THE SEARCH: The search to find these two family pictures reveals the representation of the two groups. When googling “jewsh family portraits,” one can expect to find many black and white portraits, the majority in which the members are seated with the male in the center. Upon googling “mexican family portraits,” the pictures that came up were poor representations of Mexican families. Some of the pictures had nothing to do with actual Mexican families, and the first picture that comes up is of a family wearing “lucha” masks.
Upon arriving to America, it seems the male and females switched roles within their homes.
- In the old world: males devoted their time to studying scripture, so the women dominated the marketplace as they took control of the economic responsibilities of their family.
- In the new world: “In Russia, the wife had a business selling feed for horses, but in America, instead of supporting her husband’s studies, she persisted in sending him out to peddle, ‘America is not Russia, a man must make a living here.’” (Abraham Cahan)
Living conditions were uncomfortable for the Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the turn of the 20th century. A Jewish resident of the late 1800s recalls that “to live, a family of eight in three rooms seemed to us quite normal as was being without a bathroom and sharing the toilet with three neighbors.” (Family, American Jewish Virtual Library). The photo on the left was taken from the Jewish Women’s Archive Organization. (Jewish Women’s Archive. “A Family in a Tenement Apartment.” <http://jwa.org/media/family-in-tenement-apartment> )
The tenements functioned as a workplace as well. This photograph was taken by Lewis Hine in November of 1912 when he was documenting and spreading awareness of the harsh conditions of Jewish immigrant families on the Lower East Side. As seen in the picture, even young children helped out by doing piecework.
Upon settling in New York City, daughters became “emissaries of survival” according to Irving Howe. The 1911 Bureau of Labor study of wages, hours, and economic conditions show that Jewish daughters brought it almost 40% of their family’s yearly income. 
The 1916 survey of seven hundred single, mostly Jewish women show that the majority gave their unopened paychecks to their parents. The boys on the other hand, were allowed to keep more of their earnings as spending money. This photo on the right depicts boys playing a game of checkers on the lower east side. (This photo was published in an issue of The Forward, a Jewish newspaper founded in the Lower East Side by Eastern European immigrants in the turn of the 19th century.)
While the boys got to play games and have fun when they were not working, as depicted in the photograph, the girls had to help out with household chores when not working in factories.
Furthermore, this was normal and at many times, accepted by the girls. Theresa Albino, a flower-maker and daughter of Italian immigrants in the Lower East Side, gave all her earnings to her parents while her 18-year old brother only gave in a fraction of his. Her justification, “you know how it is with a boy, he wants things for himself” (Forman-Brunell) shows how commonplace this inequality was for immigrant families.
The Jewish girls working in the factories socialized with their fellow workers and started organizing themselves for labor rights as well as women’s rights. Howard Sachar, Howard Sachar in his article, “The International Ladies Garment Worker’s Union Strike” suggests, “in New York, Jewish women garment workers represented the very core of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.” The photo of the protestors was provided by the Library of Congress and shows two Jewish girls in 1909 NYC protesting for child labor reform.
