Five Points: New York's Irish Working Class in the 1850s

2023-11-17 15:01:09

This booklet is supported by a 30-minute documentary "Five Points: New York Irish Working Class" of the American Social History Project of the 1950s. The Audience Guide contains background information on questions raised by documentaries and other key materials used in classes.

Copyright US Social History Project / Media & Learning Center This work uses Creative Commons - View - Nonprofit License Agreement - Special Language 0 Unused License

In this film, director Martin Scorsese used a wonderful visual and creative expression to depict the early difficulties of Irish immigrants in the mid-1860s. The setting is done at 5 o'clock. Five Points was then one of the most devastated evil places in New York at the time. This is an era of confusion, the civil war has become full-scale. During the Civil War Irish people and all immigrants were fighting British Protestants. "Native Peoples" Through this mess, the characters in the movie unite, suppress five points of corruption, and can create a part of the United States for themselves.

The five points in New York are the most notorious urban slam streets before the war and can be seen through conflicting views between locally born Protestant Reformers and Immigrant Catholic Families. Members of the Mulvahill family explained the everyday life of a complex community inconsistent with the 19th century stereotypes of immigrants. (Duration: 30 minutes)

When Dickens reported five points in 1842, the community was in danger of explosion. Stimulated by Irish potato famine in the 1840s, the wave of crazy immigrants came to New York, the only sneaky residence - five hanging dwellings. In the residential area of Five Point, families and other groups live in one or two dark rooms. Buildings are too little, often overflowing. There is sewage and pigs on the street. Historian Tyler Ambindar said, "The entire community is stinky." He wrote five books and reviewed the Scorsese gang script.