigrants arrived in the United States; in 184 their number rose to 669,431. In the decade 1881-1890 there enter 5,246,613 immigrant aliens, as contrasted with 1,713,251 in the period; from 1841-1850. Each of the years 1905, 1906, 1907, 1910, 1913, af 1914 brought to the United States over a million. In general, periods prosperity in the United States coincided with periods of heavy immigr tion. Thus both immigration and prosperity were high in 1873 and low 1879; rising in 1882, falling in 1885; high in 1892, low in 1897; and t. long period of prosperity from 1900 to 1915 coincided with the high pe of immigration.

This second great wave originated not in northwestern Europe like t. first, but in countries of eastern and southern Europe. "A line drawn acrc the continent of Europe from northeast to southwest," says John R. Com mons in Races and Immigrants in America, "separating the Scandinavi Peninsula, the British Isles, Germany, and France from Russia, Austr: Hungary, Italy, and Turkey, separates countries not only of distinct rac but of distinct civilizations. It separates Protestant Europe from Catho Europe; it separates countries of representative institutions and popul government from absolute monarchy; it separates lands where education universal from lands where illiteracy predominates; it separates manuf: turing centers, progressive agriculture, and skilled labor from primiti hand industries, backward agriculture, and unskilled labor."

Such generalizations should not be interpreted to mean, however, th the immigrants of the second wave, coming from southeast of this ima nary line, were inferior to earlier immigrants or to earlier "America stock. Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, after a statistical examination of descendants older American stock and of fourteen national groups of white immigra who arrived in the United States before the World War, stated that " : 0 results were, in brief, that not in one single item, except stature, has been possible to discover, in the healthy, non-crippled, non-defective i migrant from any of the different nationalities in Europe, any inferiori

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. If through such investigation it is impossible to find a substantial, aning difference from the sound older stock that has peopled America, tre surely cannot exist between the older stock and the newer comers y substantial superiority or inferiority." A census monograph on the oc- pations of immigrants and their children by Niles Carpenter, based on 1920 United States Census, extended these investigations into the eco- mic field. While available statistics were too meager for any general clusions, they indicated that the "older" immigrant no more chose cer- in occupations than the "newer" arrivals, and that "the distinctions be- een 'old' and 'new' immigration cannot be taken to imply any significant ferences in the economic behavior" of the races and nationalities under sideration. Concerning the mixture of the various stocks Dr. Hrdlicka narked: "So far as science is able to see, there has not been, to this mo- unt, a trace of any bad effect of these mixtures on the American people; mich rather otherwise. Probably a good part, perhaps a very important it already of the power and strength of the American people is the re- t of these very mixtures."

The immigrants of the second great wave came from the lowest eco- mic stratum. Thus one-quarter of the Italians coming over in the great ve after 1881 are supposed to have had their passage paid by friends d relatives in the United States. The Italians were not fleeing political or igious persecution, or, as in the case of the Jews of Russia, the Arme- m.ns and Syrians of Turkey, and the Slavs of Hungary, oppression by mer national groups in power. The Italians attempted to avoid, by migra- n, exploitation by another class of their own race. In the southern Italian ovinces and Sicily, where the power of the landlords was greatest, rental farm land was high and crop prices low. Agricultural laborers in Italy eived in 1900 from 8 to 32 cents a day in wages, yet had to consume 85 Ercent of their wages for food, as against 62 percent in Germany and 41 prcent in the United States. Some idea of the low standard of living in ithern Italy can be had from the fact that a peasant in Apulia was accus- ned to consume 10 pounds of meat a year, although paupers in English virkhouses were alloted 57 pounds each per year.

The overwhelming majority of the immigrants, with the exception of : Jews, were of an agrarian tradition and training. An examination of : occupations of 15 ethnic groups listed in the 1920 census supports this tention, showing that of the total number in these groups, 13.5 of the mers were Irish, but in the United States only 1.3 percent were en- ged in this occupation, turning instead to railroad construction and

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operation, and the steel industry. Irish women furnished 81.3 percent domestic servants within these groups. The Scandinavians either migrat westward into farming areas, or became domestic servants and text operatives in the city.

