Description - The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots That Shook New York City by Scott D. Seligman
The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902 recounts the inspiring story of immigrant women and the dramatic and effective mass consumer action they launched in turn of the century New York City. In the wee hours of May 15, 1902, three thousand Jewish women quietly took up positions on the streets of Manhattan's Lower East Side. Convinced by the latest jump in the price of kosher meat that they were being gouged, they assembled in squads of five, intent on shutting down every kosher butcher shop in New York's Jewish quarter. What was conceived as a nonviolent effort did not remain so for long. Customers who crossed the picket lines were heckled and assaulted, their parcels of meat hurled into the gutters. Butchers who remained open were attacked, their windows smashed, stocks ruined, equipment destroyed. Brutal blows from police nightsticks sent women to local hospitals and to court. But soon Jewish housewives throughout the area took to the streets in solidarity, while the butchers either shut their doors or had them shut for them. The newspapers called it a modern Jewish Boston Tea Party. The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902 tells the twin stories of mostly uneducated female immigrants who discovered their collective consumer power and of the Beef Trust, the midwestern cartel that conspired to keep meat prices high despite efforts by the U.S. government to curtail its nefarious practices. With few resources and little experience but steely determination, this group of women organised themselves into a potent fighting force and, in their first foray into the political arena in their adopted country, successfully challenged powerful, vested corporate interests and set a pattern for future generations to follow. AUTHOR: Scott D. Seligman is a writer and historian. He is the author of several books, including Tong Wars: The Untold Story of Vice, Money, and Murder in New York's Chinatown and The First Chinese American: The Remarkable Life of Wong Chin Foo. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, the Seattle Times, and the China Business Review, among other publications. He has worked as a legislative assistant to a member of the U.S. Congress, lobbied the Chinese government on behalf of American business, and managed a multinational public relations agency in China. 22 photographs, 11 illustrations, 1 map, 1 table, 1 chronology
Buy The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots That Shook New York City by Scott D. Seligman from Australia's Online Independent Bookstore, BooksDirect.
Other Editions - The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots That Shook New York City by Scott D. Seligman
A Preview for this title is currently not available.
Available to order, ships in 8-11 business days
Murder in Manchuria: The True Story of a Jewish Virtuoso, Russian Fascists, a French Diplomat, and a Japanese Spy in Occupied China
A Second Reckoning: Race, Injustice, and the Last Hanging in Annapolis
