 A Local Legacy Almost all of us have relatives who came from someplace other than the United States. People who came to America to live are called immigrants. From the 1850s through the early 1900s, thousands of immigrants arrived in the United States and lived in New York City. They first came from Ireland and Germany and later from Italy, Eastern Europe, and China, among other places. Because most immigrants were poor when they arrived, they often lived on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where rents for the crowded apartment buildings, called tenements, were low. Show The Lower East Side Tenement Museum is in a building that used to be a tenement and it tells the story of immigrants in the City. It was built in the 1860s and could house 20 families, four on each floor. Each apartment had only three rooms: a living or "front" room, a kitchen, and a tiny bedroom. Often seven or more people lived in each apartment. Not only was the tenement crowded, but also, until 1905, there were no bathrooms inside the building. Residents also did not have electric power until after 1918. The Museum has re-created the apartments to look like they did when families lived there. This photograph shows what the Rogarshevksy family's kitchen looked like in 1918. Abraham and Fannie Rogarshevsky arrived with their four children from Russia in 1901. Later, they had
two more children in the United States. While they lived in this tenement, a boarder (someone who pays for food and lodging in another person's home) lived with the family. That would have made nine people living in a three-room apartment! About Local Legacies Living Conditions in New York City
Over the course of a century, hundreds of thousands of immigrants settled in New York City and other growing cities such as Philadelphia and Chicago. Encountering hostility from native-born Americans upon arriving in the country, most immigrants had nowhere to turn. They moved into poverty stricken neighborhoods and into neglected buildings known as tenements, which are “multifamily dwellings with several apartment-like living quarters”. Tenements were most common in the Lower East Side of New York City, the area in which a majority of immigrants found themselves settling in.
It was not until 1867 when New York passed the “Tenement House Act”. This required basic sanitation and health, and that each tenement had adequate ventilation. It also required one outhouse for every twenty people, which was not the case prior to the passing of this act. However, the wave of immigrants that arrived between 1880 and 1924 were not met with any major improvements. Tenements were simply made taller to accommodate the newcomers, creating safety concerns. In fact, conditions worsened during this period. Personal hygiene became an issue because of the lack of running water and the garbage that piled up on the streets, it became difficult for those living in tenements to bathe properly or launder their clothing. This triggered the spread of diseases such as cholera, typhoid, smallpox, and tuberculosis.
As abysmal as the living conditions that immigrants faced upon arriving in New York City, life for them was still better than that in their country of origin.
Although most immigrants started from the very bottom, they had the job opportunities available to them that would allow for better housing in the future. Tenements were not reformed until the 1920s, when the United States closed down its borders to most immigrants. What was life like for the immigrants living in the tenements?Cramped, poorly lit, under ventilated, and usually without indoor plumbing, the tenements were hotbeds of vermin and disease, and were frequently swept by cholera, typhus, and tuberculosis.
What were the living conditions for immigrants in the 1800s?Immigrant workers in the nineteenth century often lived in cramped tenement housing that regularly lacked basic amenities such as running water, ventilation, and toilets. These conditions were ideal for the spread of bacteria and infectious diseases.
How did people live in tenements?Apartments contained just three rooms; a windowless bedroom, a kitchen and a front room with windows. A contemporary magazine described tenements as, “great prison-like structures of brick, with narrow doors and windows, cramped passages and steep rickety stairs. . . .
Why did most new immigrants live in tenements?Many were poor and needed jobs. The jobs people found paid low wages so many people had to live together. Therefore, tenements were the only places new immigrants could afford. Tenements were small three room apartments with many people living in it.
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