IMMIGRANT STEREOTYPES: 1880–1900

William R. Linneman

In 1870 there appeared in New York City a comic journal called Punchinello. One of the best pieces to be found in this short-lived magazine was an adaptation by Orpheus C. Kerr of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. In one scene the village sexton describes the unfortunates of the several narrow cells:

I’ve patched up all these graves . . . and know ’em all, sir. Over there, Editor of the Country Journal; next, Stockholder in the Erie . . . ; next, Original Projector of American Punch; next, Proprietor of Rural Newspaper; next, another projector of American Punch—indeed, all the rest of that row is American Punches.¹

Literally scores of American Punches were born in the nineteenth century, struggled through a volume or two, then took their place in the country churchyard. Not until the cartoonist, Joseph Keppler founded Puck in 1877 would there be a humor magazine that would live to a respectable age. Puck was shortly followed by Judge, Life, and Truth, all in New York, and out in San Francisco, Ambrose Bierce edited The Wasp. Two other humor magazines that were popular in the period from 1880 to 1900 were The Arkansaw Traveler and Texas Siftings, the latter even publishing a London edition for awhile. Although Puck, Judge, and Life lived well into this century, their golden years came at the end of the nineteenth, and their dusty volumes remain a treasure house of Americana of that period.

Written largely for the urban middle class male, the influence of the illustrated humor periodicals went far beyond their combined 500,000 weekly circulation. They were sold in public places—barbershops, trains, and saloons—and each copy might have several readers. Newspapers clipped their material and spread their opinions further. Their impact on public opinion should not be underestimated. They not only recorded the times, they helped create the times.

Sixteen page quartos, they featured a large double middle cartoon besides cartoons on both front and back covers. Inside were editorials, short stories, sketches, parodies, and jokes, many of them illustrated. These illustrated jokes remain the best record we have today of the stereotypes possessed by most middle class minds at the turn of the century. Various minorities were represented by archetypal figures: Alkali Ike, the grizzled westerner; Sam Johnson, the Negro; Cholly Knickerbocker, the dude; Dusty Roads, the Vagrant; the gamin; the Gibson Girl. Among the most interesting of these caricatures are those of

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the immigrants then crowding into America at the rate of a million a year.

The Irish were the immigrants with the most definite stereotype. It had begun with the character of the servant Teague of the Restoration Comedies and was developed in the Joe Miller Jest Books. John and Michael Banim spelled out the Celtic dialect in their O’Hara Tales (1825). Thus, when the first American humor periodicals began in the 1830’s, the stereotype was ready for them, and the comic Irishman became one of the staples of American comedy. He was caricatured as a hirsute, muscular laborer, with cheek whiskers, a broad upper lip, a button nose, and prognathous jaws. Sometimes the features were distorted to give a simian aspect. Theron Ware, the young clergyman in The Damnation of Theron Ware (1896), was able to trace his prejudices about the Irish to the Nast and Keppler cartoons with their "lowering, ape-like faces." These twisted drawings began to disappear somewhat toward the end of the century. Truth mentioned that where it had been once the fashion to malign the Irish, they became better thought of after Americans experienced other types of foreigners.²

Some of the traits and symbols associated with the Irish stereotype were a derby hat and a dudeen pipe, a belligerent attitude, and a love of whiskey. In a sketch by Stephen Crane, a young reporter goes to Mike Clancy’s wake to get an obituary notice for his paper. He has difficulty, though, in getting his story straight because Clancy’s widow keeps pouring whiskey for him.

"An ain’t yez goin’ to dhrink th’ rum? Are ye goin’ to shirk th’ good whiskey what was th’ pride of Moike’s loife, an’ him gettin’ full on it an’ breakin’ th’ furniter t’ree nights a week hand running’? Shame an yez, and Gawd save yer sowl! Dhrink it opp now, there’s a deark, dhrink it oop now, an’ say: ‘Moike Clancy, be all th’ powers in th’ shky Hiven sind yez rist."

