The Tenement Museum

The Tenement Museum is prestigious for its fine architecture and history that continues to relive itself. The tours of the museum show the lives of the people who once lived inside the tenements. The tours educate the visitors on historical events and display a museum unlike any other. The following essay will incorporate my experience at the museum along with the stories of the families that once dwelled in these tenements and lived during a time of economic struggle.
In the nineteenth century, families of all different kinds of races resided in tenements. The tenements I will be writing about are located on 96 Orchard Street in the lower east side of New York City. Every room tells a remarkable story of the lives
However, many families did not receive this same fortune when they were abandoned by the male figures and main providers in the home. To protect these families, a law was passed in 1935 called the Law of Aid to Dependent Children. This law enabled states to aid needy children without fathers. "There were several motivations for the program: to keep families together, to keep mother’s at home to raise their children and to keep children out of orphanages; to prevent children’s inadequate supervision and potential delinquency; and to limit the paid labor of the children and their parents" (Dolgoff, R. & Feldstein, D., 2007, p. 97). Certain eligibility requirements were necessary to receive this grant, but Nathalie for example, would have qualified because she was a single mother with children.
Apart from the Gumpertz family, we were also introduced to the story of a family called the Baldizzi's. The Baldizzi family lived in the tenement from 1928 to 1935. Life during the Great Depression was not easy, but the family was able to make a comfortable home at 97 Orchard Street. Although Adolfo (father) and Rosaria (mother) left their country of Italy for a better life in the United States, Adolfo struggled to find a job and Rosaria supported the family by working at a garment factory. Unfortunately, Rosaria had to quit when the job became a threat to the family’s benefits. Adolfo was trained as a woodworker in Italy so whenever he