For my parent's 60th university we decided to produce a family history
book. A questionnaire was sent out. Those people who responded were
included in the book which was given out at the party. Family members
who did not respond now wanted to be included and receive a book. Now
they all responded and new pages were sent to those who had originally
responded and new books were made for the late comers.

Bill Farran

Edward Rosenbaum's 11-25-00 inquiry concerned jobs and salaries in New
York City in 1901, and the typical prices then paid for for various goods.
A year ago I was curious about these subjects because my father had
always emphasized how poor his family had been when he was growing up on
New York's Lower East Side (1900-1920).

Although my father said that his father Nathan FELDMAN was a tailor,
Nathan's ship manifest listed him as an upholsterer, but his
naturalization petition said he was a presser. Other than learning about
the great weights of antique pressing irons and how they were heated, and
about the terrible conditions in which clothes were made, I didn't have
much more information about Nathan's family and how they lived, so I
tried to find out the cost of living back then.

Instead finding and leafing through "The Journal of Economic History" and
"The Journal of Urban History" or scrolling through NYTimes microfilmed
articles, I lazily went scrounging on the Internet.

The first URL I clicked on, which I failed to note, showed that the
average annual earnings in 1900 was $418 (equivalent in 1998 to $7,993),
and that one pound of bacon cost 14 cents (equivalent in 1998 to $2.68).
Being a woman of Jewish heritage, I went on to find:

http://www.nhmccd.edu/contracts/lrc/kc/decade00.html

which said that the wage of the average worker was $12.98 for 59 hours
per week.

At: http://www.nv.cc.va.us/home/nvsageh/Hist122/Part1/WorkingMen.htm

I learned that a sweatshop girl in Brownsville (Brooklyn) earned $4.50
per week, starting at $2.00. She eventually earned $5.00. She paid $2.00
for a room and apparently had a hot plate to heat up coffee and a bun. At
dinner she ate a bowl of soup and slice of bread with her landlady. (At
another website whose URL I also failed to note, said that a cup of coffee
cost one cent.)

At: http://www.therblig.com/riis/chap11.html

I found that, according to Jacob Riis, "The Sweaters of Jewtown" young
seamstresses earned >from $2.00 to $5.00 a week. Bread cost 15 cents, a
quart of milk, 4 cents, a pound of meat 12 cents, butter was 8 cents per
quarter pound, and coal was 10 cents a pail. (According to a number of
books and the testimony of my late sister's long deceased friend, people
gleaned bits of coal fallen >from delivery carts, and many children enoyed
stealing fruit and potatoes >from pushcarts.) Riis also wrote that one
restaurant's dinner of soup, meat steww, bread, pie,pickles and a schooner
of beer cost 13 cents. A rival restaurant charged 15 cents, but the meal
included two schooners of beer and a cigar or cigarette.

At: http://www.senioract.com/wwwboard/messages/4895.html

a Catherine DeMoss posted a response to someone's question and, not
citing her source, listed prices for various food items for the period
between 1890 and 1915 as well as prices for miscellaneous household and
other items which she may have found in an old Sears Roebuck catologue or
some similar source. She also noted that in Detroit a trolley car ride
cost a nickel. According to Dorothy Parker's site,
http://www.bway.net/~kfifty/dhaunts.htm [Mod Note: URL was not accessible]
a NYC subway ride had cost a nickel. (The price for NYC trolley, bus and
subway rides stayed a nickel even when I was a small child (pre 1940) and
could ride for free on my mother's lap. Years later the price of trolley
and buse rides went up to 10 and 15 cents, but my mother was glad to pay
double or more because she hated the subway and, although my father used
the subway to get to his office, she forbade me to use it when at last she
permitted me to travel about New York unaccompanied.)

At: http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/1900/fam.html

prices for food are listed according to the 18th Annual Report of the
U.S. Commissioner of Labor:

"Cost per pound : Rib Roast $.13, Chuck Steak $.08, Sirloin $.14, Corned
Beef $.06, Butter $.22, Cheese $.17, Coffee $.14, Flour $.02, Lard $.10,
Mutton $.08, Pork Chops, $.10, Rice $.06, Sugar $.06

Other prices: Dry Beans quart $.09, Bread 1 pound loaf $.05,
Eggs dozen $.18, Milk quart $.06, Molasses gallon $.60, Irish Potatoes
Bushel $.39."

