Boston S Immigrants 1790 1880

Examines the lives of immigrants in Boston from 1790 to 1880, discussing the process of arrival in the city, the physical and economic adjustment, the development of group consciousness, hostility toward the Irish, and the city's eventual relative stability.

**** Handlin's classic (first published in 1941) is reprinted here from the 1979 edition. BCL3 recommended the (then latest) 1959 version. The original was v.50 of Harvard historical studies. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

"Oscar Handlin was the scholar most responsible for establishing the legitimacy of immigration history."--Gary Gerstle, author of

Before the 1820s, the vast majority of Americans ate only at home. As the nation began to urbanize and industrialize, home and work became increasingly divided, resulting in new forms of commercial dining. In this fascinating book, Kelly Erby explores the evolution of such eating alternatives in Boston during the nineteenth century. Why Boston? Its more modest assortment of restaurants, its less impressive—but still significant—expansion in commerce and population, and its growing diversity made it more typical of the nation’s other urban centers than New York. Restaurants, clearly segmented along class, gender, race, ethnic, and other lines, helped Bostonians become more comfortable with deepening social stratification in their city and young republic even as the experience of eating out contributed to an emerging public consumer culture. Restaurant Republic sheds light on how commercial dining both reflected and helped shape growing fragmentation along lines of race, class, and gender—from the elite Tremont House, which served fashionable French cuisine, to such plebeian and ethnic venues as oyster saloons and Chinese chop suey houses. The epilogue takes us to the opening, in 1929 near Boston, of the nation’s first Howard Johnson’s and that restaurant’s establishment as a franchise in the next decade. The result is a compelling story that continues to shape America.

The Boston Police Department was formed by a man who had twice failed in business, ran a bar in the poorest district of Boston, and was charged with two assaults. When Francis Tukey became City Marshal in 1846, he faced off against some of the most notorious criminals of the time. Under Tukey's leadership, the police were known for their coordinated "descents" on gamblers, rumrunners and prostitutes. This book aims to recount the story of the formation of the Boston Police Department, featuring many of the department's earliest cases and crises. Significant tales include the conflict following the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, when Tukey and his officers avoided enforcing the law, even helping enslaved people further escape. Also covered are the department's dealings with Irish refugees and the Cholera epidemic of 1849.