Poverty in Eighteenth-Century New York City: A Jewish Pauper Demands Kosher Meals

Abstract

432 Documents and Interpretations Poverty in Eighteenth-Century New York City: A Jewish Pauper Demands Kosher Meals F. M. Loewenberg, Bar-Ilan University In January 1786, the New York City Common Council, the city’s lawmaking body, received a most unusual petition from Jacob Abrahams. An aged and sick Jewish pauper, Abrahams asked that the city provide him with kosher food since “on account of his religious principles [he cannot ] eat the Victuals served at the Poor House.”1 This petition illuminates a significant aspect of poverty in eighteenth-century New York, highlighting the contrast between the public poor relief system and the one available in the Jewish community. Poverty in Eighteenth-Century New York City New York City experienced drastic changes during the ten years after the start of the American War for Independence. The only thing that remained relatively unchanged was the widespread poverty that had been endemic since the beginning of the eighteenth century. In the last decades of the century a majority of families lived in gross poverty under most difficult conditions. This was especially true of those who worked on the waterfront or in the building trades. Seasonal unemployment made life precarious for them. Very low wages did not permit these working families to set aside funds for unexpected unemployment, serious illness, or death. Historians estimate that in this era one out of every three New Yorkers was poor.2 1. Papers of the New York City Common Council, Petitions to the Common Council, 1785 to 1785, Box 9, Collections of the New York City Municipal Archives. 2. Ralph da Costa Nunez and Ethan G. Sribnick, The Poor Among Us: A History of Family Poverty and Homelessness in New York City (New York: White Tiger Press, 2013), especially Chapter 1. Documents and Interpretations 433 Laborers were not the only ones who experienced severe economic difficulties . For decades, many merchants continued to feel the after-effects of the 1733 depression. Widespread and persistent unemployment resulted in a general decline of commerce and trade. According to one newspaper writer, many “honest and industrious tradesmen were reduced to poverty for want of employment.”3 A generation later, another writer noted that the growing number of “beggards and wandering poor” in the streets made it quite impossible for residents of the city to ignore any longer the problem of poverty.4 The momentous events surrounding the American War for Independence resulted in another dramatic increase in poverty. When Great Britain’s army re-occupied the city in August 1776 many patriots sought refuge in the countryside. At the same time, a large number of loyalist refugees from around the Northeast sought shelter in British-occupied New York City. Among both groups of refugees many were now penniless because they had left most of their worldly goods behind when they abandoned their homes. The already crowded city became even more so after September 21, 1776 when a major fire, commonly referred to as the Great Fire of New York, destroyed nearly one quarter of the structures on Manhattan Island. Starting near Whitehall Slip, the fire moved north, burning homes and businesses along both sides of Broadway, until it reached the North River. With housing now very scarce, many newcomers were forced to live in makeshift shelters or tents. Eventually, a shanty town of sorts emerged and crime and disease ravaged those forced to live there. Food prices rose by 800% during the years the British occupied the city.5 For the lower classes this was a most difficult time. The British controlled the city for seven years until General Washington liberated it in November 1783, and it became the political center of the new country. In 1785, the Continental Congress started to meet in Wall Street’s Federal Hall, and it was there that three years later Congress adopted the U.S. Constitution. In the following year, the city became the first capital of the United States.6 On April 20, 1789, Washington was inaugurated as the 3. New York Weekly Journal, January 19, 1741. 4. New York Weekly Post Boy, March 25, 1762. 5. Howard B. Rock, Haven of Liberty: New York Jews in the New World 1654–1865...