These agrarians, cast suddenly into a highly industrialized city, we forced to make in a few months an about-face in modes of living whi had been transmitted to them unchanged since the Middle Ages. In th homes they continued to employ primitive methods of sanitation whi though harmless in an agrarian civilization, in the crowded tenements New York induced disease. In their native countries they were by no mea unskilled at tilling the soil, but in New York they dropped into the ran of common labor, and as such built New York's railroads, bridges, bui. ings and streets.

Many immigrants who technically entered the port of New York new had the slightest contact with the life of the city. An eye-witness (I Hrdlicka ) tells of "droves of immigrants taken at Castle Garden by 1 drones or agents, led like a flock through gloomy downtown New Yc and over the ferry to Hoboken, where trains of old cars were waiting carry them directly to the Pennsylvania coal fields and factories. . . . Th never heard, never saw, never felt the real America, they were kept rath away from American influence and contact, lest such a contact might opro their eyes and help them to revolt against the conditions of their lab Their employers did not want prospective Americans, they wanted or the human beasts of labor."

In New York the alien immigrant soon learned a few necessary Ame can words; thus the Italian of a decade's residence began to astound mc recently arrived compatriots with such expressions as giobba (job), sa guiccio (sandwich), and sonomagogna (son of a gun). With the acqui tion of American words came the acquisition of something of the Ame can's sweeping largeness of idea. To the peasant in his native village, native of the next village was a "foreigner." In New York, however, had to mix with natives of his whole province or district, and here beg his first lesson in the democratic process. From the native of a village became, while living in New York, the native of a province, and ev the native of a single country.

Even when the immigrant adopted America as his country, he still w set apart from other Americans by language and customs, often by t nature of his job. If a recent arrival, and hence the poorest and worst pai he sometimes was recruited to break a strike of other workers, thus ere

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g a further barrier against himself. Often by joining an American labor ion the alien immigrant first began to absorb some of the traditions of nerican democracy. The immigrant's children, however, went to New ork schools, read New York papers, took part in New York amusements d sports, and became hardly distinguishable from children of native ock. In 1938, however, 180 foreign language periodicals were still be- g issued, in 27 languages, in Greater New York; these included 30 daily rwspapers.

Generalizations as to occupations and contributions of foreign stocks in ew York are frequently made, but rest on slight statistical information. hus the Ukrainians of New York, many of whom work as window wash- (s and dish washers, have made great contributions to sport; the Irish, hose unskilled hands first labored at building the city, have made many ntributions to journalism, the theater, building and construction, and city olitics; the Italians, most of whom began as day laborers, and many of hom were later concentrated in the clothing industry, contributed to sci- ice, music, art and politics; the Yugoslavs, besides repairing furnaces and uses, have furnished scientists, inventors, musicians and literary men to ew York; the Scandinavians, mechanics and craftsmen, have made im- ortant contributions to music and to the maritime industry; the Jews, al- lough usually associated in the popular mind with industry, commerce, and trade, have made significant contributions to the arts and sciences, as ell as to education and social welfare.

In the pages which follow are sketched, in barest outline, something of he history and contributions of some of the numerically important foreign ocks of the city.

alians

Italians have shared in the growth and history of New York City ever nce its harbor was entered by Giovanni Verazzano, the Florentine navi- ator, in 1524-eighty-five years before Henry Hudson set eyes on Man- attan Island. In New Amsterdam were a number of Italians-among hem one Mathys Capito, in 1655 a clerk of the Municipal Bookkeeping Office. When in 1657 a group of Waldensians-Italian Protestants-came rom Piedmont in Italy to settle finally in Delaware, some are believed o have settled at Stony Brook, Staten Island.