The same site says that tenement apartments of two or three small dark roms
rented for $4.00-7.00 per week. The average rent in slum areas was from
$8.00-10.00 per month with heat and bath not included (or, I should add,
not even provided in many cases). Also, I know that the heating arrangment
could be a coal stove or kerosene heater- both of which good for heating
up pressing irons! Water closets were shared and were either in a hallway
or under the stairs. Or there were poorly drained outhouses in the yard.
For more about tenements see Chapter 5 of Moses Richin's "The Promised
City: New York's Jews: 1870-1914."

A bath in a bathing establishment cost 25 cents but there were also free
public baths which charged for soap and towel and limited the minutes
spent. For more about these topics see the section "Water, Water, All
You Want:Keeping Clean" in Neil M. Cowan and Ruth Schwartz Cowan, "Our
Parents' Lives." I must also remark that people also washed themselves
with heated or unheated water in basins. The water was drawn >from a tap in
the apartment or carried in a pail upstairs >from a pump in the yard.
Often, children were bathed in the kitchen sink.

About lodging hotels, the Chicago site said that single men with steady
employment paid 14-50 cents a night at a better class place where there
was a bathroom down the hall and separate rooms for each renter. Cheaper
rooms which cost 20 cents had partitions and poor sanitary conditions
(which may mean that there were no indoor toilets). The very cheapest
hotels offered crowded floor space for 2 cents, but for 5 cents a dirty
mattress could be rented. For free, one could also sleep on the floors of
the police stations, space for which was in heavy demand.

Also at the Chicago site there is a list of occupations and the wages paid
for laborers like plasterers, bricklayers, boilermakers, etc., but this
list may not be of relevant here because most Jews on the Lower East Side
were peddlars and garment workers.

(Part Two of this message to follow.)

Naomi Fatouros (nee FELDMAN)
Bloomington, Indiana
NFatouros@aol.com

For my parent's 60th university we decided to produce a family history
book. A questionnaire was sent out. Those people who responded were
included in the book which was given out at the party. Family members
who did not respond now wanted to be included and receive a book. Now
they all responded and new pages were sent to those who had originally
responded and new books were made for the late comers.

Bill Farran

Edward Rosenbaum's 11-25-00 inquiry concerned jobs and salaries in New
York City in 1901, and the typical prices then paid for for various goods.
A year ago I was curious about these subjects because my father had
always emphasized how poor his family had been when he was growing up on
New York's Lower East Side (1900-1920).

Although my father said that his father Nathan FELDMAN was a tailor,
Nathan's ship manifest listed him as an upholsterer, but his
naturalization petition said he was a presser. Other than learning about
the great weights of antique pressing irons and how they were heated, and
about the terrible conditions in which clothes were made, I didn't have
much more information about Nathan's family and how they lived, so I
tried to find out the cost of living back then.

Instead finding and leafing through "The Journal of Economic History" and
"The Journal of Urban History" or scrolling through NYTimes microfilmed
articles, I lazily went scrounging on the Internet.

The first URL I clicked on, which I failed to note, showed that the
average annual earnings in 1900 was $418 (equivalent in 1998 to $7,993),
and that one pound of bacon cost 14 cents (equivalent in 1998 to $2.68).
Being a woman of Jewish heritage, I went on to find:

http://www.nhmccd.edu/contracts/lrc/kc/decade00.html

which said that the wage of the average worker was $12.98 for 59 hours
per week.

At: http://www.nv.cc.va.us/home/nvsageh/Hist122/Part1/WorkingMen.htm

I learned that a sweatshop girl in Brownsville (Brooklyn) earned $4.50
per week, starting at $2.00. She eventually earned $5.00. She paid $2.00
for a room and apparently had a hot plate to heat up coffee and a bun. At
dinner she ate a bowl of soup and slice of bread with her landlady. (At
another website whose URL I also failed to note, said that a cup of coffee
cost one cent.)

