Tenement Talk: Clairvoyant Housewives of the Lower East Side

Join us on YouTube Live for a free virtual Tenement Talk on the role of clairvoyants in the world of the Jewish Lower East Side, streamed live from inside our historic tenement building at 97 Orchard Street. At the turn of the last century, the Lower East Side was home to more than 1,000 people working as psychics, palm readers, and fortune tellers, and almost half of all of the city’s clairvoyants worked in this neighborhood. One such businesswoman, Dora Meltzer, ran her palm reading studio from 97 Orchard Street, now home to the Tenement Museum. Who were immigrants like Dora, and why were customers visiting them? Hear historian and Yiddishist Edward Portnoy share his research on psychics in the early 20th century with Dr. Annie Polland, Tenement Museum President.