How and why did saloons become the social hub of New York's subcultures from 1845-1895
Today, many Manhattan saloons make a great play of their heritage, stoking feelings of nostalgia, especially for those on the tourist trail*. Underneath the gaze of sepia-coloured photos and illustrations, patrons are unlikely to be aware of the New York saloon’s tumultuous history from 1845-1895. During these years the saloon was – if we were to read most of the primary sources at face value – a place of hell raising, heavy drinking and the site of eternal damnation.
*See www.bosstweeds.com or www.thewhiskeyward.com
Dig a little deeper though and a very different story of the New York saloon begins to emerge, particularly in relation to subcultures of the era. From 1845-1895, saloons boomed in numbers, keeping pace with the increased demand from a burgeoning population. It was a space where men+ with little means gained some sorely needed escapism. On the negative side, the saloon gave alcoholics the chance to fuel their addictions, obliterating their health under a cascade of ‘gut rot’ spirits.
+The world of the saloon was, as we shall see, primarily a masculine one
This essay will begin by briefly exploring the historiography of the saloon. It will highlight just some of the many difficulties with the bulk of primary sources available. We shall also consider the work of recent historians, noting their arguments concerning the working class and the saloons. The essay will then discuss the role saloons held within immigrant subcultures. Space restricts us from analysing every cultural group that arrived in sizeable numbers during 1845-1895. However, we can focus on the use of saloons by a few of the major immigrant communities from the age, starting with the Irish, followed by the Italians who began to arrive in great numbers towards the end of the era.As a contrast, we will note how the German drinking culture not only penetrated mainstream society, but also found a degree of praise there.
Our exploration of the saloon as a subcultural hub will continue by discussing the ‘sporting male’ and the aspirants to that subculture. Finally, we will explore the role of the female subculture within the saloon. We shall contend that that far from being victims, many women were extremely savvy at using the saloon as a place to establish and define their identities.
Holes in the historiography
The historiography of the saloon from 1845-1895 is burdened by the lack of primary material produced by those who frequented the saloons. In his history of Five Points, Tyler Anbinder writes: ‘Of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who passed through the Five Points during the nineteenth century, precious few left written records. There are plenty of eyewitness accounts from reformers, journalists, law enforcement officials, and the like, but other than the occasional letter to the editor or affidavit describing a crime, working-class Five Pointers speak directly to us very rarely.’1
These are difficulties also faced by those wishing to explore New York’s saloon subculture from1845-1895. Historians analysing the material available need to do so with care, although this can be a difficult task, as Luc Sante points out: ‘The chroniclers of the era…[were often] so blinded by moral outrage that they failed to note physical particulars.’2 Anti-saloon literature certainly contains an abundance of moral outrage.
The bulk of anti-saloon literature – heavily laced with staunch Protestantism – condemned saloons for being spaces that promoted sinful living, indolence, indulgence and criminality. ‘Where does the midnight assassin drown his conscience and nerve his arm to plunge the fatal dagger into the heart of his fellow man?’ asks L Penney rhetorically. ‘In the saloon,’ she answers, for ‘the saloon is the hotbed of vice and crime.’3 Sinners – both consumers and suppliers of drink – who failed to repent would be held to account by Divine Judgement: ‘God will not hold them guiltless who continue in this awful murderous business.’4
Another anti-saloon strand of thought was rooted in nineteenth century scientific thought. Dr. Crothers in his 1893 paper, The Drink Problem, declared: ‘The moderate drinker of to-day becomes the inebriate of to-morrow, and dies the next day of acute disease, or is laid away in some asylum.’5 Those who drank and then went on to procreate were, according to Crothers, criminal degenerates of the worst kind. ‘The marriage of chronic inebriates,’ he wrote, ‘is a crime and offence against the highest laws of humanity that should be punished by the severest penalties.’6
Saloon culture and its subcultures were often viewed with this form ‘scientific eye’ – the behaviour, actions and appearance of saloon regulars were frequently seen as evidence of degeneracy. Ellington, as we shall see, is particularly prone to making these assumptions in his account of visiting New York saloons in 1869.