The Irish of the comic papers lived in a shanty: the chimney was a jointed stove.pipe that might lean in any direction. In New York, Shanty-town was located on the cliffs of Coogan’s Bluff, and the Irish were pictured climbing ladders to get to their houses. The typical Irishman had several children and a termagant wife, who took in washing. Houlihan dreamt that he died and was admitted directly to heaven: Saint Peter told him that the time he had spent with Mrs. Houlihan was purgatory enough.

The Irishman’s poverty was partly indicated by his livestock. "Hogan’s goat," omnivorous and unparticular, was tethered nearby the shanty. Even more important for Celtic economy was "Paddy’s pig," usually kept in an adjoining pen. The jokes indicate how dependent the Irish were upon the pig. One woman, escaping from her flaming house, was saved from falling

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down the cliff by a fireman. When told that the pig had burned, she cried, "Lave me dhrop." Two other ladies, while shopping, viewed the split hog carcasses outside a butcher’s shop. Said one, "Oi’im thinkin’ there’s many a poor woman’s darlint hangin’ there."

Most of the Irish jokes, however, were not concerned with drinking or fighting, or poverty, but were "Irish bulls" like those in the Joe Miller books. The NED defines a bull as a proposition containing a ludicrous inconsistency unperceived by the speaker. Some of these bulls were hundreds of years old, and others were occasioned by the Irish peasant’s adjustment to an urban environment. For example, Mike had no faith in life insurance: his brother had put hundreds of dollars in a policy and died anyway. All the company did was to give the widow two thousand dollars to run through with her next husband. A priest admonished another widow for being miserly and told her she should lay up treasures in heaven. "Och, where I’d niver see thim agin?" When Mike told Pat about the millionaire that had lost $2,000,000, Pat replied that it was better to have happened to the millionaire than to some poor man who could not afford it.

The evolution of the Irishman in America was supposed to be from immigrant to laborer to policeman to bartender to politician, but most Irish were pictured as hod carriers and brick layers. The perils of construction were emphasized by the men who continually fell off girders or down ladders, or else were blown skyward by blasting powder. The mechanized equipment proved another difficulty. When Pat was told that his boss was going to buy him an automobile truck to drive instead of a team, he decided he would have to subscribe to the Scientific American to learn how to swear at the thing. Not only was machinery difficult to learn how to use, but it was replacing the Irishman on the job. All his frustration was brought out in one cartoon that showed Pat shaking his fist at a steam shovel: "Ut’s all roight—Ut’s all roight. Yez can shovel, but dom yez, yez can’t vote."

The goal of most Irish was the police force, and the policeman’s job was thought to be something of a sinecure. The cop on the beat used the side door of the saloon to get at occasional refreshment and helped himself freely at all the stands. One sketch of an immigrant writing to a friend shows how the policeman’s life was idealized.

"I know ye have a dislike to policemen, Dennis dear, and small blame to ye, for what do ye know about them except what ye see at petty sessions and evictions and the like? But I tell you a New York policeman is mighty different from an Irish peeler, and sure it makes all the difference whether ye’re arresting somebody else or gettin’ arrested yerself. It’s easy to get on

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the force, too, especially if ye have, as I had, a cousin who keeps a corner saloon and runs his ward and stands well to be an alderman before long. Talk about the rights of Irishmen; faix it’s nowhere they get their rights except in New York."⁴

The domineering Irish cook had been a popular character as early as the 1850’s. Bridget could be very haughty in an interview and was inclined to be particular about choosing her employers. She might want to know: "How many avenings can I have out o’ the wake fer coortin’? Does the masther belong to the Laigue of Deliverance? Have yez anny objections to me pore ould mither and me husband’s lame nevvy slapin’ in the kitchen?" When one employer asked Bridget how she was on fancy dishes, she replied that she was as easy as possible but still broke them sometimes. Another mistress wanted to know if she was a good cook. Bridget told her that she hadn’t missed an early mass in ten years. She dumped the ashes out of a burial urn; caught flies to put on fly-paper; and started innumerable cookstoves with kerosene, usually blowing up herself and the house. It did no good to tell her she was green because she took it for a compliment.

