Five years of life in the Lower East Side: 1908-1913

It was five years ago that my interest was sparked by Jim Rasenberger's January 2008 Smithsonian Magazine article entitled "1908: The Year that Changed Everything".

As I wrote after reading:

"It was a banner year for the Wright Brothers and their flying 'aeroplane'.

It was the year that Henry Ford's Model T went into production and the year that General Motors was founded.

1908 saw the race to the North Pole, the automobile race from New York to Paris, and the race to liberate the housewife via electric irons and toasters.

It was a year of tremendous change for the world and for the nation that had seen the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark's trek across the west only a century before.

1908. One-hundred years ago today.

Where was my family?"

It was a blog post that started a wave of responses. I had asked myself and my fellow genealogy bloggers the question: Where was your family in 1908? (You can read their responses here at Snapshots of the World Back in 1908.)

~

Five years have flown for me.

When I read Randy Seaver's latest Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge to write about the whereabouts of my ancestors one-hundred years ago in January 1913, I just had to find the time to do this exercise again. After all, this blog is called 100 Years in America!

In January 1908, my great-grandparents Ferencz and Ilona Ujlaki had been an ocean apart. He had immigrated to the U.S. and was trying to establish a new life for himself in New York before his wife and young son would join him. It would be another year before Ilona and the younger Ferencz would leave their native Legrad and make the ocean voyage from the port of Rijeka to New York City.

Fast forward five years to 1913. Much had changed for this little family. After arriving in March 1909, Ilona and her little one had been welcomed by Ferencz and settled into a tenement home in the Lower East Side of New York City. By January 1913, they probably already lived at 329 E. 16th Street, having moved a handful of blocks north from their home at 415 E. 5th Street.

You can read more about the neighborhood they lived in and the churches they attended at Disappearing Churches, Part 1: Manhattan's Immaculate Conception and Disappearing Churches, Part 2: Manhattan's St. Stephen of Hungary. Visit "To face whatever lies before us...": New York City disasters and the prayers of young mothers for a look at a tragic event that occurred in their neighborhood in 1911.

This map shows where the Ujlaky family resided at the time of the 1910 U.S. census (A) and the 1915 New York state census (B). They would remain living on E. 16th St. (although they moved to 431) until 1921.

The 1910 U.S. census shows the Ujlaky (misspelled Ujlakei) family of three living at 415 E. 5th Street. They are already using their Americanized first names. Young Frank is listed as four years old. Frank senior works as a "wheelright" in a "wagon house".

Ujlaky family at 415 E. 5th St., Manhattan in the 1910 U.S. census
(click to enlarge)

By December of 1913 the family had added three sisters and had moved north to 329 E. 16th Street, as shown in the 1915 New York state census below. Frank works as a "carriage maker".

Ujlaky family at 329 E. 16th St., Manhattan in the 1915 New York state census
(click to enlarge)

The closest photograph to January 1913 that I have of my great-grandparents is probably this wedding portrait. The bride Maria Gaspar is the cousin of my great-grandmother Ilona (now called Helen). Maria's wedding to Peter Gres must have been a beautiful celebration. My great-grandparents are seated and their two oldest children, Helene and Frankie, are standing at their sides. Someone else must have been holding baby Mitzi because she would definitely be born at the time of this wedding, but she does not appear in the portrait. My great-grandmother is either expecting or soon-to-be expecting her fourth child and third daughter Wilma.

Wedding of Peter and Maria (Gaspar) Gres, 1913

1900 - 1909: What happened in your family?

As we prepare to open the last year of this decade, it is natural to reminisce about where we were at its beginning: the year 2000. Much has changed for the world around us and for many of us individually, yet some things remain the same.

"From Y2K to where?" is the question that grips my mind.

I remember the soon to be unproven concerns that were in the news just prior to the new millennium, and I look now at the more tangible economic woes that many are facing.

I remember the days prior to the iPod, digital video recorders, cell phones with all the bells of whistles of today's models... I marvel at how I got along without my laptop and the speedy internet connection that I now take for granted.

So many other aspects of our lives have changed. What will the future hold?

That was the question that our ancestors may have been asking themselves one-hundred years ago as they turned the corner on the last year in the opening decade of the 20th-century. 1909 was the end of a decade of tremendous change, a decade that was the heart of the Progressive Era (1890-1913).