Despite its staunch opposition to drinking and drinkers, anti saloon literature carries important slices of information regarding subcultures and the saloon. For example, Jacob Riis highlights the importance of the bar room in the lives of newly arrived immigrants. It was, he recognises, a ‘poor man’s club, his forum and his haven of rest when wearied and disgusted with the crowding, the quarrelling, and the wretchedness at home.’7
In their analysis of saloon culture, most historians have paid close attention to its role as a space for the working and criminal classes. Powers, in particular, explores the New York saloon as an institution in direct opposition to mainstream middle and upper class values of the age. She writes: ‘The working-class saloon straddled the line between public and private, order and anarchy, convention and freedom.’8 Importantly for our purposes, Powers urges caution in categorising the saloon for the sake of brevity. It was, she reminds us, ‘the saloongoers themselves’, not the ‘types of saloons [that] formed the basis of saloon culture.’9
To understand the centrality of the saloon among New York’s subcultures of 1845-1895, we must therefore keep our attention focussed upon the patrons and saloonkeeper rather than the saloon’s fixtures and fittings.
Meanwhile, those like Herbert Asbury* and Luc Sante in their explorations of the nineteenth century the New York underworld have emphasised the connections between saloons and the criminal element. While this makes for an interesting read, it can veer towards sensationalism, which Asbury is particularly guilty of. Anbinder says of him: ‘[Asbury is a] usually careful, if somewhat overly dramatic chronicler of old New York.’10
* Although Asbury’s book, The Gangs of New York, was published in 1928, it has become a best seller in recent years with the release of Martin Scorcese’s blockbuster movie of the same name.
Altogether, if the historian makes a diligent and careful appraisal of the sources, with the thoughts and theories of others in mind, it becomes possible to construct a viable model of saloon culture and how various subcultures find their places within it.
Immigrants and alcohol
Saloons from 1845-1895 were predominantly, but by no means exclusively, working class. The range of establishments could stretch from a squalid dive, patronised by the lowest sort of thug, to the high-end saloon, which was acceptable even to the middle class. Some even made their names as saloon/restaurants.
Concert-saloons, replete with musical stage, variety acts and dance floors also developed during this era. The very largest often held hundreds of people, although here too one could find ‘low’ establishments known for the rough crowd and the seedier side of the sex-trade, to the ‘high’ end that catered to the needs of the middle classes and the dandified sporting men.
Towards the end of the century, a greater deal of standardisation occurred as saloons were bought up by the breweries or became brewery franchises. Increasingly efficient manufacturing methods produced an improvement in the saloon's fixtures and fittings, while increasingly effective health and safety standards ensured greater cleanliness and a crackdown on adulterated drinks.
At the beginning of our chosen period, the saloon was a far more basic establishment, particularly those frequented by the Irish. The bulk of New York’s Irish arrived poor and malnourished and could only afford to live in the cheapest slum areas. From the 1830s and into the 1870s this was predominantly the areas in and around the waterfront and Five Points. During these years the Irish community lacked financial clout, which was reflected in the basic nature of Irish-dominated saloons. Anbinder writes, ‘[the saloon] was a long, narrow space, with a long bar running down one wall and an empty floor opposite it to accommodate those that might visit at lunchtime and in the evening.’ The floor was covered with sawdust to ‘sop up tobacco juice and spilt beer’.11
The saloon was usually devoid of tables and chairs, with the patrons jostling for a spot at the bar. It was normal to have a round of drinks in one establishment and then move on to the next, where more drinks would be consumed. Each man would stand a round for his friends as their ‘treat’.
