Day 1   

History in our Own Homes: An Introduction to the Tenement Museum

Teachers will be introduced to the Tenement Museum, our history, and our model of connecting stories of immigration and migration past and present. Museum President Dr. Annie Polland and Vice President of Programs and Interpretation Kat Lloyd will lead a session about our origin and evolution. The Tenement Museum was founded in 1988 with a vision to honor and share the stories of im/migrant communities who lived in tenements; over the decades we have honed our model of specific, place-based storytelling of families and communities across time and cultural backgrounds. To highlight this evolution and focus on the stories of “ordinary” people, teachers will contribute to the Museum’s Your Story, Our Story (YSOS) digital exhibit.

Day 2

Becoming an Immigrant City: Irish and German Immigrants transform New York

• How did Irish and German immigrants view their experiences of immigration, and how were they viewed by US-born Americans?
• How did the Civil War and slavery impact immigrants’ experiences?

For the first time, in 1855, NYC had more immigrant residents than US-born. The morning will feature two Museum tours that focus on the early European immigrant groups of Irish and German newcomers and how their experiences can be complicated and reframed. First, teachers will meet John and Caroline Schneider, a German couple who ran a lager beer saloon in the basement of 97 Orchard in the 1860s and 1870s. In the recreated saloon, teachers will be introduced to the complexity of the German immigrant experience and explore how their experiences reflect the questions of the era. John, an immigrant from Bavarian and a veteran of the Civil War, married Caroline Dietman, and they opened a business in Kleindeutschland, or “Little Germany.” Their customers came from different German states and held different opinions on the city and nation. Through this story, teachers will explore questions like: what is the role of a small business in an immigrant community? How did saloons help immigrants forge a German American identity? What did beer have to do with German immigrants’ perspective on the Civil War and slavery? Teachers will explore primary sources like census records, maps, the opening announcement of Schneiders’ saloon, and excerpts from German newspapers and will adopt the perspective of a real former customer and explore the saloon community through their eyes (this participation technique would also model a possible classroom activity for teachers).

The second tour invites teachers into the home of Joseph and Bridget Moore. The Moores were part of a wave of millions of Irish immigrants who arrived in the US in the wake of famine in Ireland and contributed to making New York City one of the most Irish cities in America in the 19th century. Before coming to Little Germany, the Moores lived in the diverse neighborhood of Five Points. Through their story, teachers will delve into questions like: How did Irish immigrants form their identity in America? What role did ideas about race play in that identity formation? How did Irish immigrants navigate the prejudice they faced? Through records of newspapers, speeches, and the St. Patrick’s Day parade, we’ll trace the Moores as they found their place in a German neighborhood of a growing, changing city.

In the afternoon, historians Tyler Anbinder and Russell Kazal will provide additional context to these stories and the Irish and German experiences in NYC more broadly. Anbinder’s Five Points and City of Dreams explore how immigration made NYC a metropolis, and how various im/migrant groups interacted. His most recent work, Plentiful Country, focuses on the Irish. Kazal’s Becoming Old Stock analyzes the creation of a German American identity. Both scholars have consulted on the creation and reinterpretation of several Museum exhibits. Their scholarly and Tenement Museum experience positions them to have a deep yet accessible conversation with teachers. Their session will explore how Irish and German experiences in Europe influenced immigrants’ economic adaptation to urban and tenement life and shaped diverse political perspectives on temperance, slavery, and the Civil War. Kazal and Anbinder will discuss how these two migrations made NYC a majority immigrant city for the first time, and how that change was welcomed by some and feared by others. They will explore both how fear of immigrants and discrimination shaped German and Irish adaptation, and how the racial identity of whiteness gave Irish and German men access to political participation and inclusion in the fabric of the city and nation.

Day 3

Black and Chinese New Yorkers in the 19th Century

• How did free Black New Yorkers navigate the changes of the Civil War era?
• What factors shaped national immigration policy in the 19th Century?

