In 1841, English author Charles Dickens toured the United States. Dickens was known for his sympathetic depictions of the poor and working-class residents of English cities. However, American Notes, which he wrote about his time in the U.S., attacked…

This essay introduces Manhattan's Five Points neighborhood and the people who lived there.

The archeological excavation of the Foley Square Courthouse at 500 Pearl Street, located near the former intersection that once comprised the Five Points neighborhood, yielded over 850,000 artifacts, some of which are depicted below. The artifacts…

This worksheet helps students analyze the 1827 print depicting New York City's Five Points neighborhood.

This worksheet helps students analyze Davy Crockett's 1834 recollections of a visit to Five Points in New York City.

This worksheet helps students analyze Charles Dickens' observations about the Five Points neighborhood during his 1841 visit to the United States.

This letter home from 23-year-old Irish emigrant Margaret McCarthy captures both the opportunity and adversity awaiting arrivals to a new land. McCarthy sailed from Liverpool on the Columbus on September 7, 1849, and arrived in New York on October…

Troubled by evidence of extreme poverty in the nation's industrializing cities, many Protestant reformers set up mission houses in poor, immigrant neighborhoods to minister to the needs of the largely Catholic residents. But a cultural abyss divided…

This 1855 newspaper account of election day in lower Manhattan is filled with the reporter's assumptions about the Five Points immigrant neighborhood and its residents. Irish immigrants had by this time garnered a reputation for disorderliness and…

The following are excerpts from the diaries of George Templeton Strong (1820-1875), a prominent New York lawyer. Written between 1838 and 1857, the entries reveal Strong's undisguised contempt for the Irish immigrants who were then flooding the city.…