In 1843, Richard Henry Dana Jr visited the Five Points and noted in his diaries an abundance of ‘Grog shops, oyster cellars and close, obscure and suspicious places of every description.’12 When Joel H Ross visited Five Points in 1851, the high level of alcoholism among the poor struck him. He wrote: ‘The number of human beings annually sacrificed upon the altar of rum, in this single city, I will not attempt to enumerate.’13 In 1872, McCabe visited the poorer districts of New York, which were still dominated by Irish immigrants and their descendants. He recorded that ‘day after day you see men and women reeling along the streets, or falling helpless.’14
Anbinder has shown that there was validity in many of these arguments regarding the numbers prone to excessive drinking in the poorer districts, particularly among the Irish. Exploring the statistics of alcohol-related deaths, he noted that they had a far higher per capita rate than other immigrant communities. There were, Anbinder concludes, ‘cultural and genetic factors at work’.15
Drinking habits were passed on from one generation to another: ‘Youngsters growing up in Five Points (especially in Irish families) were constantly surrounded by the sights, sounds, and smells of drinking and drunkenness.’16 The Irish preference for whiskey could hardly have helped. According to McCabe, the liquors sold in the saloons of Irish-dominated districts ‘[are] simply abominable. Whiskey commands the largest sale, and in the majority of instances [is] a vile compound.’17
A positive space?
Few commentators of the era took the time to note the saloon’s position as a force for good – particularly for immigrant subcultures. For the Irish, German, Italian and many other immigrant nationalities, the saloon often became an anchor in a sea of mainstream hostility. It was a place to gather and talk freely without fear of censorship or scrutiny. The saloon also allowed customers to speak in their native dialects, discuss job prospects and debate the news from their mother countries.18
For Italian immigrants arriving in the later nineteenth century, the saloon was almost certainly the first port of call to find a job or to hire out their services to a gang master. In the eyes of the mainstream, however, Italian saloons – like the Irish ones before them – were seen as hothouses of criminality. Frank Moss was especially scathing of the Italian establishments found on Mulberry Street and the Mulbury Bend. ‘In the saloons,’ he wrote, ‘are crowds of men engaged in card playing. Here are the vermin-laden beggars and banditti of Southern Italy, incrusted with dirt, crawling with vermin, given to hard drinking, idling, gaming and fighting.’19
Saloons were also a place where immigrants could relax and have fun. Writing in 1872 Charles Loring Brace noted that the ‘liquor shop’* was a workingman’s ‘picture-gallery, his reading room and his social salon, at once. His glass is the magic transmuter of care to cheerfulness, of penury to plenty, of a low, ignorant, worried life, to an existance for the moment buoyant, contented, and hopeful.’20 This would have been doubly true for the poorer immigrants.
* It should be noted that the terminology for a saloon was quite loose in the mid-nineteenth century. Saloons were also known as drinking houses, barrooms, restaurant saloons, Gin Mills, liquor shops and liquor houses etc.
Aside from being a force for empowerment, the saloon was a something of a ‘personal problems’ advice bureau, offering them a welcome place of ‘familiarity and assistance’.21 It was here that the saloonkeeper came into his own: often giving advice to his patrons about girlfriends and wives. If bail was needed, the saloonkeeper often came to the aid of his regulars. If there was an issue concerning law enforcement or local government, the saloonkeeper frequently became a representative for the immigrant. In the words of Luc Sante: ‘[The bartender] would be their confessor, business adviser, political mentor, gossipmonger.’22
The saloon also offered the ‘Free Lunch’, which a patron would usually receive as a matter of course if he purchased one or two drinks. For a newly-arrived immigrant this frequently kept him above the breadline. Saloons were a theatre of politics too. Local bigwigs, particularly the Tammany Hall Democrats, relied on the immigrant vote to maintain power. In return for the bloc support of a saloon, a politician would ‘[Assist] the bar trade by helping saloonkeepers evade temperance laws and [keep] customers happy with personal favours.’23 Despite the political corruption, the system was still a cause for celebration for an immigrant – back in their old countries most were disenfranchised from having any say whatsoever in politics.24
A mixed reception
The story of German saloon subculture is interesting in that, opposed to the Irish and Italian versions, it found greater recognition with the mainstream of New York.
