tv American Artifacts Tenement Museum CSPAN December 12, 2020 10:31am-11:02am EST
10:31 am
a member of this delegation. they had recently become married. honeymoon.eir for their honeymoon, they went to an antislavery convention in london. the two of them began to talk friendship.d a cady stanton said it was this meeting that led to the development of the women's rights movement per se, at least her part in the leadership. i think there is eight years between this and seneca falls, so i think there is probably a lot more going on here, and i think also there is a lot more to the woman's rights movement than just this idea of a women's civil rights. >> learn more about lucretia mott tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern, 5:00 p.m. pacific, here on american history tv. week, american history tv's "american artifacts," features museums and historic
10:32 am
places. up next, we visit 97 orchard street in new york city to learn how immigrants coped with poverty in crowded tenements in the kira:e 1860's and 1930's. hi, i am kira garcia. i work here at the lower east side tenement museum in new york city. we are going to be taking a look at our historic tenement building built in 1863. about 7,000 immigrants lived here between the years of 1863 and 1935. what you see around you is a mix of original architectural details and some things that came a little bit later in the building's history. throughout the years, our building changed of course over time. in the year it was built, there were virtually no housing laws on the books yet here in new york city. so the gentleman who built it, a german immigrant named lucas glockner, was basically working
10:33 am
on his own, sort of putting together a building he would see fit to live in. in fact he did live here in the early years of the building with his family. but as compared to what we are used to today, it was a pretty difficult place to live. there was no source of interior light. there was no running water. no plumbing, no toilets, sinks, showers or tubs. and there was not a designated number of windows that mr. glockner had to provide in his building. so we're going to take a closer look at that when we go upstairs and look at a few recreated homes where immigrant families lived. some of the things you see around you here in our entry hall are evidence of how the building changed over time. for example, some of these decorative touches, like these paintings on the wall, were added after the building gets interior light. so, once you can kind of maneuver your way through the hallway with the added benefit of overhead light, the landlord also begins to be interested in dressing the place up, and making it look a little bit more
10:34 am
beautiful. so the wall coverings are burlap. they are simulated leather, actually, which was a kind of luxurious wall covering that was popular in the time. then, we also see these painted panels on the wall. they are in these ornate plaster frames. now, one of these panels has been restored. and you can see its original bright colors. the other has not. the reason we have done this, is to show the difference, of course, between before and after, right? what did the many years of neglect do to the interior of this building? between 1935 and 1988, when the museum opens up, this building is basically abandoned. there is almost no activity in this building. it is just left alone. so, when the museum's founders come along in 1988, they open the door to what is essentially a time capsule. it has been left standing here,
10:35 am
in new york city, for decades. some of what we show to visitors are recreated apartments that represent different time periods in the building's history. other apartments have been left as they were in 1988, as a record of that decay and neglect. some of what you see around you is original to the building's construction in 1863. this handrail that i'm holding onto right now is one of those things. every resident of this building - all 7,000 of them - used this same handrail. here we are in one of the museum's ruin apartments. we leave some of these apartments as we found them, to show the layers of change that happened to the building, over time. visitors sometimes ask why we don't recreate each and every apartment throughout the building. and that's a very good question. part of why we do not do that is that there are clues left behind in some of these apartments that show us how people lived here. what they were doing. what they were thinking.
10:36 am
how they changed the building over time. there is a great one right over here. right here on this door frame, you see a list. there are numbers and garments and check marks. what our museum's historians have surmised, is that the merchants who were doing business on the ground floor in this building were using abandoned apartments to store garments in the off season. the lower east side was long known as a bargain district. and, in particular, it was known as a great place to find bargains on clothing. many people manufactured clothes on the lower east side, and sold clothes on the lower east side, over the years, so this list is evidence of that. so here we are in what was once the home of the confino family,
10:37 am
. were a jewish family from the part of the world which is now greece. they lived here in this apartment, which has three rooms, about 325 square feet as all of our tenement apartments are, with ten family members. so two adults and eight children of varying ages. what is special about this apartment, is that visitors see this apartment through the eyes of a young woman who lived here, named victoria confino. they experience this through the magic of costumed interpretation. so, trained actresses portray victoria confino. and they guide visitors through this space, and explain what life was like for early immigrants at 97 orchard street. we put together information from a lot of different sources. so much of it is based on public record -- censuses, phone directories, that sort of thing.