The Irish were well known for their control of politics; it was said that Ireland was the only place in the world they did not govern. A group of Irishmen were going to form the Patriotic Order of Sons of America to keep New England Yankees from intruding foreign notions into the government of New York, or as Puck called it, "New Cork."

Descended from old Irish kings
We’d rule the country and by
With Bishops, Cardinals and things
And then— No Yankee need apply.⁵

A large complaint registered against the Irish was their interference with American politics for the cause of Irish Independence. These efforts were thought to be wasted, because the Irish could never hope to free themselves from so powerful a nation as England. But it was obvious that the resistance movement was growing, and America was becoming a base for Irish incendiaries, dynamiters, and agitators, who, like the Fenians before them, wanted to get America into war with England. Bierce complained that the Irish were the only immigrant group that had the "habit of importing their uninteresting national grievances into the social life and politics of a country which these in no way concern, . . . and more than once almost succeeded in embroiling us in a quarrel with a power any one of whose warships could blow our navy out of the water and destroy our sea-board cities at its leisure."⁶

After the Irish, the Jews were the immigrants most frequently caricatured. The stereotype was marked by kinky black hair and a large

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crooked nose, so large that Jews supposedly had trouble smoking and kissing. Jewish immigrants were satirized for love of money, commercial dishonesty, and ostentation. In the comic magazines they possessed vulgar manners, wore loud clothes, and showed off their new wealth by a blazing display of diamonds and rhinestones. One man lost his diamonds and advertised a reward for them, saying they were of no utility to anyone but the owner.

Cohen told Moses that his cousin, who had been in the country only six months, was now doing business on Broadway. His line was matches, shoelaces, and suspenders, but anything a Jewish man worked at, even peddling, was a business. Often pictured as a pawnbroker or the owner of a small tailoring shop, the Jewish -merchant was a frequent character in the magazines. "Mose Schaumburg" made a regular appearance in Texas Siftings, and "Mr. Goldgrabber" delivered philosophical comments in Judge. In the cartoons Jewish merchants pulled customers off the sidewalks, sold ill-fitting clothes, falsified goods, and advertized fraudulently.

After Mr. Isaacs died, someone asked his widow if he had been resigned to going. He had been: there was no money in the clothing business anymore. A teacher gave a Jewish boy a problem in arithmetic: suppose he had nine cents and lost two; how much would he have left. Little Ikey was quite indignant; why should he lose two? Ikey once asked his father if money was the root of all evil. His father told him that it was, and he should do all the good he could for the world by getting it away from others. When someone asked Cohen to translate ten thousand dollars into Hebrew, Cohen said that was very good Hebrew just as it was. but in the last analysis money really didn’t bring happiness: it was just the interest that one collected on it that did.

One way that Jewish merchants supposedly got wealthy was for them to take out fire insurance and then have a fire. A father advised his son that honesty was a good policy in business, but a fire insurance policy was better. When Isaacs claimed to love his family so much that he would go through fire for them, Cohen replied that that was nothing. He had already been through three fires for his family, and still he didn’t have enough money to satisfy their extravagances. Someone found Rosenbaum crying in front of a burning building and asked him why: it wasn’t his store. "Dot’s why I’m crying," sobbed Rosenbaum.

Another method for a merchant to get rich quickly was to run up large debts, transfer all his property into his wife’s name, and declare bankruptcy, letting his creditors get what they could. A young man told the father of the girl he wanted to marry that his liabilities were only fifty thousand dollars, but he hoped to increase them to a hundred thousand

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shortly and better his prospects. Young Moses, in proposing, told his girl that the day he could put his property in her name would be the happiest of his life. Cohen found it amusing that the newspaper printed the notice of his failure under "Business Troubles." In fact, in the lexicon of American Jewry, "failure" came to stand for success. When little Ikey brought home his report card with all subjects marked "failure," his father told him he was a genius. The Rabbi tried to comfort the widow Silverbaum by saying that her late husband had very few failings. "Yes," cried the bereaved one, "dot vas his only fault."