Like the Irish, Germans arrived in New York in greater numbers from the 1840s and into the 1870s. As surprising as it may seem, their taste in food and drink were quite exotic to many mid-nineteenth century commentators. The greatest gathering of German watering holes was along the Bowery, the central working-class entertainment district of New York after the Civil War – labelled by Sante the ‘people’s delirium, the Republic of the Bowery’.25
German establishments supplied tables and chairs to their customers and socialising, not skylarking, was the order of the day. This may explain why the mainstream affixed notions of respectability to German drinking culture in a way that was never given to the Irish.
The most popular German establishments of the age were The Atlantic Garden and the Volks Garden.* Both were housed in buildings a number of stories high and both were extremely popular. The Atlantic could cater for 2,000 men and offered several bars, a shooting gallery, billiard tables, bowling alleys and, for good measure, an orchestra. Beers cost a nickel.26 During drinking hours and for some time afterwards there was a constant supply of beer brought up from the breweries.27
*Both faced each other between Bayard and Canal Streets.
Henry Williams, author of New York after dark, is very much at ease in the world of saloons and, very importantly, breaks from the norm by using more tempered language when describing the sights and sounds he witnesses. Finding a German establishment near to the offices of the Herald newspaper, Williams and his friends begin their evening of German entertainment sipping drinks ‘between bites of a briny britzel’.28 Interestingly, the author admits to being able to speak some German and one suspects that he has made enough attachments to the immigrant community to interact within their subculture on scale that the others in the mainstream would have found impractical.
But despite his knowledge of Germans, Williams and his friends are unaccustomed to the beverages on offer. Making a saloon crawl up Chatham Street they try Weiss Beer. ‘That “don’t work”,’ says Williams and so ‘to get the taste out of our mouth, we try the Rhine wine, which so affects our tongue that we must go lager again before making our sortie.’29 Reaching the head of the Bowery, just beyond the Old Bowery Theatre, the group find a ‘lager bier garden’ where they note five men and a women serving as waiters, while a ‘rotund Falstaff’ runs the bar.30 Williams obviously had more than passing knowledge of the saloonkeeper, for he is able to recount the German’s pre-immigration army career in some detail.
Other commentators, writing from an anti-saloon stance, predictably condemned German establishments. In 1869, Ellington rather imaginatively labels the German saloons on Canal Street, West Broadway, Chatham and William streets as ‘German women dungeons’.31 Here we are told that women are present and can ‘can curse as loud as the men, and drink spirits with equal freedom and zest. Almost each of these dens has a tradition of murder or bloodshed done within their painted walls.’32
In contrast to Ellington, Henry Williams paints a positive and more tempered picture of the German drinking subculture and its acceptance by the mainstream. ‘Do you notice how the Americans have taken up with this Berlin style of enjoying oneself? Why, only a little while since, if anybody had told a New Yorker that the time would come when he would find pleasure in sitting at a table for an hour, smoking, and drinking…he would have been laughed at.’33 Williams states that beer gardens are thoroughly respectable places. Unlike lower-class saloons, there are ‘no “bummers” from groggeries or liquor-saloons here’.34
If one believes Ellington, a German saloon was like any other lower end establishment. On the other hand, if one accepts the veracity of New York after dark then German saloons and German beer gardens were places of respectable mainstream leisure – even if the drinks did taste a little odd.
Sporting life
Known for his flash clothes, the ease at which he traversed the urban landscape and his ability to live of the proceeds of gambling (or prostitution), the sporting man’s life invariably revolved around the saloon.
At first glance, ‘sports’ were an eclectic mix made up of boxers, ex-boxers, thugs, pimps and dandies who circled the periphery of High Society and the underworld. Sporting males were often called ‘fancy’ men. Gilfoyle writes: ‘Leisure activities, not work, defined the fancy. In the boxing ring, gambling den, and saloon, a “rough” egalitarianism reigned.’35 When their gambling funds dried up, the sport could often be found working as a bouncer or as a ‘political representative’, making sure voters made the right choice at the polls.