Day 3 will begin with a tour of the Tenement Museum’s newest exhibit, A Union of Hope: 1869. Teachers will explore the lives of Joseph and Rachel Moore, Black migrants who arrived in NYC in the mid-19th Century. Through Black newspaper articles and advertisements, we’ll discuss the history of Black communities in NY before and after the Civil War. Who was the “Black community” in the 19th century? What did it mean for Joseph and Rachel to be born free in an era of legal slavery? How did slavery cast shadows in the occupational, residential, educational, and political lives of Black individuals, and how did the Black community form cohesive communal networks in response? Teachers will also practice “reading against the grain” of white-authored sources when interpreting Black history.

The scholar session will feature Leslie Harris, author of In the Shadow of Slavery, for an in-depth discussion about the lives and communities of Black New Yorkers in the mid-19th Century. How were Black New Yorkers working to get out of the “shadow of slavery?” What are the most important framing elements of teaching Black life in the North? How do we find the stories and sources of marginalized communities in the historic records of the dominant society? During a working lunch, the Education Specialist will guide teachers in conversation about the scholarship and personal stories of Days 2 and 3, to prepare for an afternoon curriculum development session. How do these stories compare to teachers’ existing knowledge of and curriculum on immigration and migration in the 19th Century? What are they most excited to share with students? What challenges might come up in teaching these stories?

After lunch, teachers will walk to the MOCA. They will rotate between two activities—a tour and a curriculum development workshop. Lauren Nechamkin, Director of Education, will lead a tour of the MOCA’s main exhibit, exploring the Chinatown community before and after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Teachers will connect the histories of the West and East Coast Chinese immigrant communities in the 19th century and engage in conversation about the passage of and resistance to the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Education Specialist will support teachers in creating a new lesson plan or adapting an existing plan with the sources and stories from the morning session. This workshop will be held at MOCA to facilitate easy transition between activities.

Day 4

Yearning to Breathe Free: Rethinking the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

• How has the symbolism of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island changed over time?
• What role do symbols and myths play in American immigration narratives?

Day 4 will begin with a boat ride to the Statue of Liberty. Today, the statue is a symbol of welcoming for immigrants to the US; however its past is much more complex. A new exhibit at the Statue of Liberty Museum shows early maquettes of the statue holding shackles, a much more visible symbol of the abolition it was originally conceived to celebrate in the 1860s. This early idea was dropped by its supporters in the 1870s, and when the statue was installed in 1886, it was celebrated as a feat of engineering and a mark of Franco-American friendship. While many assume it was always connected to immigration, it wasn’t until WWI that the statue became linked with immigration in the national mindset. Dr. Annie Polland will trace the changing and contested meanings associated with the Statue and invite teachers to think of ways to teach this complicated and layered history. Polland will also demonstrate how teachers can study and teach Emma Lazarus’ 1883 “New Colossus” poem and encourage their students to write new poems for the Statue of Liberty that represent contemporary hopes and ambitions for the country.

After lunch, teachers will take a ferry to Ellis Island, New York’s iconic immigration processing center, now a museum and National Parks site. Peter Wong, Supervisory Park Ranger for Education, will give a tour of the Great Hall, where over 12 million immigrants arrived between 1892-1954. Wong’s tour will focus on the historic context and personal stories of Ellis Island, including the immigration laws and restrictions enacted over the course of the center’s history, and featuring lesser-known personal stories of those who came through Ellis Island, including Black immigrants and a transgender immigrant. Teachers will break after the tour, then gather in a classroom at the Ellis Island Museum for the day’s curriculum design workshop.

Day 5

Neighborhoods as Global Diaspora Centers: the Lower East Side and Harlem

• What is an “ethnic” or “immigrant” neighborhood?
• How can a neighborhood serve as a hub for a globally diasporic community?