Staten Island was an early haven for Italian political refugees. Here a mall group of revolutionary leaders and exiles lived after the unsuccess-

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ful Italian uprisings of 1820, 1821, 1830 and 1848 against Austr rule. Among these exiles were Giuseppe Garibaldi, leader of his counti revolutionary forces, and Felice Foresti, later professor of Italian at ( lumbia College and United States Consul to Genoa. The oldest Italian s tlement in Manhattan was the "Mulberry Bend" district in the vicin of Mulberry Street, later to become an area of notorious overcrowdingan poverty and squalor. In 1880 the Italian population of New York, chiesa North Italians, was only 12,000. It was not until after 1880, when t United States inaugurated its open-door immigration policy and a flood Italian immigrants, encouraged to migrate by their own government, I gan to sweep in through New York harbor, that "Mulberry Bend" a other Italian settlements in the city reached their greatest density of por lation. fe ten

America needed these immigrants: industrial expansion and the buil ing of new railroad trunk lines in the West had created a demand f great numbers of unskilled laborers. They came chiefly from the south Italy-from Sicily, Sardinia, Apulia, Calabria-but North Italians frc Venetia, Lombardy and Piedmont were among them too.

Large numbers of the newly arrived immigrants were subjected to e ploitation at the hands of some of their fellow-countrymen who had pr ceded them. These were the padrones, agents who took charge of the ir migrants from the moment they arrived and thenceforth preyed upon the in every possible way. The padrone found his client a job, installed him a slum tenant, and acted as his banker, profiting by each transaction. addition to acting as employment agent and interpreter, he often induce clients to quit their employers, rehiring them to some other company ar. making an extra fee in the operation. Many of the padrones became me of considerable wealth and influence. Some Italian laborers, dazed ar. cowed by this treatment, became strike-breakers, and thus earned the hatre of other sections of the population.

But the Italian worker did not long remain blind to the advantages ( union organization. In 1900, when excavation was begun on the Lexinį ton Avenue subway, 4,000 Italian immigrants were brought in to displac Irish and Polish laborers. Under the spur of intolerable conditions, thes Italians organized a union, struck for higher wages, shorter hours, bette working conditions, and won their strike. Their victory marked the fir: participation in the organized labor movement by Italians in America. : was followed in 1904 by another victorious strike involving 5,000 Italia

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cavators and bricklayers working on the construction of the Bronx Aque- ict.

Italians, first brought into New York's needle trades by employers to ght off the trade unions, now comprise one of the most important sec- ons of organized labor in the needle industries. At present the roster of ganized Italian labor in the city includes 100,000 members in the In- rnational Ladies' Garment Workers Union; some 15,000 in the Amal- mated Clothing Workers Union; about 100,000 in various branches of e bulding trades unions; and a large representation in the longshore- en's union, the musicians' union, and barbers', waiters' and shoe work- s' unions. Besides protecting his economic interests, many of these unions ake important provision for meeting the cultural and educational needs the Italian worker.

Italian workers have consistently gained in skill and specialization. A atistical investigation of jobs held by Italian bridegrooms reveals that in )16 the percentage of laborers among them was 32.5. By 1931 the per- ntage had fallen to 10.6-clear indication of a constant betterment of position among this group. Their specific occupations were in 1931, in der of numerical importance, laborers, chauffeurs, barbers, tailors, shoe- akers, clerks, painters, mechanics, salesmen, bakers, plasterers, carpenters, oks, pressers, butchers, ice dealers, waiters, printers, bricklayers, drivers, perators, icemen, machinists, plumbers, electricians, cabinet makers, up- olsterers, grocers, fruit dealers, laundry workers, restaurant workers, auto lechanics, cutters and masons. A fuller list would include doctors, law- ers, merchants, contractors, engineers, executives and a considerable num- er of workers in the highly skilled crafts.