The sporting subculture with its social networking, obsession with the form of a horse or a baseball team, overt machismo, and casual attitude towards sex and the sex trade was prominent enough to incur the condemnation of upper and middle-class commentators. But perhaps their biggest concern was the appeal of sporting subculture with many non-sporting men, who often imitated or aspired to join the growing ranks of the fraternity.36
Dandified sports were an interesting grouping within the subculture in that they eschewed violence, focussing instead on their attire. Gilfoyle writes: ‘They were known for their flashy outfits, finger rings, watch chains, leather boots, and “fashionable” behaviour.’ He adds: ‘They aspired to be part of the “upper crust” and the “bon ton”.’37 Nonetheless, these dandified sports were never fully accepted by Society, or perhaps it would be more correct to say they were unwilling to enter Society and leave behind the sporting lifestyle and the saloons.
Sports could be found in any saloon across the city, but their favourite stomping ground was undoubtedly the Bowery. But while a sport would enter a lower-end saloon if ‘business’ demanded it, he undoubtedly preferred an establishment that at least had the veneer of respectability. Henry Williams, it seems, has leanings towards the sporting life.
Apart from recounting his visits to German establishments, he also records a trip to a concert-saloon called ‘Jollities’. His account is riddled with wry humour and bawdy talk – all typical of the sporting type. Williams tells us that ‘Jollities’ holds a dance ‘with a French or Spanish name, always spelt wrong on the bills, and always having the de before the vowel, as, for instance, Pas de Afric, which would be more truthfully styled “a grand display of leg”.’38 The author notes ‘each man [is] bent on his own gratification, regardless of all others, the drunken ones being equally disturbing and full of deviltry, vented in trying to trip up the waiter girls… pulling them by their ribbons, giving false orders and funny ones.’39
Ellington’s take on sporting subculture is a great deal darker. Visiting the ‘Louvre’ near Madison Square, he describes its almost palatial layout, writing ‘that room to the left is the billiard-room; this middle apartment the grand drinking hall; and under the alcoves, there at the end, on the right, are more retired tippling places.’40 He adds: ‘The walls are frescoed and painted in with the rarest of artistic skill… The great bar is very rich with varied cut-glass and silverware, and numerous mirrors reflecting the bright lights.’41 Amid opulence and splendour, the decadent world of high-end sporting life is recounted. At the ‘great bar’ around ‘two hundred thirsty and loving bacchanalians [are] enjoying themselves, or pretending to do so, beneath the charms and smiles of some thirty “pretty waitresses”.’42
Ellington informs us that ‘pretty is a misnomer’ as most of the waitresses are ‘very coarse, fat and prodigiously ugly’.43 For Ellington, the woman catering to the demands of the sports are ‘as much of a commodity as the liquor you are imbibing’.44 As much as we recoil at this concept, it does, perhaps, best sum up what many sports believed. The sporting male and his tastes lasted well into the twentieth century. Anbinder writes: ‘Although forgotten today, the “old sports” of New York formed a subculture as colourful and well known as the Bowery B’hoy.’45
Women and the saloon
Ellington’s views on women in the saloons were not uncommon. Indeed, it is striking to note that anti-saloon activists and regular saloon goers often viewed mainstream female presence with at best suspicion, and at worst, outright condemnation.
However, before exploring the saloon as a subcultural hub for women, we must recall the pitfalls of the sources available: they are often written with the express purpose of emphasising the salacious and the shocking to titillate their readership.
Ellington, as we have seen above, frequently describes women in saloons as ugly, corpulent and coarse. For him, all women connected to the saloon are making a downward journey, descending to the ‘lower rounds of the ladder of vice.’46 According to Ellington, the prostitutes were always drunken harlots of the lowest order: ‘[They] patronize the same bar-rooms that the men go to…Gin is their favourite drink, and they drink as long as they have money to pay for it, and until they have become completely drunk.’47 He adds: ‘They have no thought for the future and no thought for the past. They taste vice in its lowest forms and spend their time in dissipation.’48 Meanwhile, those waiting outside the saloons for men were lucky that ‘the gas light is a good friend of theirs, it hides so many defects.’49
Gilfoyle and Anbinder, among many other historians, have ably shown that prostitution levels from 1845-1895 were highly visible and seemingly exponential in growth. However, rather than suffering from ‘moral degeneracy’ – the reason given for prostitution by many commentators of the time – many were driven into the sex trade by poverty and the need to stay above the breadline. Others were lured into prostitution by the machinations of madams and pimps. Some were simply addicted to alcohol and needed to feed their habit.50 Already at rock bottom, the saloon was not the institution that ‘corrupted’ the prostitute or saw them ‘destroyed’, it was simply – as a masculine place away from the domestic realm and with drinks flowing – where the market was.