The decade was the first to see modern consumerism take off. In American homes, the Montgomery Ward and Sears catalogs were the second most popular books besides the Bible.

1900-1909 saw the advent of flight with the Wright brothers and welcomed Henry Ford's affordable Model T. Americans began adapting to the "aeroplane" and the automobile as a part of everyday life.

Families found entertainment in baseball, silent films, the radio and music from hand-cranked Vitrolas.

Newspapers saw the advent of sports pages and multi-frame cartoons. The publishing world introduced classics such as L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful World of Oz. It also created a stir with books like Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Susan B. Anthony's History of Woman Suffrage, and Ida Tarbell's The History of the Standard Oil Company.

In the first decade of the 20th-century, America (and the world) was reinventing itself.

How was my family changing?

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A year ago I asked myself the question, "Where was my family in 1908?" Composing the answer for each branch of my family was an enlightening exercise. Many of you took time to do the same. The result was a fascinating online "album": Snapshots of the world back in 1908.

I hope you'll join me as we welcome 2009 by taking some introspective time to look at some of your ancestors' lives during the first decade of the 20th-century. We know the world was changing quickly around them. Just how did their individual lives change from 1900-1909? Did they move or emigrate during this time period? How did their family grow or lose members? Did the occupation of the family breadwinner change? Did they have any other major changes in their lives during this very progressive decade one-hundred years ago?

I'll be posting a look at the changes in the lives of some of the members of various branches of my family. As you reminisce this new year about the last ten years of your life, I hope you'll join me in taking time to look back at your ancestor's lives one-hundred years ago.

1909 New Year postcard from the Elleanor Roberts Kreischer LaClair collection.

Nipper the dog courtesy of Wikipedia.

Upton Sinclair's The Jungle first edition 1906 cover courtesy of the online article Books that Changed America.

Snapshots of the world back in 1908

After reminiscing about my own Croatian/Hungarian ancestors' lives one-hundred years ago I wrote the post: Where was your family in 1908?

I've enjoyed the entertaining look at a cross-section of our world back in 1908 via the posts that many of you family historians have written in response to my question. Just for fun, I thought I would include them all here so that those of you who are interested could more easily step back in time one-hundred years ago along with all of us.

Here, thanks to the proud descendants of those that lived one-hundred years ago, is an album of snapshots of the year 1908. Enjoy your trip back in time...

If you'd like to first put the times into historical perspective, a good place to visit is Miriam Midkiff's AnceStories: The Stories of My Ancestories. Her post, entitled Where Was Your Family in 1908, is less about her own family and more about the major news highlights of the year. Miriam shares an overview of the year using a family history timeline journal that she recommends. She also shares a link to a site that can help take us back to the year 1908.

Like my Ujlaki family's, Stephen Danko's roots (well-documented on Steve’s Genealogy Blog) were not fully in the United States one-hundred years ago. Steve had only one of his grandparents living in the United States one-hundred years ago, although all would immigrate to the country within the next several years. In his post The Year was 1908 Steve introduces us to his grandparents from Galicia, Polish Russia and Lithuania.

Like Steve, Jasia of Creative Gene also found many of her family members living in what is now Poland back in 1908. Jasia placed her ancestors’ lives very nicely into historical context with her descriptions of the struggles of the Polish people one-hundred years ago. Her posts Snapshot 1908, Galician Partition of Poland and Snapshot 1908, Russian Partition of Poland give us a clear understanding of the reasons many of the Polish people had for considering emigration. Jasia’s posts include some nice family portraits and also a couple of historical videos of the villages where her grandparents lived. We also receive a nice glimpse back into the lives of the other side of Jasia’s family via her post Snapshot 1908, Detroit. Here Jasia details the lives of family members who had already immigrated to the United States and made their home in the motor city one-hundred years ago.

For the story of immigrants from another part of Europe, read the post I've written about one branch of my family, the Tierneys, at A Light That Shines Again. In my post entitled A remembrance: the Tierney family of Quincy, 1908, you can read about the path from poor Irish immigrant family in Boston's North End to thriving shipbuilding family in Quincy just decades later.

Speaking of Massachusetts, Bill West of West in New England gives us an overview of his family in 1908 at his post Where were they in 1908. Bill's family was in Massachusetts and Maine and possibly Ireland. Looks like he might need a little help from the Carnival of Irish Heritage & Culture's Irish Research edition. Here's hoping he can "get back to Ireland" this year...