No account of New York's cultural development would be complete ithout reference to Italian contributions. Italian musicians were in New ork before the Revolution. In 1774 Nicholas Biferi established a music chool in the city, and gave harpsichord recitals the following year. Lo- enzo da Ponte, famous as the librettist of several of the Mozart operas, ame to New York in 1805 and later became first professor of Italian inguage and literature at Columbia College, doing much to advance Ital- in opera in the city and to champion the cause of Italian culture gen- rally. The increasing popularity of Italian opera led in 1854 to the estab- shment of the Academy of Music on Fourteenth Street, and here Adelina atti made her debut in 1859. In 1883 the Metropolitan Opera House pened, destined to bring to New York Caruso, Toscanini, Galli-Curci,

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Cavalieri, and the others in its long roll of musical celebrities. Toscanin subsequent career as conductor of the New York Philharmonic Sympho Society orchestra did much to raise the level of musical appreciation in t. country as a whole. The wealth of Italian art works in the city's museur attests to the grip of Italian tradition on American culture. In literatur the rich cultural heritage of Italy was introduced to Americans rather | writers of native stock-Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant, W liam Dean Howells, Edith Wharton-than by Italians.

The Italians of New York have participated widely in the civic and s cial life of the city, contributing many of its public officials. The city Italians never voted as a racial bloc, although many of them were activ

I in the Italian Federation of Democratic Clubs. Only a small minority New York's Italian population takes enough interest in the internal po! tics of the mother country to align itself in fascist and anti-fascist group

Evidence of the community spirit of Italians is provided in the existen of their numerous benevolent, philanthropic, medical, cultural, educationa sports and business clubs and institutions in the city. Among these are th Italy-America Society, a cultural group; the Haarlem House, the Casa de Popolo, the Mulberry Community House, and other community house: the Italian Welfare League, the Italian Community Councils and the O: dine dei Figli d'Italia (Sons of Italy) among the social service agencies and Columbus Hospital and the Italian Medical Center among the medica institutions.

The Casa Italiana was presented to Columbia University in 1927 by Ne York's Italian community. Its bureau of information provides data fror Italian archives and libraries; it contains an Italian reference library ; it at ranges exchange fellowships between Italian and American universities and its educational bureau devotes itself to the study and publicizing o cultural and social changes that affect Italian immigrants and their descend ants in America.

The great majority of Italians in New York are Roman Catholics Their churches in Manhattan include St. Joachim's at 26 Roosevelt Street built in 1888; the handsome church of Our Lady of Pompeii at Bleecke and Carmine Streets; and the Church of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel at 115tl Street near First Avenue. Some of New York's most colorful spectacle are provided by the celebration of Italian saints' days and religious fes tivals. There are also some 30 churches, chapels and missions which min ister to the needs of Protestant Italians in Greater New York. (For a ful treatment of the Italians, see The Italians of New York, 1938. )

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ermans

German immigrants began to arrive in New Netherland as early as 630, and it seems altogether likely that a fifth, possibly a fourth, of e inhabitants of New Netherland prior to 1664 were of German origin. hroughout the second half of the 17th century, the immigrants coming om Amsterdam to New Amsterdam included natives from all sections Germany-Northern Germany, the lower Rhine district, Westphalia, tiesland, the Hanseatic cities, Hessia, Thuringia, the Elbe districts, Suabia id the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland.

The most prominent and colorful personality among these German-born migrants was Jacob Leisler, for a short time during the English Revolu- o on of 1688 the virtual ruler of the city. Leisler called the first congress American colonists together. It was supposed that a plan was made to onquer Canada, and that an expedition by water and land, aided by a morce of Mohawk warriors, was prepared. Evidently the leaders fell out nong themselves and the plot failed of execution. The new British gov- nor of New York, Colonel Henry Sloughter, entered charges against eisler and his son-in-law, Milborne, both of whom were hanged on the bot where Pearl and Centre Streets now meet. Leisler was later exon- ated, an indemnity was paid to his heirs, and his remains were trans- erred with distinguished honors to the grounds of the Dutch Reformed hurch.