10:38 am
but we also get information, generous information, from the descendants of people who lived in this building. so the descendants of victoria confino who is the youngest -- whofor trade on this is the young woman portrayed on this tour, very graciously and kindly helped us understand what her life was like. what her personality was like. and even provided us with images of the family. that, of course, has been really important for us. in the early 20th century, when the confino family lived here, they would have enjoyed a few amenities which were relatively new, including gas light and running water. as you can see, the confinos enjoyed a sink. they had a bathtub, albeit right here in the kitchen. there wasn't a great deal of privacy. but there was running water.
10:39 am
they would have cooked using a coal-burning stove like this one. these amenities represented a tremendous improvement from the way earlier residents had lived. so when this building was originally built -- there was really not much in the way of housing regulation in those days , so landlords kind of presented a building as it was, and there's not much to tell them legally what they could and could not do. or the amenities that they were forced to provide to their tenants. everyone is kind of their own in those days. flash forward a little bit to the early 20th century, and the tenement house act has changed that. so, these lovely new amenities that the confino family would have enjoyed did not come about magically overnight. this was a long-fought battle, that goes all the way to the supreme court, before tenement residents could enjoy interior light and running water, and flushing toilets in the hall, as well. the tenement house act as
10:40 am
a culmination of activism on the part of middle-class reformers who start to understand how tenement residents are living, and the sometimes deplorable conditions of tenement living, through photographs. through the photographs of people like jacob riis, which are really well-known today. they are still very important historic documents. when these reformers start to fully understand that tenements are making people sick, they are contributing to high infant mortality rates, people begin to feel that something must be done. and through this activism, ultimately, we get the legislation that enforces the change and improves the health and lifespan of people who live in buildings like this one. in an apartment this small, with a family as big as the confinos were, the notion of defined spaces for sleeping, and eating, and cooking, go out the window.
10:41 am
so, this contemporary idea that you sleep in a bedroom, and that's the only place you sleep, doesn't apply in this scenario. to fit 10 people into a 325 -square-foot apartment, you have to put someone in every room. so, for example victoria confino , may have slept in the kitchen, which might have been a coveted location in the winter. it is a little bit warmer. her brothers and cousins may have slept here. tenement residents remember and wrote about improvising sleeping locations, was perhaps stacking up a couple of fruit crates and throwing a blanket on top and calling that a bed for a small child, or sleeping head to toe in a twin bed. there were all kinds of creative ways to fit families into these tiny spaces. you will see this sort of improvised fruit crate bed here toward the back of the room. and then a simple iron bed here
10:42 am
on the other side, which very likely would have been shared by two children. we have recreated different wallpaper patterns that we have found throughout the building, to create a historically accurate look of the early 20th century. after the passage of the tenement house act, this building gets windows in every room. these are required by law. so this window onto a bedroom happens to face a common hallway. it delineates private space from public space. the bars on the window here are for security. that security would have been important, in particular because this was such a busy building. so many people moving in and out. the front door would not necessarily have been locked during the day.
10:43 am
so you probably would have wanted a little extra security just to make sure nobody is finding in through the window into your bedroom. when our tenement building gets interior plumbing, it does not look anything like what we are used to today. right? this is still very humble. it is not necessarily a facility that you would be excited to use. but it represents a tremendous improvement over the privies in the backyard, which residents were using before the installation of these toilets. here we are in the kitchen of the gumpertz family. natalie and julius gumpertz immigrated here to the united states as very young people from the part of the world that is now germany. as german-speaking immigrants, they would have been particularly attracted to this
10:44 am
neighborhood. during the 1870s, this neighborhood was not known as the lower east side. it was known as klein deutschland, or little germany. it is one of america's first ethnic enclaves. it is one of the first places where immigrants from the same region gathered together and created an intentional community because they shared the same language and the same culture. they lived here in this apartment with three daughters, olga, and nanny, and a young son who sadly, died in , infancy, which was not uncommon at all in those days. julius gumpertz was a shoemaker, so he was going out every day to make what little money he could. to put together enough money to pay the rent, which was about $10 at that time. his wife was not earning a paycheck, but she certainly was earning her keep. she was a very hard-working woman. she would have been firing up the coal-burning stove to cook the family dinner every day. she would have been bringing up every single drop of water this family needed, to clean, cook, and bathe, from a spigot in the back yard. so she must have been a very strong woman, to carry up all that water, and all that coal, every single day. not to mention having four children in quick succession.
10:45 am
they are both pretty busy and they are both keeping themselves afloat, keeping food on the table. at first, during their lives here, it is a time of relative economic prosperity. people are feeling pretty confident immediately after the american civil war. but all of that changes. and those economic circumstances change drastically until we begin to see a series of panics , which create joblessness, they create runs on the bank, they create this sort of economic chaos which in particular impacts immigrants and working-class folks. and the gumpertz's were no exception to that. at one point, julius gumpertz gets up, 1874, gets up, has his breakfast, goes out to work, and he never returns again, effectively abandoning his family or otherwise disappearing.