Barbara Joly at Our Carroll Family Genealogy writes about her Irish Pennsylvania ancestors in her post Where was your family in 1908 ? Barbara shares some nice photos of some of her family members, including one of her great-grandfathers, a railroader born in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania who was said to have a gift for playing the organ.

I've written about another side of my family whose lives also revolved around the railroads in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania at Small-leaved Shamrock. A look back at Schuylkill County: 1908 reminisces about the days when coal was king and the railroad was the means of moving that coal in addition to being the livelihood of many Pennsylvanians, including my family.

Thomas MacEntee of Destination: Austin Family found all of his family living in New York in 1908, including a great-grandfather who had his visits to his grandmother written up in the local newspaper. Read his post My Ancestors in 1908 to learn more about Thomas' Manhattan, Bronx, Ulster County and Orange County, New York ancestors.

Apple of Apple’s Tree found it surprising how little she had written about her ancestors who lived during 1908. In the process of writing her post Where Were They 100 Years Ago? she searched for and found info about her Michigan, Indiana, New York and Ontario grandparents, great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents.

The Oracle of OMcHodoy's My Ancestors in 1908 is the place to find Colleen's Pennsylvania and Kansas ancestors one-hundred years ago. She describes the lives of each of her eight great-grandparents in that year and includes some very nice family portraits.

David of Oakville Black Walnut entitled his post simply 1908. David's post about about his Missouri family with German heritage "wins the prize" for the most neatly written list of ancestors living one-hundred years ago. And what a list it is!

Untangling her family's roots in the year 1908, Amy Crooks describes the whereabouts of her ancestors living in the west, including some Native Americans in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) and "a wild bunch" of farmers who had run-ins with the law. Read more at Amy's Where were your ancestors 100 years ago, 1908? and More of our families 100 years of history.

All My Ancestors displays a great family photo (house and all) in Oklahoma back one-hundred years ago. Along with the family photo is a blurb from the local newspaper bemoaning the health of one of the family members. View this hardy Oklahoma family and read the post at Where were they in 1908?

The Transylvania Dutchman John Newmark wrote his post Where was my family in 1908? Included among his relatives in Transylvania, Texas, St. Louis and other places is a set of great-great-grandparents who spent the year "traveling the world" it seems. John takes us on a tour of their travels from continent to continent and back again.

Jessica Oswalt's post 1908: Where Were My Ancestors? gives us an introduction to the places where her family was living in the year 1908. She includes mentions of her ancestors in England and those that had immigrated to the U.S. and were living in Michigan and Ohio.

Terry Thornton wrote about his family at Hill Country of Monroe County Mississippi. Can you guess where they were living at the time? Mississippi, Mississippi, Mississippi, Alabama and... Indian country? Read his post Where Was My Family 100 Years Ago? to learn the story of his Dad's family's trip to Indian country and back.

Lori Thornton at Smoky Mountain Family Historian found all of her family already living in Monroe County, Mississippi in the year 1908, with the exception of one who was the sheriff in another county. Read her family's overview at Monroe & Itawamba County Mississippi 1908.

Lee Anders wins the award for the most mathematically inclined post in this series with Five Score Years Ago. Along with doing the math to get her title, she did some more calculations and determined just exactly how many known living relatives she and her husband had in that year. She decided not to write about all of them (there are more than 200), but gives us a glimpse into the lives of a few who lived in North Carolina and Virginia.

Craig Manson at Geneablogie shares the whereabouts of his Texas, Louisiana and Missouri ancestors in his post Where Was Your Family in 1908? Included in Craig's family that year was his 98-year-old great-great-grandfather in Texas who had lived through the suffering of slavery, another great-great-grandmother who lived in Louisiana not far from where she had been held in slavery, and a great-grandfather who was a Baptist preacher in Kansas City.

At Kinexxions Becky wrote about her Midwestern Indiana farming ancestors in Where Was My Family in 1908? I wish I had a few Swiss ancestors as Becky does so that I could have one more good reason to visit the beautiful land of the Alps.

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings not only gives a detailed listing of his family members' residences in 1908 but also gives us a visual look back at many of those homes. His post Where were my ancestors in 1908? also provides some historical perspective of the times with a link to his listing of some facts about life one year earlier in 1907.