Thursday will begin with a walking tour of the Lower East Side (LES), led by historian Tony Michels. The tour will visit important sites in the evolution of the LES from a German immigrant neighborhood to the largest Jewish neighborhood and most densely populated place in the country by 1900. Teachers will visit sites such as the former office of Jarmulowsky’s Bank to understand immigrant community banking and savings; the site of the former Jewish Daily Forward, the largest Yiddish-language newspaper in the nation in the early 20th century; and Seward Park, the first city-run playground in the country and an example of Progressive-Era reform in tenement neighborhoods. Through the walking tour, teachers will also practice the skills of reading a building and an urban landscape.

After a coffee break, teachers will gather back at the Tenement Museum for a presentation from Michels and Irma Watkins-Owens on the development, role, and legacy of the Jewish LES and Harlem. As two neighborhoods that evolved into global centers of identity, the histories of the LES and Harlem invite teachers to consider the diversity of any “ethnic enclave,” how a neighborhood supports new arrivals, and how these neighborhoods were shaped by im/migrants. Michels will address the importance of the LES for Eastern European Jewish immigrants, while Watkins-Owens will give an overview of how Black immigrants from the Caribbean and Black migrants from the South simultaneously shaped Harlem. Teachers will reflect and discuss questions about teaching about ethnic neighborhoods and the built environment over a working lunch.

After lunch, Tenement Museum staff will travel with teachers to the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Director of School Programs, Debbie Ardemendo, will lead a tour of the Apollo, the epicenter of Black culture in America in the 1920s and 30s. Teachers will learn about the segregated origins of the theater, opened in 1914 in a mostly Jewish neighborhood; the history of the theater as a major site for African American art forms such as jazz, bebop, and swing in the 1920s; and the theater’s role as an economic engine, employer, and community center for the diverse African-descended immigrants and migrants moving to Harlem in the first half of the 20th Century. Teachers will connect to curriculum anchors like the Harlem Renaissance and the Great Migration with the fuller context of Black communities in NYC and the concurrent development of the Lower East Side. A post-tour curriculum development workshop will help teachers translate the ideas and sources into lesson plans for their classrooms.

Day 6

Immigrant Workers: From Factories to Food Carts in the 20th Century

• How did (and do) working class immigrants’ jobs impact their cultural and community identity?
• How did immigration laws change the nation in the 20th Century?

The final workshop day will begin with a Tenement Museum tour featuring the stories of two different families. The Rogarshevskys, an Eastern European Jewish family, supported themselves through work in garment factories during the era of increased labor organization. Their teenage daughter Bessie witnessed the largest strike of factory workers in US history in 1909 and worked in factories at the time of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. The Baldizzis, an Italian Catholic family, supported themselves through garment work and government aid programs during the Great Depression, a time when immigration restrictions caused major demographic changes on the LES. Through these stories, teachers will explore the role of neighbors in a diverse community; the evolution of ideas about the government’s role in housing and immigration, and the importance of oral history in teaching about immigration and migration.

For lunch, teachers will take the Museum’s Foods of the Lower East Side walking tour and explore immigrant and migrant foodways through food tastes from small businesses in the neighborhood. Among others, teachers will sample pretzels from an Austrian cafe, pickles from the neighborhood’s last remaining pickle vendor, black sesame ice cream from the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, and olive oil from a Moroccan spice shop. The tour will foster conversation about the evolution of “American” food over time. The scholar session brings together Jennifer Guglielmo, Hasia Diner, and Nancy Foner to explore the changes in American immigration patterns over the 20th Century. Guglielmo and Diner will address Italian and Jewish immigrants’ experiences before and after the 1924 National Origins Act, with particular attention to how ideas about race shaped these groups’ experiences. Foner will add contemporary context to the conversation from her research into today’s immigrant families in NYC and across the nation. How do immigrants today navigate similar or different contexts than those in the past? What do we learn from comparing and connecting different groups’ experiences today? How can personal storytelling help us move away from stereotypes and politicized rhetoric about immigrants?

The concluding session guides teachers through a final reflection on the workshop and intentions for their own curriculum moving forward. What new or deepened ideas did teachers encounter in the workshop? What are they most excited to bring to their students? What support do they need from each other and the Tenement Museum to implement these ideas?

Questions? Email us at [email protected].