10:46 am
we don't know. leaving nathalie alone with small children to raise and no source of income. so, nathalie gumpertz is in a pretty tough spot. she's all on her own with small children to raise, and no paycheck coming in anymore. so she is left with a few options. she can go to public assistance. there are a few forms of rudimentary public assistance available in those days. more likely, she would have turned immediately to her community, which is a close-knit community of immigrants who rely on each other during difficult times. she probably would have asked for help from john and caroline schneider, who were also german-speaking immigrants who ran the saloon on the ground floor of this building. schneider's saloon. ultimately, natalie survives by setting herself up in business. she sets herself up as a seamstress. she's making individual garments for clients, one by one. this is before the days of large-scale clothing factories
10:47 am
that we begin to see a few decades later. ultimately, nathalie is making as much or more money than her husband was. this is the best-paying legitimate profession that a woman could enter into in those days. her story eventually is a success story. her daughters grow and up have children of their own. many of her descendants still live here in the new york city area. but, by the time nathalie moves on from 97 orchard street, a lot has changed in the neighborhood. it's no longer klein deutscheland, and we're seeing more immigrants from eastern europe, and more immigrants from italy. here we have more evidence of how our building changed over time. you see this dark stripe across the ceiling in this apartment here. this is where the wall between the parlor and the kitchen was when we come along in 1988. but according to blueprints, this is not historically accurate.
10:48 am
originally, the kitchen wall would have been where it is now. right there. so, we moved the wall back to represent what the apartment would have looked like authentically in the 1870s when the gumpertz family was living here. here we are in the baldici family home. we've taken a leap forward in time to about 1935. you'll see that around you in all of these wonderful amenities that the baldici family would have enjoyed. by 1935, this building has electricity. so the baldicis were able to listen to the radio. they had electric light. and a gas cooktop. which is installed here on top of the old coal-burning stove. and a sink and a bathtub right here.
10:49 am
we see the bathtub right here in the kitchen, which is typical of tenements in those days. and the baldici family immigrates here after the establishment of ellis island. so, as compared to the gumpertzes, the baldici family had a great deal more bureaucracy to deal with going through the immigration process, not least of which was the united states' immigration quotas, which were on the books in those days. these quotas dictated the number of immigrants allowed to come to the united states based on nationality. there were fewer italians allowed in than there were immigrants from other countries. the baldici family knew this. the immigration quotas which the united states government was using in those days were based in part on what we would now consider a pseudo-science called eugenics, which is a theory that not all human beings are inherently genetically equal. some people from some parts of
10:50 am
the world are inherently superior to others. so, when adolfo baldizzi was prepared to immigrate here, he was worried that his wife would not be able to follow him, if she went through the proper legal channels. he was worried she would be turned away. the baldizzi family does not know for certain how adolfo's wife eventually ends up here in the united states. but to the best of our understanding, she works around the system. and we talk about this with visitors, to think more clearly about how immigration is discussed in the present day. because rosaria's story is, in many, ways very similar to the experiences of present-day immigrants. we like to put faces to names. we share family photos of the baldizzis to illustrate our tours.
10:51 am
this is rosaria baldizzi, the family matriarch. rosaria and adolfo baldizzi lived here with their two children, josephine and johnny. josephine plays a particularly special role in this museum because, later in life, she discovered the tenement museum. i always think that must have been so strange for her to see that her childhood home had become a museum and a tourist attraction. fortunately, she was really excited about the museum and shared her memories with us. so i have some audio of her memories of living here at 97 orchard street. >> i remember sitting around the table in the kitchen under the window. and my mother would have made us a fried egg or something, on a roll with butter. italian music, the radio was always playing. italian music, italian soap operas.
10:52 am
and my mother crying all the time. [laughter] she used to, you know, miss her family. she left her whole family in italy. came here as a young girl. and she never saw them again. from many, many years, she never saw her mother or father again. ♪ [singing in italian] ♪ kira: joseph and bridget moore, and their children, or some of the building's earliest residents, and made their home here in 1869. the moore family shared this apartment with their three daughters, mary, jane, and agnes. baby agnes was just a few months old when the moore family arrived here at 97 orchard street. as you can see around you, the moore family had a very simple home.