At: http://www.therblig.com/riis/chap11.html

I found that, according to Jacob Riis, "The Sweaters of Jewtown" young
seamstresses earned >from $2.00 to $5.00 a week. Bread cost 15 cents, a
quart of milk, 4 cents, a pound of meat 12 cents, butter was 8 cents per
quarter pound, and coal was 10 cents a pail. (According to a number of
books and the testimony of my late sister's long deceased friend, people
gleaned bits of coal fallen >from delivery carts, and many children enoyed
stealing fruit and potatoes >from pushcarts.) Riis also wrote that one
restaurant's dinner of soup, meat steww, bread, pie,pickles and a schooner
of beer cost 13 cents. A rival restaurant charged 15 cents, but the meal
included two schooners of beer and a cigar or cigarette.

At: http://www.senioract.com/wwwboard/messages/4895.html

a Catherine DeMoss posted a response to someone's question and, not
citing her source, listed prices for various food items for the period
between 1890 and 1915 as well as prices for miscellaneous household and
other items which she may have found in an old Sears Roebuck catologue or
some similar source. She also noted that in Detroit a trolley car ride
cost a nickel. According to Dorothy Parker's site,
http://www.bway.net/~kfifty/dhaunts.htm [Mod Note: URL was not accessible]
a NYC subway ride had cost a nickel. (The price for NYC trolley, bus and
subway rides stayed a nickel even when I was a small child (pre 1940) and
could ride for free on my mother's lap. Years later the price of trolley
and buse rides went up to 10 and 15 cents, but my mother was glad to pay
double or more because she hated the subway and, although my father used
the subway to get to his office, she forbade me to use it when at last she
permitted me to travel about New York unaccompanied.)

At: http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/1900/fam.html

prices for food are listed according to the 18th Annual Report of the
U.S. Commissioner of Labor:

"Cost per pound : Rib Roast $.13, Chuck Steak $.08, Sirloin $.14, Corned
Beef $.06, Butter $.22, Cheese $.17, Coffee $.14, Flour $.02, Lard $.10,
Mutton $.08, Pork Chops, $.10, Rice $.06, Sugar $.06

Other prices: Dry Beans quart $.09, Bread 1 pound loaf $.05,
Eggs dozen $.18, Milk quart $.06, Molasses gallon $.60, Irish Potatoes
Bushel $.39."

The same site says that tenement apartments of two or three small dark roms
rented for $4.00-7.00 per week. The average rent in slum areas was from
$8.00-10.00 per month with heat and bath not included (or, I should add,
not even provided in many cases). Also, I know that the heating arrangment
could be a coal stove or kerosene heater- both of which good for heating
up pressing irons! Water closets were shared and were either in a hallway
or under the stairs. Or there were poorly drained outhouses in the yard.
For more about tenements see Chapter 5 of Moses Richin's "The Promised
City: New York's Jews: 1870-1914."

A bath in a bathing establishment cost 25 cents but there were also free
public baths which charged for soap and towel and limited the minutes
spent. For more about these topics see the section "Water, Water, All
You Want:Keeping Clean" in Neil M. Cowan and Ruth Schwartz Cowan, "Our
Parents' Lives." I must also remark that people also washed themselves
with heated or unheated water in basins. The water was drawn >from a tap in
the apartment or carried in a pail upstairs >from a pump in the yard.
Often, children were bathed in the kitchen sink.

About lodging hotels, the Chicago site said that single men with steady
employment paid 14-50 cents a night at a better class place where there
was a bathroom down the hall and separate rooms for each renter. Cheaper
rooms which cost 20 cents had partitions and poor sanitary conditions
(which may mean that there were no indoor toilets). The very cheapest
hotels offered crowded floor space for 2 cents, but for 5 cents a dirty
mattress could be rented. For free, one could also sleep on the floors of
the police stations, space for which was in heavy demand.

Also at the Chicago site there is a list of occupations and the wages paid
for laborers like plasterers, bricklayers, boilermakers, etc., but this
list may not be of relevant here because most Jews on the Lower East Side
were peddlars and garment workers.

(Part Two of this message to follow.)

