Report #56

“The poor man […] finds no resource of recreation and change of scene so convenient or so persuasive as the saloon; and the saloon by every possible device, offers itself for the satisfaction of the social instinct.” (Calkins ix)

Introduction

The period roughly from the civil war until prohibition came into force on January 5, 1920 nurtured a peculiar social institution in urban America: the saloon. This study, by the microanalysis of Hartford, a Northeastern industrial town, intends to bring forth the historical factors that explain the remarkable popularity of this institution; meanwhile it also attempts to recreate the complex working-class culture associated with saloon-life. In this study, the saloon is understood as a genuine human desire to reestablish a sense of social belonging in an era of all-encompassing and uprooting economic and social transformations marked by such great historical schemes as industrial capitalism, urbanization and European mass immigration.

In comparison to these great historical schemes, the problem of saloons might seem a rather marginal one. Nevertheless, for the working class, saloons were almost the only affordable -- and by far the most popular -- institutions for social recreation. Thus the problem of saloons is just as important as socializing and recreation themselves are for western societies. In this sense, studying saloon-life and saloon-culture contributes a great deal to the understanding of everyday urban life in industrial America and thus, in the aggregate, to such broader areas of research as industrial, urban, immigration and working-class histories.

These great historical schemes also largely determine the direction of research concerning saloons. Above all, the saloons of the time were urban working-class establishments, or as often referred to, “the poor man’s club.” They were the product of an industrial age that created unparalleled urban growth, a new urban environment and the urban working class. Since, at the time, European immigrants made up the majority of the American working class, the heterogeneous ethnic composition of the saloon patrons further adds to the complexity of the social milieu of the saloons.

Historical microanalysis has many benefits. It is at the micro-level where one can get the closest to developing a detailed picture of an American immigrant working-class neighborhood. A neighborhood study can bring forth a great deal of understanding about the ethnic composition, the living conditions, the entrepreneurial and social activities of a particular place. And by understanding the urban milieu of the saloons one can attempt to gain some insight to the social life that was nurtured by these institutions. This is because the saloons were deeply engrained in the neighborhood’s socioeconomic environment.

This study approaches the saloons of Hartford with these purposes in mind. It argues that the key factors for understanding of this institution are class, ethnicity and the urban environment. The study is divided into two large chapters. Preceding the analysis of the saloons themselves, the chapter ‘Socioeconomic Portrait and Saloon Business in the East Side’ turns to the neighborhood and its entrepreneurial activities, particularly to the saloon business, to reconstruct some key components of the socioeconomic environment of Hartford’s immigrant quarter, the East Side.

This chapter is divided into six sections. After a short account of the industrial development of Hartford, a quantitative population analysis based on census statistics describes the East Side’s ethnic composition and maps which ethnicities lived where in the neighborhood. Quantitative descriptions of the East Side’s entrepreneurial activities and the saloon business in particular demonstrate that saloons were among the most prominent and characteristic businesses in the neighborhood and as such they did a great deal to give a special flavor to the streets of the immigrant quarter. These quantitative accounts are supplemented by a report on the poor living conditions in the East Side that is the most telling sign of the relation between the working-class and the saloons. Finally, further quantitative data shows how certain ethnicities, particularly the Irish and the Germans, were exceptionally involved in the saloon business.

Following the portrait of the neighborhood the study turns to the saloons themselves. The chapter titled ‘The East Side Saloon-Culture’ gives a detailed account of the underworld nature of the saloons as well as the community building that took place inside the doors of the poor man’s club. The chapter is organized according to these two schemes. The subchapter ‘The East Side Underworld’ reconstructs the criminal activities and the social evils associated with saloon-life such as prostitution, gambling, alcohol-faking and intemperate drinking. The second subchapter, titled ‘Community Building and Leisure’ recreates the saloons as essential neighborhood institutions that enhanced community formation among the East Side residents. These two subchapters are further divided into smaller sections according to individual themes. The purpose of this intricate scheme is to balance the discrepancy of the sources that reveal much more about the underworld side of the saloons than about the various aspects of community building. In the aggregate, the study depicts the saloons as essential institutions of social interaction and community formation, without attempting to hide the negative aspects of these public drinking places.

The study deals almost exclusively with the immigrant neighborhood of Hartford. This city is an ideal site for such microanalysis for a number of reasons. Hartford in the era, with all of its peculiarities, was a middle-sized industrial town that resembled many other Northeastern urban centers. The above-mentioned economic and social transformations made very similar impacts on Hartford as on a great many other American industrial towns. The size of the town is also ideal for social history research; it is manageable and comprehensible. At the same time, the conclusions of the research are relevant to almost every American industrial town at the period. Therefore the findings of this study can contribute to the better understanding of everyday working-class and immigrant life on a national scale.