Like many of us, What's Past is Prologue's Donna Pointkouski found herself organizing a "mess of paper" to answer the question of her ancestors' whereabouts one-hundred years ago. Her post 1908: Where was your family? tells the stories of her German and Polish family members living in Philadelphia. I enjoyed Donna's closing words. They nicely put into perspective the fleeting lives of our ancestors and the short one-hundred years that separates us from some of them.

In taking this look back a century past, I hope that you have found (as I have) a new inspiration and strength for your own life today in 2008, one-hundred years later.

Now we are left to wonder: Where will our families be in the year 2108 - one-hundred years from now?

If I've missed your post describing your own family's whereabouts in 1908, please let me know so that I can include it in this "album of snapshots". I'll take submissions at any time until the stroke of midnight on December 31, 2008, so if you haven't written yours yet, go right ahead!

Images of the antique clocks thanks to the Clock Depot.

Where was your family in 1908?

It was a banner year for the Wright Brothers and their flying "aeroplane".

It was the year that Henry Ford's Model T went into production and the year that General Motors was founded.

1908 saw the race to the North Pole, the automobile race from New York to Paris, and the race to liberate the housewife via electric irons and toasters.

It was a year of tremendous change for the world and for the nation that had seen the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis & Clark's trek across the west only a century before.

1908. One-hundred years ago today.

Where was my family?

That was the question I asked myself after reading Jim Rasenberger's thought-provoking article in the January 2008 issue of Smithsonian Magazine. In 1908: The Year That Changed Everything, Rasenberger gives us a look back at the world one-hundred years ago. A nice summary of the article via the editorial department is located here.

I don't have the opportunity as Rasenberger did to spend several weeks reading the entire collection of New York Times back issues from the year 1908. (In his words, "It was like living in this 1908 time machine.") Nor do I know everything about my family members' lives that year. But what I do know makes me want to learn more.

Here's a little summary of the year from the viewpoint of the Ujlaki family:

Ferencz Ujlaki - almost 29 years old, Ferencz was living out his dream of becoming an American immigrant. He had left his young expectant wife behind in 1906 to go ahead and prepare a new life for her in the "new world". He arrived at Ellis Island, more than likely via the ship Ultonia. A resident of the Hungarian district of Manhattan, Ferencz was corresponding with her via letter and sending money home to Hungary for her support. He must have been anxiously awaiting her arrival in New York. It would be another year before she would arrive.

Ilona Ujlaki - just shy of 24 years, Ilona was mother to her young son, Ferencz, who was 19 months old in January of 1908. Ilona was preparing to join her husband in America the following year. During this time of waiting she was living first with her mother-in-law, Terezija Ujlaki, in Legrad.

Stjepan (age 51) & Magdalena Bence (age 48) welcomed Ilona and little Ferencz back into their home, supposedly after Ilona had found her mother-in-law hoarding the money Ferencz had sent from America. Ilona spent her remaining days with her parents before emigrating to join her husband.

Adam Bence - Ilona's younger brother was 20 years old in 1908. Two other sisters, Katarina and Louisa, were also living in Legrad. Ilona would correspond with Adam and his son Stjepan for many years throughout her life in New York. None of her siblings followed her to America. Instead, they remained in the Legrad area and their descendants live in Croatia today.

There were others, new Hungarian immigrants to New Jersey, who would later marry into the Ujlaki family. In 1908 they were beginning their new lives there just as Ferencz was trying to carve out a new life in Manhattan.

One-hundred years ago.

Thinking back to 1908, I can't help but compare that year with the present. In the words of Carey Winfrey of the Smithsonian editorial department as she summarized Rasenberger's article:

So how does one hundred years ago compare to the present? In some ways, particularly in urban America, very familiarly. "They rode the subway to work. They had electricity. They went to see movies, Broadway shows. They were interested in things we're interested in. They worried about diet. They worried that Christmas was becoming too commercialized." And yet, it was also a very different world. The disparity between rich and poor was vast, as it was between classes, sexes and races.

We, the descendants of those living out their dreams in 1908, can see with hindsight what a different world they lived in.

Where was your family in 1908?

Want to take a further look back at 1908 through the articles written by others who responded to my question? Read Snapshots of the world back in 1908 and enjoy a small cross-section of hundred-year-old history. Enjoy your trip back in time...