More problematic is the position of waitresses. These women were often viewed as little more than sex workers, lacking in the moral standards that the mainstream purported to uphold. It is worth remembering the commission system many of the waitresses earned their pay through: they received a small percentage cut of the price of the drinks ordered with them. Thus it was in their interests to get the patrons select the most expensive brands and to get them to carry on drinking. The flirtatious approach, especially with sports was one way to do this. Often waitresses built up a working friendship with patrons and were keen to retain their loyalties. However, it was a competitive business and waitresses often tried to hustle customers away from each other.
Henry Williams recounts an interesting incident he witnessed at ‘Jollities’, where one waitress tries to steal the customers of another:
‘“You let that gentleman alone, Fan, he’s a steady customer of mine.”
“Lord help him, then!”
“What do you mean, sassy?”
“Call me sassy again and I’ll open your squint eyes.”’
The waitresses, we are told, soon begin fighting, much to the pleasure of the concert saloon’s patrons. They are eventually separated ‘with much trouble’.51 Meanwhile, other men are attempting to get the waitresses to leave with them. This is frowned upon by the owner who attempts ‘to keep his birds from flying away too early with their ensnared mates.’52
Here then, the waitresses and not the patrons are the controlling force. Williams has revealed a very different side to the New York saloon and its waitresses often portrayed elsewhere. In his account, the feminine subculture of the saloon can be viewed, not as a group of victims, but as confident protagonists, often advancing their positions and boosting their incomes by manipulating their patrons.
Despite the moral outrage they incurred, prostitutes and waitresses became something of an accepted presence in the New York saloon. More unnerving to many of the time was the presence of respectable working- and white-collar women in the saloon’s back room.
As the mid-nineteenth century progressed it had become more and more acceptable for women to use a ‘ladies entrance’ around the sides of most saloons. Here they could then enter and use the back room to drink and socialise in, turning what was once an all-male space into one that was frequently female-dominated. Several saloons made reactionary attempts to halt this development, often using the excuse that respectable women should be kept out for their own moral safety. McSorley’s Old Ale House was a notable example in this respect. Established in 1854 it ran for an impressive 88 years under four different owners, the first one being Old John who ran the saloon until his death in 1910.
Old John, according to Mitchell, ‘believed it impossible for men to drink with tranquillity in the presence of women.’53 The saloon had a notice nailed on the street door declaring that there was ‘No Back Room in Here for Ladies’54 and Mitchell tells us that Old John would bow whenever a woman entered the saloon and then usher her out saying ‘Madam, I’m sorry we don’t serve ladies.’55
Conclusion
During this essay we have noted that the New York saloon from 1845-1895 and the subcultures within them has a difficult historiography due to the lack of primary sources. We then discussed the vital role that the saloon played for the immigrant. It was indeed his ‘clubhouse’ and place of refuge in the stormy world of mid- to late-nineteenth century New York’s thrusting urban landscape.
The saloon enabled the Irishman or Italian to find his feet and discover his next job. If money was tight, the saloon offered a vital Free Lunch, just as long as he purchased a cheap drink or two to begin with. The saloon was also the immigrant’s political station, while the saloonkeeper was his spokesman and guide. Overall, the saloon – if it was well run and kept the harsher criminal element under control – could act as an agent for integration, enabling an immigrant subculture to start finding its way into mainstream society. We have seen the how the Germans achieved some success in this area as early as the 1860s.
During 1845-1895 the sporting male’s subculture grew. Sports used the saloon as a vehicle to express their desires and sexuality, which created unease among many in the mainstream. Indeed, the saloons and drinking establishments they frequented were often depicted, as Ellington did with the ‘Louvre’, as nothing short of being a space for Bacchanalian orgies.