In the research a large variety of sources have been used. Much information comes from such quantitative sources as census statistics and city directories. A variety of maps, especially the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps, were also essential for the work. The qualitative information was much more difficult to collect. Here mostly local newspapers and the writings of John James McCook, a Hartford social reformer, have been used. However, these sources reflect a level of WASP bias and thus must be treated with caution. Among the most telling sources were the photograph collections of the various Hartford institutions. Other works on Hartford, the city and its immigrant population, were also important. Above all Peter Baldwin’s remarkably creative ‘Domesticating the Street’ was the most important inspiration for this attempt to recreate Hartford’s East Side and its saloon-culture. Finally, this study makes use of the related findings of scholars on other Northeastern urban centers and on saloon-culture in America in general. The greatest difficulty encountered in executing this study was the almost complete lack of sources from the side of the saloon patrons. The research had to bridge the gap between the immigrants - the people whose life it intended to talk about - and the literate WASP society who wrote about them, not without prejudice. The overall philosophy of the study was to rely rigorously but creatively on the sources, to combine quantitative and qualitative information, build from the small towards the large, and fill the lack of information with analogies from other works. In other words this study intends to allow the sources speak for themselves. In this regard the approach is closest to what one can call a micro-historical approach.

Finally, the study does not intend to claim that even on this micro level it could accomplish a complete depiction of the immigrant working-class saloon-culture of Hartford’s East Side. There is certainly some space for further research. Also, the lack of documentation sometimes has left a few important details untreated. Nevertheless, this study brings into light many new details both about Hartford and about American history that are worth attention and consideration.

Socioeconomic Portrait and Saloon Business in the East Side

1. Industrialization

Until the 1830s there was very little manufacturing in Hartford. Pre-industrial Hartford was a middle-size New England town dominated by farming and trade along the Connecticut River. The town had a homogeneous and characteristically WASP population.

Like many other places in America, the period of critical transition in Hartford was the 1840s, when the railroad came into town and speeded up the city’s industrial and urban growth. By 1850 a network of tracks connected Hartford to Manchester, Willimantic, Putnam, Norwich and New London. As a result, between 1840-1860 the city more than doubled its size. Importantly, railroad brought a mass of Irish laborers to settle in Hartford. Their arrival signaled the beginning of a new era of immigration and increasing social complexity and heterogeneity in the city’s life.

Hartford’s first major pre-Civil war industrial operation, Samuel Colt’s enormous Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company, opened in 1855 and marked the beginning of the intensive industrialization that over time completely transformed the city. The Civil War would only slow down the process for a short period of time. After the war, industrial and urban development accelerated. By 1880 there were altogether 800 factories of all sizes and descriptions within the city. Some of these companies, such as the Weed Sewing Machine Company, Hartford Machine Screw, Hill’s Archimedean Lawn Mower Company, National Stove Company, Hartford Steam Heating Company, Hartford Electric Light Company became nationally known. Among the most important ones, the Pope Manufacturing Company settled in Hartford in 1890; Pope’s first gasoline-engine automobile, the Pope-Hartford, in 1895 marked the beginning of the American automobile industry. In 1901 Underwood Typewriter and in 1906 the Fuller Brush Company also moved to Hartford. (Grant 47-54; Weaver 102-7).

As this list suggests, Hartford not only enjoyed an incredible industrial growth during the period, but its industries were remarkably diverse. This diversity and the level of sophistication some of the city’s industries represented were important peculiarities about Hartford. They turned Hartford into a high-tech industrial town in need of a variety of skilled and unskilled labor and thus into a relatively important destination for the European immigrants.

Meanwhile, Hartford also became one of the first centers of the American insurance business. Although the insurance business remained little accessible to the poor European immigrants, the capital it accumulated within the city certainly made its impact on the overall development of the town and contributed to the exceptionally strong, stable and expending economy of the city.

In the aggregate, Hartford’s industrial development and its flourishing insurance business made the city one of the richest in the country throughout the period observed in this study. The city became an attractive destination for European immigrants seeking jobs in Hartford’s many industries or planning to open their small-scale businesses. The most important social result of Hartford’s industrial transformation was the incredible population growth that came about mostly as a result of the waves of the European mass immigration of the period. In 1870 the total population of Hartford was 37,178 people. The population increased to 42,105 by 1880, to 53,230 by 1890, to 79,850 by 1900, reached almost one hundred thousand – 98,915 - by 1910 and culminated at 138,036 at the end of the period observed in this study. This represents an overall fourfold population gain over a half a century. Meanwhile, the city’s ethnic character changed tremendously: as opposed to pre-industrial Hartford’s rather homogeneous WASP society, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Hartford became a remarkably complex multiethnic city.

