Immigrant New York, Victorian America

What was it like to live in a city that quadrupled in size over just a few decades, with institutions and infrastructure often created haphazardly to accommodate such tumultuous growth? This lecture and discussion series provides an intimate glimpse at how real people experienced the dynamic world of Gilded Age New York. Immigration was central to those transformations, and we’ll explore it in depth, assessing some of the reasons Gotham surged in population and wealth in the years after the Civil War, the push and pull factors that drove emigration, and the making of new ethnic enclaves. Focus will remain on the human element, looking at the way immigrants worked and lived. We’ll explore tenement conditions and new services and physical transformations that influenced their daily lives; the economic, political, and cultural conflicts surrounding these communities; social and religious institutions; and the responses of immigrants themselves.

We’ll also profile some of the wealthiest Americans, Gotham’s elite; interrogate the priorities and passions of the growing middle-class in these years; and explore the city’s bourgeoning, glamorous new entertainment industry, restaurants, architecture, and night life. Discussing the décor, tastes, and lifestyles of middle-class households, in comparison to the working-class and immigrant communities discussed in previous classes, we’ll consider both their role in promoting “Victorian” ideals as well as their pursuit of elite status through “conspicuous consumption.” Placing all of these New Yorkers’ lifestyles and aspirations in dialogue will allow us to recapture the human side of this transformative moment, presenting a more holistic notion of the diversity of experience in the Gilded Age city. 

May 3rd, 5th &10th (Mon/Wed), 6:30-8 PM (ET)
$125 (3 sessions, 90 min. each)

Robert Chiles is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Maryland, College Park, and an editor of the journal New York History. He is the author of Revolution of ’28: Al Smith, American Progressivism, and the Coming of the New Deal (2018), and is currently working on his next book, Battling Mary: Mary Teresa Norton and American Liberalism.