Setting the salacious language and details aside, the mainstream often had something of a point in its judgement of the sporting male. He was frequently licentious, often lecherous and at times dangerous to be in the vicinity of. That said, the sport was also something of a cash cow for the prostitute or waitress. They had to be savvy enough, however, to influence and manipulate him into parting with his money.
For commentators this display of independence was often a hard fact to swallow: many reacted by simply labelling any women in a saloon as either fast or fallen. Morally, however, many prostitutes were not necessarily the corrupt degenerates that they have been painted to be by the anti-saloon writers. They were often driven in to the sex trade by poverty or extenuating circumstances. As for waitresses, it is worth remembering that working in a saloon would offer (in general) better wages and better conditions when compared with New York’s grim sweatshops.
Later on in the period, women from the general public increasingly made the back room their own recreational preserve and while some saloons, like McSorley’s Old Ale House, attempted to halt their entrance, their presence by the end of the era was a growing and accepted one by other saloon users.
All told, we need to be wary of painting too rosy a picture of the saloon’s development as a hub for New York subcultures in 1845-1895. However, it is justifiable to state that for all its evils, the saloon developed into a key space for New York subcultures to define and then reaffirm their identities.Thus the saloon, despite the tensions, foibles and vices, could be a force for good, especially for the subcultures of New York.
References
1) Anbinder, Tyler, Five Points (Plume, 2002), p.106
2) Sante, Luc, Low Life (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 2003), p.113
3) Penney, L, How to Fight the Drink or The Saloon Must Go! (National Temperance Society, 1894), p.25
4) Thompson, ElizabethThe Figures of Hell or the Temples of Bacchus (Oahspe Publishing, 1882), p.29
5) Crothers, T D, The Drink Problem, in Factors in American Civilization (D Appleton, 1893) Evolution Series No.35-48, p.281
6) Idem, p.285
7) Riis, Jacob A., How the Other Half Lives (Penguin Classics, 1993), p.159
8) Powers, Madelon, Faces along the Bar: Lore and Order in the Workingman’s Saloon, 1870-1920 (University of Chicago Press, 1998), p.19
9) Ibid
10) Anbinder, Tyler, Five Points, p.68
11) Idem, p.193
12) Idem, p.214
13) Ross, Joel H, What I saw in New York or a bird’s eye view of city life (Auburn, 1851), p.134
14) McCabe, James D., Lights and Shadows of New York Life (National Publishing, 1872), p.706
15) Anbinder, Tyler, Five Points, p.232
16) Ibid
17) McCabe, James D., Lights and Shadows of New York Life, p.706
18) Powers, Madelon, Lore of the Brotherhood: Continuity and change in Urban American Saloon
Culture, 1870-1920, in Holt, Mack P, A Social and Cultural History of Alcohol (Berg, 2006) p.151
19) Moss, Frank, The American Metropolis Vol.3 (The Author’s Syndicate, 1897), p.30
20) Anbinder, Tyler, Five Points, p.194
21) Powers, Madelon, Lore of the Brotherhood: Continuity and change in Urban American Saloon Culture, 1870-1920, p.151
22) Sante, Luc, Low Life, p.113
23) Powers, Madelon, Lore of the Brotherhood: Continuity and change in Urban American Saloon Culture, 1870-1920, p.151
24) Discovery Channel, Uncovering the Real Gangs of New York, in Scorcese, M, Gangs of New York(Miramax, 2002) Disc 2
25) Sante, Luc, Low Life, p.105
26) Idem, p.106
27) Anbinder, Tyler, Five Points, p.177
28) Williams, Henry, New York after dark, or gleams and shadows of city life! (De Witt, 1866), p.98
29) Ibid
30) Ibid
31) Ellington, George, The Women of New York, or the Under-World of the GreatCity(1869), p.472