2. Demographic Changes and Ethnic Composition[1]

The city’s first significant influx of immigrants was that of Irish, who arrived in large numbers from the 1850s and worked mostly as unskilled laborers. In 1870 the total number of foreign born in Hartford was 10,343. Among them were 7,438 Irish. Besides the Irish in 1870 Hartford’s German (1,458), English (789), Scottish (359) and Canadian (299) communities were also significant. The East Side can be identified in the census as wards 5 and 6. By far the heaviest concentration of the foreign born was in these wards. (Ninth Census 94, 386-87). These demographic tendencies continued throughout the 1870s: by 1880 Hartford’s total population increased by 13%, the city’s ethnic composition remained almost unchanged (Tenth Census 113, 540, 682).

The 1890 census reveals somewhat new population dynamics. The total population reached fifty thousand partially as a result of a significant increase in the foreign born population (13.608). Some new immigrant groups also arrived: 515 Swedish, 272 Danish and 350 Italians chose to settle in Hartford. Overall, 56% of Hartford’s population was either born abroad or were of foreign parentage. This ratio was by far the highest in the East Side wards: 74% in ward 5 and 84% in ward 6 (Eleventh Census, part 1: 453, 670-73).

The real demographic shift came in the 1890s. The 1900 census reports tremendous changes in the ethnic composition of Hartford. The city’s total population almost reached eighty thousand, which indicates a 50% population growth since 1890. The foreign born population almost doubled within ten years. By this time, the Irish, although still Hartford’s largest immigrant community (7,613), represented no more than one third of the total foreign born. The German, Canadian and Scottish communities had grown only a little. On the other hand, the census reports the arrival of 2,260 Russians, including the Lithuanians – the great majority of them were Jews fleeing Europe from persecution –, 1,914 Italians and 1,714 Swedish. There were also 506 Poles and 664 Austrians, probably many of them Jews. Overall, by 1900 63% of Hartford’s population was first or second-generation immigrant.

In 1895 Hartford restructured its ward system; ward 5 and 6 – now 1 and 2 – were both significantly enlarged and now were among the most populous wards, with their 8,364 and 9,771 inhabitants. 80% of the inhabitants of ward 1 and 82% of ward 2 were first or second-generation immigrants. Importantly, in these two wards 57% of the foreign born were males, suggesting that many of the new immigrants were young men without families.

The complete 1900 manuscript census returns show that except for the Russian Jews, Hartford’s immigrants did not form homogeneous ethnic enclaves. Being the axis of East Side, Front Street is an ideal place to observe the settlement patterns of the immigrants. The southern part of Front Street still had a significant Irish population, mostly second-generation. They lived primarily among the Germans and to a lesser degree among Italians, Austrians, some Hungarians, a few Russians, Scandinavians and Romanians. Walking northward on Front Street this heterogeneity increased even more; the Germans and the Irish were still the most numerous, but the presence of Italians and Russians became very apparent. The greatest ethnic heterogeneity was in the very heart of the East Side, which was inhabited by Italians, Germans, Russians, and to a lesser degree by the Irish. Talcott Street marked the borderline between the two wards: South of Talcott was ward 1 and North of Talcott was ward 2. Continuing northward on Front Street the ethnic composition changed tremendously: the Russians and to a lesser degree the Italians dominated the area. Interestingly, only the Russian Jews lived in a rather closed community (Twelfth Census, part 1: 648, 796-99; Manuscript Population Schedules 1900).

Within the next ten years Hartford’s population reached almost one hundred thousand. By 1910 two thirds of Hartford’s residents were first or second-generation immigrants. The Russians almost tripled in number, reached 6,647 and gave 21% of all the foreign born. The Italian population showed similar growth, reached 4,521 and represented 14% of the foreign born. The East Side’s ethnic composition mirrored these population shifts. The percentage of first and second-generation immigrants was 92% in ward 1 and 91% in ward 2.

The Italians were very heavily concentrated in the East Side. The two wards housed 63% of all the Italian born in Hartford. The complete census returns reveal the Front Street area to be almost completely Italian. In fact, by 1910 the heterogeneity of the neighborhood was largely gone; only the southern part of Front Street shows some of the ethnic variety of the previous decade. North of Temple and especially north of Talcott Street the Russian presence was increasingly felt; the Northern part of the East Side became predominantly an Eastern European Jewish neighborhood (Thirteenth Census, vol. 1: 263; Manuscript Population Schedules 1910).

