The great kosher meat war of 1902 is the
wildest protest you’ve never heard of
By Reed
Tucker-November 16, 2020 | 4:38pm
Crowds gather in front of a
butcher shop in the early 1900s. The organizers expected just 50 people. But on
May 15, 1902, nearly 500 women packed into the meeting hall at 88 Monroe St. on
the Lower East Side, with more gathered outside.
“New
York never saw such a huge gathering of Jewish women,” one of the local
newspapers proclaimed.
And
the women were angry. The ladies took turns addressing the crowd, but it was
Fanny Levy, a 35-year-old mother of six, who had the line of the evening.
Lamenting the lack of results that efforts from others had brought, Levy
exhorted the crowd, “This is their strike? Let the women make a strike; then
there will be a strike!”
For
an early example of activism and the power of women in New York City, look no
further than the kosher meat strike of 1902 — a mostly forgotten incident that
tore the Lower East Side apart. “This is an early example of consumer
activism,” says Scott D. Seligman, author of the new book, “The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902:
Immigrant Housewives and the Riots That Shook New York City”
(Potomac Books).
The
trouble began when the price of kosher beef shot up some 50 percent in just a
few months. “At 18 cents a pound — $5.25 in today’s dollars — kosher beef was
now beyond the reach of families that had to pinch pennies to make ends meet,”
the author writes.
The
Lower East Side’s massive Jewish community was understandably upset and felt
the price hike was due to more nefarious forces than just simple supply and
demand. They weren’t wrong. “There was no question the price was being
manipulated,” Seligman said.
‘We must take a hand in this meat
fight’
Inside
a kosher butcher shop in New York City.
By
the turn of the century, most New Yorkers were getting their meat from Chicago
slaughterhouses. Cattle were raised in Midwestern fields, killed in industrial
mills, then the carcasses were shipped east on refrigerated rail cars.
Kosher
beef, however, had numerous restrictions — most crucially that it had to be
soaked in salt water no more than 72 hours after the animal had been killed.
The
prohibition meant that kosher beef had to be trucked in from the Midwest alive
and butchered in one of New York’s fast-disappearing abattoirs. The extra steps
made kosher meat more expensive than nonkosher meat.
The
meat was then distributed by a wholesaler to the numerous Jewish butcher shops
that dotted the Lower East Side. “[Jewish women] bought meat frequently and in
small quantities; economies of scale from larger purchases were out of reach
for most, not only because of a shortage of cash, but also a lack of iceboxes,”
Seligman writes.
From
a supply perspective, the problem was that nearly the entire American beef
business at the time was controlled by just four firms. “It is alleged that
these firms have an agreement, which makes it possible for them to boost the
price of fresh meats whenever they want to,” the New York Sun wrote at the
time.
The
so-called beef trust was engaging in price fixing, leading to the spike in
prices.
At
first, the butchers (most of whom were only making about $10 a week) tried to
boycott the wholesaler in hopes of forcing a price reduction. But their action
was sporadic, with some shops remaining open.
Ultimately,
that boycott failed to bring results.
That’s
when the women got involved. “These were middle-aged, Orthodox, not terribly
educated, immigrant women who had not been in the US for so long,” Seligman
said. “They were living in tenements on the Lower East Side. Most didn’t work
outside the home.” They quickly banded together, coming up with a plan for
action.
“The
time has arrived when we must take a hand in this meat fight,” a Yiddish flyer
printed at the time read. “With our money, the butchers buy diamonds and wear
diamonds . . . Now, what shall we say, dear sisters, when they give us stone
and bone and charge us 5 cents more?”
The
group agreed to station five women on each block containing a kosher butcher
shop to “dissuade customers from patronizing them.” After that Monroe Street
meeting, the women were out in the streets, some 3,000 strong.
“These
immigrant women, who can barely muster English taking to the streets, that got
me interested,” the author writes. “My grandmother and great-grandmother were
living on Orchard Street, and I like to believe they were involved.” It didn’t
take long for trouble to kick off.
Windows smashed, protesters beaten
A group of Lower East Side women
talk with a potential buyer outside a butcher shop.
On
Cherry Street, a butcher named Jacob Kalinsky sold a piece of chuck steak to a
customer. The women watching his shop pounced on the customer when she emerged
from the shop, grabbing the meat and tossing it into the gutter.
They
then burst into the shop and began destroying the butcher’s stock.
The
police soon arrived and arrested 11 women. As they carted them off, a group of
more Jewish women assembled, who pelted the officers with meat. “One woman, a
nursing baby in her arms, flung a plate at a policeman, knocking the helmet off
his head,” Seligman writes.
Windows
of butcher shops were smashed, and protesters beaten.
The
next morning the neighborhood “looked as though it had been bombed.” But the
women returned the streets, some carrying sticks and “well-sharpened nails.”
On
Saturday, the demonstrators made the rounds of the synagogues in the
neighborhood, trying to enlist more to their cause.
Some
received them warmly. Others dismissed them. One rabbi insisted the women were
ignorant and not competent to manage a boycott. East River slaughterhouses in
the early 1900s. Over the next several days, the boycott dragged on.
“It
will be a question of endurance between us,” one of the women, Caroline
Schatzberg, said at the time. “If the retailers can afford to pay rent and do
no business, I guess we can afford to do without meat. Fish and vegetables are
pretty good food at this time of year, and we can stand it as long as they
can.”
The
sporadic violence continued as well, and the boycotters found other creative
ways to dissuade customers from patronizing butcher shops.
“The
women went from shop to shop and asked at each one to examine the various
grades of beef offered for sale,” the author writes. “After it was brought out
of the ice box, they would handle it as much as possible and expose it to air
in an effort to spoil its fresh appearance . . . They left each store without
making any purchases.”
Change
was on the way
A
cartoon by Charles L. Bartholomew, circa 1902, depicts President Theodore
Roosevelt holding a gun while a cow labeled “beef trust” sits on the moon
reading a newspaper.
By
the end of May, the boycott won a huge victory when the Butchers’ Association
agreed to join the cause, saying that they were “ready to close their stores
and align themselves with the people to oppose the [beef producers].”
The
women also took matters into their own hands. They raised money within the
community and opened a cooperative butcher shop. The store, located at 245
Stanton St., was run by a woman named Sarah Cohn.
On
its opening day, the store was mobbed.
“Housewives
with their baskets stood in line a block away,” the New-York Tribune wrote at
the time. “Men left their work and waited for hours to get the first meet the
family had tasted for weeks. People rose before daylight to be the first at the
door.”
Ultimately,
the price of kosher meat in all local butcher shops fell to affordable levels,
a reduction driven in part by the federal government’s investigation of the
meat industry’s price fixing.
But
the marginalized people of New York had learned an important lesson, according
to Seligman: “They no longer needed any coaxing or convincing that they had the
ability to change their situation. “Bustling Lower East Side markets are
visited by patrons.
