In the winter of 1916, amid the economic pressures of immigrant life, a dispute erupted on Rivington Street
IN 1870, there were about 80,000 Jews residing in New York City. By the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the Jewish population of the great metropolis had swelled to 1.4 million, accounting for 28 percent of the city’s total population.
To provide greater context for this demographic explosion, in 1870 the total population of New York City was 942,000, of which Jews constituted about 9 percent. The total number of Jews in New York in 1914 was greater than the total population of the entire city in 1870. About a third of the entire city’s Jews were crammed into one Manhattan neighborhood — the Lower East Side.
To make ends meet in their new home, immigrant Jews engaged in all sorts of trade, business, crafts, and professions. Many were saving money to bring over their wives and children from the Russian Pale of Settlement, and sending parcels and funds to sustain their families in the interim.
Newly arrived immigrants earning as little as 50 cents a day only needed 10 cents for living expenses and could save the rest. They converted their earnings in US dollars to Russian rubles, and with an exchange rate of two rubles to the dollar, even a minimum wage job went a long way for their families back home. A single Jewish male immigrant only needed $3 a month for lodging, laundry, and a daily coffee. Bread was two or three cents a pound, and a penny would buy herring or a few apples.
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