Usury was another point for satire. In the following sketch Mr. Uppenstein advises Mr. Gurgenthal, an immigrant, how to succeed in America,

"Listen and I tell. You go to von streed dot iss calt Broatway. As t’rogh dot streed you valk, you obzerve dose signpoarts. After you haf walked for several miles, perhaps you come to a name vot iss nod Moses, or Solomons, or Maxheimer, or like vot your own iss. Maybe dat name be Smitt or Brown, but you go in and zay, ‘I haf for you come to vork.’ Right away you vork, and safe, vile de probiador he lofe und spend. Soon he say, ‘Vere to get some money, vill I?’ You say nodings, but vait until he oxited iss. Den you zay, ‘Some money I haf, but ze eentrist iss twelve ber cent, und judgment note.’ Zen you loan, und soon you a foreclosure make. Now, you take dot tam sign mit Smitt or Brown down, and Gurgenthal in ets place put."⁷

It was the belief of the humor magazines that the Wandering Jews had at last found a home in America. One Keppler cartoon portrays Uncle Sam as the modem Moses leading the Israelites through seas of oppression and intolerance to the promised land. The Arkansaw Traveler saw no reason for the founding of a Zion state, because the Jews were doing quite well in America. Not only did they have security under law, but they had financial opportunity as well and seemed to be making the most of it.

There was some editorial complaint about the business ethics of Jews. The Wasp compared their methods to the Chinese and said they had "come here to ‘cut under’ in trade just as the rat-eating class of chinamen are with us to reduce wages to nothing a day."⁸ Puck, in a backhanded manner, defended this commercial cunning. "The Jew is a purifying and healthful element in all business. He checks waste and extravagance; he enforces order and method; he sets an example of diligence and industry."⁹

Anti-Semitism in America began to appear after the Civil War when certain hotels and resorts began to impose restrictions. When Felix Adler complained of this discrimination against Jews, Life answered that they brought it upon themselves.

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Their manners and ways make their company unacceptable. A place filled with them is apt to be unpleasant to other folks. That is not because they are of Jewish race or of the Jewish religion but because so many of them are somewhat noisy and somewhat greedy; because their taste in dress and ornament is not admired; because they lack distinction and ease of manner.¹⁰

This prejudice, according to the comic magazines, was not likely to ameliorate, and the real reasons were not Jewish wealth, shrewdness, thrift, or ostentation. Prejudice arose because the Jews kept themselves apart from other Americans. They did not assimilate; they did not take on American ways. It was their exclusiveness that brought about discrimination. So bad was the situation becoming that Truth predicted the United States was getting ready for a Judenhetze. "In the course of time there will be a Ghetto in every big American city, and the barbarous cry that has been heard in Berlin may be heard even here. It is shameful, but it is so."¹¹

It is ironic that the comic magazines criticized the Jewish people for lack of acculturation when the traits of the Jewish personality that were found most objectionable were characteristics brought out by American life. In effect, the Jew was not censored as much for being a Jew as he was for being an American. If he was ostentatious in dress and manner, the fault lay more with the Gilded Age than with Judaism.

That American living had an effect on Jewish personality is evidenced by a change in the stereotype. In Abraham Cahan’s The Rise of David Levinsky (1917) the young scholar, David, and his friend are trying to find their way about New York.

At this moment a voice hailed us in Yiddish. Facing about, we beheld a middle-aged man. . . . Prosperity was written all over his smooth-shaven face and broad-shouldered, stocky figure. He was literally aglow with diamonds and self satisfaction. But he was unmistakably one of our people.¹²

This description is similar to the comic stereotype that developed in the 1880’s of the American Jew: corpulent, good humored, aggressive, and gaudily dressed. Until this figure emerged, a Jewish caricature had been marked by leanness, a long beard, a peddler’s pack, and a skull cap. Melville’s Redhurn had sold his fowling piece to "a curly-headed little man with a dark oily face, and a hooked nose," and whenever an artist wished to signify that a Jew was of recent immigration and as yet untouched by American life, he used the older sterotype. One cartoon and rhyme in Puck dramatically illustrates this difference between the American and European Jew. A lank, bearded peddler passes the store of Moses Cohen.

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