Liquor and Tammany Hall: The Dead Rabbit Riots

The Dead Rabbit Riot was a gang fight in 1857 between the Dead Rabbits, comprised mostly of Catholic Irish-American men, and the Bowery Boys, who were made up mostly of nativistic American-borns. Taking place around the Fourth of July holiday, the conflict stemmed from a number of points of contention, the first of which being growing nativist sentiment among people born in America. The late 1800s came with a massive influx of European immigrants, especially into New York, and this created resentment and frustration among people whose families had lived in America for a long time as they feared their jobs being taken and their cultural values being diluted or compromised. A particular cultural clash between native born Americans and recent immigrants is the Irish and German cultural emphasis on alcohol and social drinking. Saloons and groceries were important gathering places for Irish and German places, but the rise of Protestant social reform movements made it so that drinking, especially socially, was a massive point of conflict. This issue manifested itself in politics, as the corrupt Tammany Hall political machine (supported by Irish immigrants) clashed with the rest of the New York city and State governments. These conflicts ultimately came down to competition for economic resources (i.e. jobs) and competition for culture (saloons vs. temperance movements). We can see similar conflicts (albeit on a much smaller and less violet scale) in gentrifying neighborhoods. Cultural differences and economic and policy changes as a result of neighborhood newcomers create tensions between neighbors in a similar vein to the Dead Rabbit Riots, although almost always without that level of violence.