In the 1910s Hartford’s population continued to increase rapidly and by 1920 it reached almost hundred and forty thousand. The foreign born represented 29% and the native with foreign parentage 38% of the city’s total, which already signals the approaching slow-down of the European immigration. Still, in 1920 67% of Hartford’s total population was first or second-generation immigrant. At the same time, the first significant influx of African American migrants from the South also reached the city: the 1920 census reveals 4,355 African Americans in Hartford, an increase of 2.4 times over ten years. By 1920 the Russians, the great majority of them Jewish, became the largest first generation immigrant group in Hartford with 7,654 residents that represented 18% of all foreign born in the city. The second largest group was the Irish that gave 17.5% of the city’s total foreign born. The Italian community continued its rapid growth, increased 1.6 times over ten years and represented 15%. The Polish born, many of them also Jewish, represented 12% of the city’s foreign born.

In 1915 Hartford’s ward system was again restructured. This time, however, the two East Side wards were simply combined into one, ward 2. Ward 2 became the city’s largest, with a population of 21,330. The concentration of immigrants in this single ward

Table I

Ethnicity of Hartford’s Population[2]

	1870	1880	1890	1900	1910	1920

Native Born White			37,658	54,220	65,835	93,014
Native Parents			20,804	27,904	31,011	40,327
Foreign Parents			16,854	26,316	34,824	52,687
Native Born Non-White			1,116	1,872	1,726	4,110
Native Born Total	26,363	31,420	38,774	56,092	67,561	97,124

Foreign Born	10,818	10,595	14,456	23,758	31,354	40,912
Austria	20	2	104	664	1,865	919
Canada	299	378	815	2,090	2,077	2,377
Denmark	13	40	272	506	592	619
England	789	995	1,300	1,634	1,653	2,051
German	1,458	1,422	2,140	2,700	2,424	1,820
Ireland	7,438	6,841	7,613	8,076	7,048	6,116
Italy	23	82	350	1,952	4,521	7,101
Lithuania						1,260
Scotland	359	366	499	689	759	937
Sweden	16	72	515	1,714	2,185	2,315
Poland	17	19	19	506		4,880
Russia	8	4	492	2,260	6,647	7,654
Others	378	374	337	967	1,583	2,863

Hartford Total	37,181	42,015	53,230	79,850	98,915	138,036

was unparalleled in the city, which circumstance, most probably, explain the rationale behind the 1915 restructuring. In 1920 the population of ward 2 was 48% foreign born and 41% second-generation immigrant. In addition, almost 30% of all African Americans in the city lived in ward 2. Overall, only 5% of ward 2’s population was native-born white with native parents. As in the case of the 1910 census the information concerning the nativity of the immigrant population on the ward level is given only in relation to the foreign-born population. This reveals that in ward 2 the Italians were by far the most prominent nationality: 42% of all the foreign-born of ward 2 were Italians and 60% of Hartford’s all Italian-born lived in ward 2. The Russian Jews, on the other hand, were almost equally represented in ward 2 and ward 3, in which 34% and 33% of all Russian-born lived. These findings confirm the trends already present in the first decade of the century: the original East Side with its center around Front Street became almost completely Italian, while the Eastern European and especially Russian Jews settled on the Northern parts of ward 2 and the Southern pats of ward 3 centering around Windsor Street. Finally, the male and female ratio became somewhat more balanced over the 1910s reaching 55 to 45 (Fourteenth Census, vol. 3: 163).

As the above analysis shows, Hartford’s ethnic composition changed dramatically between 1870-1920. Until 1880 the Irish, the German and the Canadians were Hartford’s largest immigrant communities. The 1880s and 1890s saw the arrival of many Scandinavians, especially Swedes. The real turnover, however, came with the arrival of the ‘new immigrants’ who settled in Hartford in great numbers between the late 1890s until the late 1910s.

The East Side mirrored these tremendous demographic changes. In the 1870s and 1880s the East Side was a primarily Irish and to a lesser degree a German and Canadian neighborhood. Natives still lived in the area but their number gradually decreased with the arrival of new immigrant groups. The Scandinavians settled in the area in the 1880s and 1890s. By this time the Irish, the German and the Canadian middle-class started to move out. By 1890 a little less than 80% of the East Side’s population was first or second-generation immigrants. From the late 1890s the Italians and the Eastern European Jews gradually became the dominant communities of the neighborhood. As the complete census returns for 1900 reveal, the East Side for a decade was remarkably multiethnic; only the Eastern European Jews settled in rather separated communities in the Northern part of the East Side. Meanwhile the Irish, the Germans, the Scandinavians and the Canadians almost completely left the area. In the 1910s one cannot talk about a multiethnic East Side anymore: the northern sections housed mostly the Eastern European Jews, while the central and southern sections were the home of the Italians. By 1920 about 90% of the East Side’s inhabitants were first or second-generation immigrants. The East Side also became an increasingly male neighborhood. Still, the highest male female ratio was 57 to 43, not terribly different from Hartford’s other wards.