opportunity to accost strangers at will, whether for legal or illegal purposes. But by the 1820s, the propertied classes had begun to make systematic efforts to protect themselves from such “unwanted intrusions from the streets.” 9
John Pintard was one such propertied man. He was deeply troubled by the increasing visibility of poor people and by the danger their aggressive behavior posed to respectable New Yorkers. 10 Pintard was the moving force behind the establishment, in 1817, of the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, an organization designed to put both a cap on the skyrocketing costs of poor relief and a stop to the public begging and drinking of the poor in order to make the city streets a safe place for people like himself. 11 Needless to say, all these efforts failed. By 1828 Pintard was acknowledging that the problems of poverty, drinking, and street crime had, “I confess, baffled all our skill…. The evil is obvious, acknowledged by all, but a sovereign remedy appears to be impossible.” 12
It should come as no surprise that all of these developments were reflected in the transformation of the Christmas season. As early as 1772, a New York newspaper complained that the absence of “decency, temperance, and sobriety” at Christmas was so serious a matter that it belonged in the courts. The problem was caused by “[t]he assembling of Negroes, servants, boys and other disorderly persons, in noisy companies in thestreets, where they spend the time in gaming, drunkenness, quarreling, swearing, etc., to the great disturbance of the neighborhood.” The behavior of these rowdies was “so highly scandalous both to religion and civil government, that it is hoped the Magistrates will interpose to suppress the enormity.” 13
By 1820 Christmas misrule had become such an acute social threat that respectable New Yorkers could no longer ignore it or take it lightly. What Susan G. Davis has demonstrated in her study of Philadelphia in this period holds equally true of New York. By the 1820s bands of roaming young street toughs, members of the emerging urban proletariat, were no longer restricting their seasonal reveling to their own neighborhoods; they had begun to travel freely, and menacingly, wherever they pleased. Often carousing in disguise (a holdover from the old tradition of mumming), these street gangs marauded through the city’s wealthy neighborhoods, especially on New Year’s Eve, in the form of callithumpian bands, which resembled (and may have overlapped with) the street gangs that were now vying for control of the city’s poorer neighborhoods. Throughout the night these bands made as much noise as they could, sometimes stopping deliberately at the houses of the rich and powerful. 14 In 1826, for example, such a gang stopped in front of the Broadway house of the city’s mayor; there they “enacted” what a local newspaper termed “a scene of disgraceful rage.” 15 The next year another newspaper sarcastically described these same gangs as “a number of ill-bred boys, chimney sweeps, and other illustrious and aspiring persons” whose sole purpose was “to perambulate the streets all night, disturbing the slumbers of the weary … by thumping upon tin kettles, sounding penny[whistles] and other martial trumpets.” 16 John Pintard would have understood.
In 1828 there occurred an extensive and especially violent callithumpian parade, complete with the standard array of “drums, tin kettles, rattles, horns, whistles, and a variety of other instruments.” This parade began along the working-class Bowery, where the band pelted a tavern with lime; then it marched to Broadway, where a fancy upper-class ball was being held at the City Hotel; then to a black neighborhood, stopping at a church where the callithumpians “demolished all the windows, broke the doors [and] seats,” and beat with sticks and ropes the African-American congregants who were holding a “watch” service; next, the
John Pintard was one such propertied man. He was deeply troubled by the increasing visibility of poor people and by the danger their aggressive behavior posed to respectable New Yorkers. 10 Pintard was the moving force behind the establishment, in 1817, of the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, an organization designed to put both a cap on the skyrocketing costs of poor relief and a stop to the public begging and drinking of the poor in order to make the city streets a safe place for people like himself. 11 Needless to say, all these efforts failed. By 1828 Pintard was acknowledging that the problems of poverty, drinking, and street crime had, “I confess, baffled all our skill…. The evil is obvious, acknowledged by all, but a sovereign remedy appears to be impossible.” 12
It should come as no surprise that all of these developments were reflected in the transformation of the Christmas season. As early as 1772, a New York newspaper complained that the absence of “decency, temperance, and sobriety” at Christmas was so serious a matter that it belonged in the courts. The problem was caused by “[t]he assembling of Negroes, servants, boys and other disorderly persons, in noisy companies in thestreets, where they spend the time in gaming, drunkenness, quarreling, swearing, etc., to the great disturbance of the neighborhood.” The behavior of these rowdies was “so highly scandalous both to religion and civil government, that it is hoped the Magistrates will interpose to suppress the enormity.” 13
By 1820 Christmas misrule had become such an acute social threat that respectable New Yorkers could no longer ignore it or take it lightly. What Susan G. Davis has demonstrated in her study of Philadelphia in this period holds equally true of New York. By the 1820s bands of roaming young street toughs, members of the emerging urban proletariat, were no longer restricting their seasonal reveling to their own neighborhoods; they had begun to travel freely, and menacingly, wherever they pleased. Often carousing in disguise (a holdover from the old tradition of mumming), these street gangs marauded through the city’s wealthy neighborhoods, especially on New Year’s Eve, in the form of callithumpian bands, which resembled (and may have overlapped with) the street gangs that were now vying for control of the city’s poorer neighborhoods. Throughout the night these bands made as much noise as they could, sometimes stopping deliberately at the houses of the rich and powerful. 14 In 1826, for example, such a gang stopped in front of the Broadway house of the city’s mayor; there they “enacted” what a local newspaper termed “a scene of disgraceful rage.” 15 The next year another newspaper sarcastically described these same gangs as “a number of ill-bred boys, chimney sweeps, and other illustrious and aspiring persons” whose sole purpose was “to perambulate the streets all night, disturbing the slumbers of the weary … by thumping upon tin kettles, sounding penny[whistles] and other martial trumpets.” 16 John Pintard would have understood.
In 1828 there occurred an extensive and especially violent callithumpian parade, complete with the standard array of “drums, tin kettles, rattles, horns, whistles, and a variety of other instruments.” This parade began along the working-class Bowery, where the band pelted a tavern with lime; then it marched to Broadway, where a fancy upper-class ball was being held at the City Hotel; then to a black neighborhood, stopping at a church where the callithumpians “demolished all the windows, broke the doors [and] seats,” and beat with sticks and ropes the African-American congregants who were holding a “watch” service; next, the
Similar Books