10:53 am
the building was relatively new during the time that they lived here. and in fact, might have been more desirable than the circumstances that some other irish immigrants lived in, in those days. bridget moore would have been keeping house just like natalie gumpertz. she's carrying that coal up the stairs and cooking food for her family, trying to keep her children healthy. her husband is going out to work. what we talk about specifically on this tour is some of the discrimination and the hardships that irish immigrants faced in those days. and discrimination in the job market was a particular hardship. joseph moore certainly grappled with that. according to records, he worked variously as a bartender and a waiter, depending on the year. he probably would have been able to bring home some leftover food at the end of the shift, to
10:54 am
supplement whatever it was that bridget had found to feed the family. another issue that we talk about in our discussions of the moores, is infant mortality. infant mortality rates were incredibly high in those days. and sadly, the moore family did lose their infant daughter agnes during their time living here. the cause was multiple conditions. but, ultimately, malnutrition played a very serious role in her illness. malnutrition was a problem which contributed significantly to the infant mortality rate in those days. here in the parlor, we have recreated what the wake would have looked like, for baby agnes, after her passing. this, of course, was an incredibly sad time for the moore family. but also a social moment, a time
10:55 am
for the community to gather together. there are a couple of important catholic traditions that we have recreated here, to show what the wake would have looked like. one was to cover the mirrors, to encourage humility or discourage vanity. we also open the window on days when it is not quite as cold as it is today, which was a tradition of the wake meant to set the soul free. this apartment, which was the home of harris and jenny levine and their children, also served as a sweatshop or a small garment factory. what you see about you are the tools of the trade. during the late 19th century when the levine family lived here, garments were still being made predominantly in small apartments like this one. so, this space was incredibly busy. it would have been noisy, filled with the sound of sewing
10:56 am
machines, and the busy street outside. and the levine family would have worked nearly incessantly, to make as much money as they possibly could. we tell the story of life in this apartment as just an ongoing, incredibly busy, vibrant, bustling experience. very likely, when jenny levine gave birth to her son, which she did right here in this apartment, work would not have stopped here in the front room in the sweatshop. because it was that important, that critical, to the family's survival. so this apartment was the home of the rogoshevsky family in the first decade of the 20th century. again, we see around us some of the amenities which were brought to the building by the tenement house act in about 1905 or 1906. so they would have enjoyed gas lights and a gas cooktop on top of the coal-burning stove there.
10:57 am
and then, of course running , water. the rogoshevsky family was also involved in the garment industry, but by the time they get involved, we begin to see garment manufacturing on a larger scale. so, rather than sewing garments individually right here at home, they would have gone out to work in garment factories. so this building ultimately closes in 1935. because another piece of legislation has passed, requiring that the interior stairwells in buildings like this one be fireproofed, which would have meant tearing this whole stairwell out, and rebuilding it out of stone or metal, which would have been a huge expense. rather than bringing the building up to code, the landlord decided to a evict the tenants.
10:58 am
the commercial tenants were a lot to stay, the law did not apply to them, but after 1935, this building is no longer a residence. [traffic] part of what makes the tournament museum unique is that every visitor has a very lively experience here. a try not to just give lecture, we try to have a conversation with our visitors. and because these stories are really everyone's stories, they are very relatable, and often, visitors will chime in and share a story of their grandmother, their aunt, something that sparked a memory for them that they want to share. that is one of the most certainly valuable experiences here for us at the museum, is that it is a dialogic experience. it goes both ways. we want to hear from our visitors as much as we want to share with them. it is a wonderful place not just to learn about history, but to see how lives were lived in the past and really become immersed
10:59 am
in the past experiences of our ancestors. part of what makes this building so special is that it is so ordinary. it's a very, very typical place where thousands of people started new lives. and there are many buildings just like this all throughout new york city and all throughout the country, really. so it's incredibly important that places like this are preserved, because they are the sites of shared memory. these are the places where our grandparents, our great-grandparents, our ancestors began new lives here in america. >> learn more about the tenement museum at tenement.org. you can view this and all. c-span programs at c-span.org. use the search engine to browse topics like the word tenement.
11:00 am
11:01 am
films, lectures and college classrooms and museums and historic places. all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. announcer: the co-editor of th environmental history of world war i talks about the diverse ecological impacts the first world war had across the globe, and explains how these went far beyond physical changes to battlefields and included shifts in agricultural reduction and displacement of wildlife and humans. the national world war i museum and memorial hosted the event and provided the video. >> now it is my pleasure to er, anuce dr. tell associate professor of history at rhodes college in memphis, tennessee whose research focuses on
97 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
CSPAN3 Television Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on