Cover Image

At the edge of a dream : the story of Jewish immigrants on New York's Lower East Side 1880-1920

by Epstein, Lawrence J.

Format: Print Book 2007
Availability: Available at 2 Libraries 2 of 2 copies

Available (1)
Location Collection Call #
CLP - Squirrel Hill Non-Fiction Collection F128.9.J5 E67 2007
Location  CLP - Squirrel Hill
 
Collection  Non-Fiction Collection
 
Call Number  F128.9.J5 E67 2007
 
 
 
Noncirculating (1)
Location Collection Call #
CLP - Main Library Pennsylvania Dept. - Reference Stack Area PENNA r F128.9.J5 E67 2007
Location  CLP - Main Library
 
Collection  Pennsylvania Dept. - Reference Stack Area
 
Call Number  PENNA r F128.9.J5 E67 2007
 
 

Summary
This beautiful book tells the nostalgic tale of how millions of Jewish immigrants entered America through the portal of the Lower East Side. There in New York City they struggled and ultimately flourished in a neighborhood that was the center of Jewish work, family, and culture. For more than fifty years, the Lower East Side spawned newly-mined Americans, including entertainment icons like George Burns and Ira Gershwin, gangsters like Meyer Lansky, and an extraordinary array of people who would go on to transform American society.
Contents
Escaping from the Old World
Landing at Ellis Island
Life in the tenements
Working on the Lower East Side
Life on these mean streets
Romance in the New World
Children and families
Politics and strife
The opponents of Jewish immigration
A helping hand
Religion and its rebels
Refuge on the Lower East Side
Yiddish theater
Yiddish journalism
Yiddish literature
The end of an era
The legacy of the Lower East Side.
Published Reviews
Booklist Review: "*Starred Review* The Jewish immigrants who fled Eastern Europe found refuge in New York's Lower East Side. Between 1881 and 1910, 1,562,800 Jews entered the country. They learned English and discovered in their new land a place of unparalleled freedom and opportunity. But the Lower East Side, Epstein points out, was also a place of poverty, sweatshops, crime, and tiny, vermin-infested tenement flats. He explores why the immigrants left Eastern Europe, how they came here, and what they found when they arrived. He describes their journey in steerage, their life in tenements, and their search for jobs. Also under discussion are Yiddish theater, journalism, and literature, as well as such famous personalities as Jacob Adler, George Burns, Fanny Brice, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Sholom Aleichem, Eddie Cantor, and Jack Benny. Part of the book's fascination is the multitude of black-and-white photographs of shoppers and vendors on Hester Street, poorly dressed children at play, visiting nurses crossing over rooftops when going from tenement to tenement, a union protest, and tailors at work in sweatshops. Words and pictures combine to make this book a foremost chronicle of Jewish immigration.--Cohen, George Copyright 2007 Booklist"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Additional Information
Subjects Jews -- New York (State) -- New York -- History.
Jews -- Migrations.
Jews, East European -- New York (State) -- New York -- History.
New York (N.Y.) -- Emigration and immigration -- History.
Lower East Side (New York, N.Y.) -- Ethnic relations.
Publisher San Francisco, CA :Jossey-Bass,2007
Edition 1st ed.
Language English
Notes "An Arthur Kurzweil book."
"A Lower East Side Tenement Museum book."
Description xv, 299 pages : illustrations, map ; 25 cm
Bibliography Notes Includes bibliographical references (pages 279-287) and index.
ISBN 9780787986223 (cloth)
0787986224 (cloth)
Other Classic View