Naomi Fatouros (nee FELDMAN)
Bloomington, Indiana
NFatouros@aol.com

Hello fellow Ukraine researchers,

Martha Last asks about a translation of the Sarny Yizkor book. There is in
fact on the web right now a partial translation of a Yizkor book called
"Jewish partisans and Fighters of Volyn in Their Memory," which may be of
interest. You can check for this and other translations at
http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/translations.html.

By going to http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/database.html, you can check
for specifics on the Sarny Yizkor book. Right now there are no contacts
listed for the book; maybe Martha, and others on this list, would like to
put themselves forth as contacts who want copies of the book. And then, the
best way to see that a translation project is begun and put online is to
volunteer to head it up yourself! Directions for doing this, and the
necessary forms, may be found at
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/translations.html.

--Harriet Brown
Yizkor Book Project moderator & volunteer

Hello fellow Ukraine researchers,

Martha Last asks about a translation of the Sarny Yizkor book. There is in
fact on the web right now a partial translation of a Yizkor book called
"Jewish partisans and Fighters of Volyn in Their Memory," which may be of
interest. You can check for this and other translations at
http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/translations.html.

By going to http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/database.html, you can check
for specifics on the Sarny Yizkor book. Right now there are no contacts
listed for the book; maybe Martha, and others on this list, would like to
put themselves forth as contacts who want copies of the book. And then, the
best way to see that a translation project is begun and put online is to
volunteer to head it up yourself! Directions for doing this, and the
necessary forms, may be found at
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/translations.html.

--Harriet Brown
Yizkor Book Project moderator & volunteer

Melissa,

In searching for Kolchin Kostantin Wolinsky you might consider alternative
spellings. For instance, StaroKonstantinov (meaning Old Konstantin) is
located in what is now called Volhynia (also referred to as Wolin).

Good luck.
Jeff Miller
Maryland
SingingTM@aol.com

Researching: [*Edited to 6 lines]

BLANKFORD, WHITEMAN, Panevezys, Anywhere, Lithuania; South Africa
FRAIDER, Kamenets-Podolskiy, Kuz'min, StaroKonstantinov UKRAINE; Iasi,
LAN, Panevezys, Seta, Lithuania; South Africa; LANE, New Jersey,
MLYNARZ, Ostroleka, Poland
TRACHTENBROIT, Studenitsa, Ukraine
UDELL, YUDEL, Lithuania; South Africa; US

Melissa,

In searching for Kolchin Kostantin Wolinsky you might consider alternative
spellings. For instance, StaroKonstantinov (meaning Old Konstantin) is
located in what is now called Volhynia (also referred to as Wolin).

Good luck.
Jeff Miller
Maryland
SingingTM@aol.com

Researching: [*Edited to 6 lines]

BLANKFORD, WHITEMAN, Panevezys, Anywhere, Lithuania; South Africa
FRAIDER, Kamenets-Podolskiy, Kuz'min, StaroKonstantinov UKRAINE; Iasi,
LAN, Panevezys, Seta, Lithuania; South Africa; LANE, New Jersey,
MLYNARZ, Ostroleka, Poland
TRACHTENBROIT, Studenitsa, Ukraine
UDELL, YUDEL, Lithuania; South Africa; US

I have read countless books on Eastern European
Jewish life and history and recently came across
a fantastic book which should be mandatory reading
for anyone whose family comes >from Eastern Europe.
The book information is as follows:

"Life is With People: The Jewish Little-Town of Eastern
Europe" by Mark Zborowski and Elizabeth Herzog.
International Universities Press, Inc. New York. 1955.

Please e-mail me with any questions.

Paul W. Ginsburg
Sudilkov Online Landsmanshaft
http://www.sudilkov.com
Bethesda, MD

I have read countless books on Eastern European
Jewish life and history and recently came across
a fantastic book which should be mandatory reading
for anyone whose family comes >from Eastern Europe.
The book information is as follows:

"Life is With People: The Jewish Little-Town of Eastern
Europe" by Mark Zborowski and Elizabeth Herzog.
International Universities Press, Inc. New York. 1955.

Please e-mail me with any questions.

Paul W. Ginsburg
Sudilkov Online Landsmanshaft
http://www.sudilkov.com
Bethesda, MD

Translation of the Novvy Yarchev yizkor book is online at the
JewishGen Yizkor Book Project page at
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Novyy_Yarychev/novyy_yarchev.html.