The early years of the 18th century brought to New York a large in- ix of immigrants from the Palatinate, a German province on the Rhine evastated and impoverished by the wars of Louis XIV and by the destruc- on of its vineyards in the severe winter of 1708-9. British lords of trade bjected that "should these people be settled on the Continent of Amer- a, they will fall upon Woollen and other Manufactories to the prejudice : the Manufactures of this Kingdom now consumed in these parts." hese fears were allayed with the assurance that "such mischievous prac- ce may be discouraged and checqued much easier" in America than else- here. Of 3,000 of these Germans who sailed for America in 1709, more lan one-third died on the voyage from bad food and contaminated water. the British authorities of New York did little to protect these immi- cants and even allowed their exploitation by swindlers and speculators. [any who remained in the city were compelled to work in a condition of wirtual serfdom, while those who could do so migrated to upper New York tate and Pennsylvania.

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Among the Germans from the Palatinate who arrived in 17II W an orphan, John Peter Zenger. Apprenticed to William Bradford, owr of New York's first newspaper, the New-York Gazette, Zenger lat started a newspaper of his own, the New-York Weekly Journal, a: launched a vigorous campaign against corruption among the city's Briti officials. "We see men's deeds destroyed," he wrote, "judges are litera displaced, new courts erected without the consent of the legislature, which it seems to me trials by Jury are taken away when a govern pleases ; men of known estates are denied their votes. . .. Who is there the province that can call anything his own, or enjoy any liberty long than those in the administration will condescend to let them, for whi reason I left {the administration], as I believe more will." British of cials retaliated by bringing a suit for libel against Zenger, who was fina sentenced to jail. But the more Zenger incurred British wrath, the mo popular he became with the people of New York. His acquittal after lentless prosecution was occasion for public demonstrations throughout t city. Another German youth, John Jacob Astor, who arrived in the city 1783, was at the time of his death in 1848 one of the wealthiest men America.

By 1834 New York had enough Germans to support a weekly nev paper, the Staats-Zeitung, printed on a handpress and edited by Gust Adolph Neuman. Its circulation that year was 2,000; by 1840 it had 5,0 readers. In 1850, under new ownership, it began to be issued as a da newspaper.

Carl Schurz, who took part in the German revolution of 1848, escapi: in romantic fashion, came to the United States in 1852 and quickly becar a leader in American life. He campaigned for Lincoln in 1860, was Unit States minister to Spain in 1861, and later served as major-general in t Union Army. At one time he was part owner of Die Westliche Post in Louis, on which Joseph Pulitzer afterwards worked, and was later on t editorial staff of the New York Evening Post, the Nation and Harpe Weekly. He was elected to Congress from Missouri, and for four yea was Secretary of the Interior. He lived in New York from 1881 until 1 death in 1906. His lifelong friend, Abraham Jacobi, born in Germany Jewish parents, became a specialist in children's diseases in New York al was president of the American Medical Association in 1912 and 1913.

Radical German immigrants who came to New York after the defeat the German revolution in 1848 founded the Free Workers' School, o of the earliest experiments in workers' education in the United Stat

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leadquarters were finally established on Second Avenue in Faulhaber's [all. Here were taught for the first time in America the theory and phi- sophy of socialism under the guidance of Germans who had received eir inspiration from Marx and Engels.

In 1859 the Paulist Fathers, a new Catholic order in America, was unded by Father Isaak Thomas Hecker and its headquarters established Columbus Avenue and Fifty-Ninth Street. In 1865 Father Hecker unded the Catholic World, a monthly magazine, and a year later he eated the Catholic Publication Society, now known as the Paulist Press. Among the first to answer President Lincoln's call for Civil War vol- nteers were local regiments composed largely of Germans. These included e Steuben Regiment, Blenkons Artillery, the Turner Regiment, First ster Regiment, the Fifth German Rifles, the Sigel Rifles, and the Steuben angers. The Staats-Zeitung, then under the editorship of Oswald Otten- orfer, supported the government vigorously throughout the war. Otten- orfer was later active in the fight against the Tammany ring.

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New York panorama : a comprehensive view of the metropolis, Part 10

Author: Publication date: 1938 Publisher: New York : Random House Number of Pages: 630

Author:
Publication date: 1938
Publisher: New York : Random House
Number of Pages: 630