32) Ibid
33) Williams, Henry, New York after dark, or gleams and shadows of city life!, p.99
34) Ibid
35) Gilfoyle, Timothy J, City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790-1920 (W.W. Norton, 1992), p.104
36) Idem, p.236
37) Idem, p.105
38) Williams, Henry, New York after dark, or gleams and shadows of city life!, p.41
39) Ibid
40) Ellington, George, The Women of New York, or the Under-World of the GreatCity, p.464
41) Idem, p.465
42) Ibid
43) Ibid
44) Idem, p.463
45) Anbinder, Tyler, Five Points, p.182
46) Ellington, George, The Women of New York, or the Under-World of the GreatCity, p.297
47) Idem, p.220
48) Idem, p.298
49) Idem, p.299
50) Anbinder, Tyler, Five Points, p.214
51) Williams, Henry,New York after dark, or gleams and shadows of city life!, p.41
52) Idem, p42
53) Mitchell, Joseph, McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon in Botkin, B.A. New York City Folklore (Random House, 1956), p.114
54) Ibid
55) Ibid
Bibliography
Primary sources:
Buckley, James M (editor of the New York Christian Advocate), Social Necessity of the Saloon in
Cherrington, Ernest Hurst (editor), The Anti-Saloon League Year Book: 1909 (The Anti-Saloon League of America, 1909)
Cherrington, Ernest Hurst (editor), The Anti-Saloon League Year Book: 1909 (The Anti-Saloon League of America, 1909)
Idem, The Anti-Saloon League Year Book: 1911 (The American Issue Publishing Company, 1911)
Idem, The Anti-Saloon League Year Book: 1912 (The American Issue Press, 1912)
Crothers, T D, The Drink Problem, in Factors in American Civilization (D Appleton, 1893) Evolution Series No.35-48
Ellington, George, The Women of New York, or the Under-World of the GreatCity(1869)
Hadley, Samuel H, Down in Water Street(Fleming H Revell, 1902)
McCabe, James D., Lights and Shadows of New York Life (National Publishing, 1872)
McCabe, James D, New York by Sunlight and Gaslight (Douglass Brothers, 1882)
Moss, Frank, The American Metropolis Vol. 1-3 (The Author’s Syndicate, 1897)
Penney, L, How to Fight the Drink or The Saloon Must Go! (National Temperance Society, 1894)
Riis, Jacob A., How the Other Half Lives (Penguin Classics, 1993)
Ross, Joel H, What I saw in New York or a bird’s eye view of city life (Auburn, 1851)
Thompson, Elizabeth,The Figures of Hell or the Temples of Bacchus (Oahspe Publishing, 1882)
Williams, Henry, New York after dark, or gleams and shadows of city life! (De Witt, 1866)
Secondary sources:
A2Zcds.com, Historical Travel US: New York a Century Ago (A2Zcds.com, 2005) Discs 1 & 2
Asbury, Herbert, The Gangs of New York(Arrow Books, 2006)
Asbury, Herbert, All Around the Town (Thunder’s Mouth, 2003)
Anbinder, Tyler, Five Points (Plume, 2002)
Burrows, Edwin G., Gotham: A History of New York to 1898 (Oxford University Press, 1999)
Botkin, B.A., New York City Folklore (Random House, 1956)
Gilfoyle, Timothy J, City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790-1920 (W.W. Norton, 1992)
Holmgren, Chuck, It's the Booze Talkin’: Prohibition and the Gangster Film, http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA03/holmgren/prohib/euwc.html (15/06/07)
McNamara, Brooks, The New York Concert Saloon: The Devil’s own nights (Cambridge University Press, 2002)
Powers, Madelon, Lore of the Brotherhood: Continuity and change in Urban American Saloon Culture, 1870-1920, in Holt, Mack P, A Social and Cultural History of Alcohol (Berg, 2006) pp.145-160
Powers, Madelon, Faces along the Bar: Lore and Order in the Workingman’s Saloon, 1870-1920 (University of Chicago Press, 1998)
Sante, Luc, Low Life (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 2003)
Scorcese, Martin, The Gangs of New York: Special Edition (Miramax, 2002) Discs 1 & 2
Weil, Francois, A History of New York (Columbia University Press, 2004