You can do your own lookup for names.

Joyce Field
JewishGen Yizkor Book Project Manager
jfield@jewishgen.org

Translation of the Novvy Yarchev yizkor book is online at the
JewishGen Yizkor Book Project page at
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Novyy_Yarychev/novyy_yarchev.html.


You can do your own lookup for names.

Joyce Field
JewishGen Yizkor Book Project Manager
jfield@jewishgen.org

Hi,

This law was in force in Moravia to control the Jewish population. This law
forced most of them to get married in another country. Many came to Hungary.

Attila Rona

Hi,

This law was in force in Moravia to control the Jewish population. This law
forced most of them to get married in another country. Many came to Hungary.

Attila Rona

Dear Fellow H-SIG Members,

The Museum of Jewish Heritage in NYC is planning to open an exhibit on
the Hungarian Labor Service early next year. Bonnie Gurewitsch, the
archivist who is curating the exhibit, specifically needs additional
materials on the units who were sent to work in the copper mines at
Bor, Yugoslavia (many of whom were later slaughtered during the
infamous Cservenka massacre).

If you have, or have access to, any artifacts relating to Bor, such as
work register-books ("Zsold konyv"), uniforms, photos, etc., please
send email to bgurewitsch@mjhnyc.org AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Thanks!

You may also reach Bonnie by phone at (212) 968-1800 ext. 149, or by
fax at (212) 968-1368.

--Bob Friedman
inwood@pipeline.com

Dear Fellow H-SIG Members,

The Museum of Jewish Heritage in NYC is planning to open an exhibit on
the Hungarian Labor Service early next year. Bonnie Gurewitsch, the
archivist who is curating the exhibit, specifically needs additional
materials on the units who were sent to work in the copper mines at
Bor, Yugoslavia (many of whom were later slaughtered during the
infamous Cservenka massacre).

If you have, or have access to, any artifacts relating to Bor, such as
work register-books ("Zsold konyv"), uniforms, photos, etc., please
send email to bgurewitsch@mjhnyc.org AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Thanks!

You may also reach Bonnie by phone at (212) 968-1800 ext. 149, or by
fax at (212) 968-1368.

--Bob Friedman
inwood@pipeline.com

I've had excellent luck in getting family response.I made it very easy for
them. I worked out a detailed questionnaire, wrote a nice letter and most
important enclosed a self addressed stamped emvelope.Your investment of 33
cents will pay off as it obligates the receiver. I also have made it clear
that what I'm doing is not only for us, those living today, but for the
future generations and to keep the family history alive. I also urge
youngesters to ask questions while the older generations are still here.

Norman Tillman Albany, NY

I've had excellent luck in getting family response.I made it very easy for
them. I worked out a detailed questionnaire, wrote a nice letter and most
important enclosed a self addressed stamped emvelope.Your investment of 33
cents will pay off as it obligates the receiver. I also have made it clear
that what I'm doing is not only for us, those living today, but for the
future generations and to keep the family history alive. I also urge
youngesters to ask questions while the older generations are still here.

Norman Tillman Albany, NY

Some of my family apparently came >from BORSHCHAGOVKA, 8.1 miles west of
Kiev. However, one of my mother's uncles received an award >from the United
Spichenitzer Relief. My realtives are under the impression he came >from
near-by Spichenitzer, which just isn't making it for me.

Does anyone have any information on the term Spichenitzer or the United
Spichenitzer Relief. I have photos of the award, so there's no doubt about
it.

Thanks


Mitch Mermel
Orlando, Fl
mkfpage@aol.com

Some of my family apparently came >from BORSHCHAGOVKA, 8.1 miles west of
Kiev. However, one of my mother's uncles received an award >from the United
Spichenitzer Relief. My realtives are under the impression he came >from
near-by Spichenitzer, which just isn't making it for me.

Does anyone have any information on the term Spichenitzer or the United
Spichenitzer Relief. I have photos of the award, so there's no doubt about
it.

Thanks


Mitch Mermel
Orlando, Fl
mkfpage@aol.com