From The Peopling of New York City
Dear Rakhilya,
Where's your research proposal? Please post it.
Many thanks,
Joce
I would like to do my research on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory workers. The reason I chose this group is because the women who died in the fire were primarily Eastern European and relatively recent immigrants. Since they are closer to my time period and cultural background, I feel that I could relate more to their lives than to those of African slaves.
I am very interested in Jewish history and its relation to American history, as well as immigration and how it impacted America. Recently I watched a program on TV about Jewish immigration to the United States, which spanned from the colonial times till the modern world, showing the impact that Jewish immigrants had in various fields. America would not be the country it is today without its immigrants and Jewish immigrants have an impact in American society that isn’t proportional to their small population in relation to other Americans. The topic of immigration is very interesting for me in general because I am an immigrant. While I realize that African slaves and their owners were immigrants, their story is more focused on their humiliation and fight for survival, while Eastern European immigrants were also fighting for the bettering their conditions and maybe even accomplishing something in their lives, which is a challenge that is closer to my own. Eastern European immigrants, particularly those on the Lower East Side created a society of their own: printed their own newspapers and even created Yiddish Theater. At the same time African American slaves had a completely different battle, which didn’t include any ambitions, since they weren’t even considered respectable human beings.
This fire was also immensely important for the history of the workforce in America, because it raised awareness to the dangerous conditions in factories and caused the beginning of organized labor. This ultimately changed the mentality of our society and made it more cooperative than competitive. This incident fueled the workers to fight for standard work hours and conditions. In a way I can even relate to this fight. Since I am from a poor family I feel like I need to work as hard as I can to get a good education and career, to better my family’s financial situation.
Most of the information that I was able to get on my five people was taken online from the New York Times Archive. In the 1910 census at the New York Public Library there were either no people by those names or many people with the same name. I encountered this same problem using other geneological and immigration web sites. On ancestery.com there were many people with the same name, and even when a few of their relatives names matched up the other information that I had about them did not. There was no way to tell which person it was in the census, in cases where there were lists of people with the same name because their addresses were different than those given to me. Many of the addresses included wards, which I guess are the equivalent of zip codes, but I had no way of knowing which ward was which zip code or area.
From the new York Times archive I found out that the mother of Israel Rosen, Julia Rosen was identified and her weeks pay of 12 dollars was found in her clothing. Israel Rosen was idetified by a signet ring.
Annie Colletti who was identified by her cousin, carried all of her money($16,000) with her in the seam of her skirt. These were her wages from six years and she kept them with her because she didn't trust the bank. The cases of Annie Colletti and Julia Rosen show that the immigrants could not trust the banks in the same way that they could not trust the factories to provide them with anything. I didn't know about this information before and both instances are symbolic for the way that the immigrants literally only had what they could carry.
Mary Laventhal was a bookeeper who stayed behind herself on the 9th floor and urged other girls to leave. Her books burned with her but her records are left and kept on the teth floor. In the newspaper her behavior was described as heroic.
I looked in the city directories at the archives of the brooklyn college library and found an Israel Rosen who worked in "clothing" indivision 183. The census was of New York City in 1888-9. I found another Israel Rosen from brooklyn but doubt that he is the one because it wouldn't be likely for a person to move from Manhattan to Brooklyn and back to Manhattan, since his address at his death was in the city.
I went on the ellis island website to find immigrants and also found many people with the same names with no way of telling which one was the person I was looking for. I'm going to the muncipal archives on friday to find more information, which will hopefully give me enough information to know which deferentiate the people with the same names. When I found information from the municipal archives that told me when the immigrants came to the U.S. I tried to use that in order to know which of those people I could find in the Ellis Island website. I wasn't able to find any of my people there even though I found several people with the same names as them. The years when they came to the U.S. didn't match up, therefore it can only be them if they lied about their age, or if it wasn't properly recorded.
I went to Municipal Archives and found the death certificates for 4 of my 5 people. The address of the Washington Place was different in many death certificates.
Lizzie Adler
Lizzie Adler
She was single and 24 years old. She died at Washington Place in the Loft building,She worked as an operator. Her family was originally from Romania. Her father was Label and her mother was Rachel, whose maiden name was Jacob. She was in New York for 3 and a half years. She died from multiple injuries from the fire, and was buried in Section M.R. Oceanview Cemetery on March 26, 1911.
Annie Colletti
Annie Colletti
She was also single and 30 years old. She was also an operator. She lived in the U.S. for 7 years, all of them in New York. Her father was Joseph and her mother was Rosa Salragga. She died from the fire in the Loft building of Washington Place and was buried on March 27.
I was also able to find the death certificate of her cousin Nicholina (Michaelina) Nicholosci . She lived on 447 and East 13th Street. She was in New York for 4 years and her occupation was a shirtmaker. Her father was Salvatore and her mother was Paula. She was also identified by their cousin Dominik. Cavalry Cemetery on March 27, 1911.
Yetta Fichtenhultz
Yetta Fichtenhultz
She was 18 and single. She was originally form Russia and lived in New York for 7 years. Her father was Israel and her mother was Ida, with the maiden name Schuchar. She was an examiner and also died in the Loft building. She died of afixationand was buried on March 28, 1911 in the Mount Foire Cemetery.
Israel Rosen
Israel Rosen
He was 17 and single. He worked as an operator. He was from Russia and lived 3 years in New York. His mother was Louis and his mother was Julia with the Maiden name Steitman. He died of affixia in the "smoke charred conflaguaration" and was buried in Mt. Zion Cemetery on March 31, 1911.
