Pushcarts and Their Legacy
By Laurie Lewis
The first job of many newcomers to America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was selling food or other goods from a pushcart on the streets of New York City. A pushcart license cost just a few dollars, and vendors could make enough money to start their families on a new life. The pushcart peddlers served the needs of the immigrant community, too, selling necessary goods inexpensively right outside the tenement homes of hard-working residents like themselves.
In 1866, four pushcart peddlers on the Lower East Side defied a law mandating that pushcarts move to a different location every half hour. These vendors stayed on Hester Street, and more pushcarts soon joined them. Outdoor markets sprang up on Hester, Orchard, Essex, and other nearby streets in the rapidly growing neighborhood, which had long been the first American home for successive waves of immigrants from different lands.
The first job of many newcomers to America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was selling food or other goods from a pushcart on the streets of New York City. A pushcart license cost just a few dollars, and vendors could make enough money to start their families on a new life. The pushcart peddlers served the needs of the immigrant community, too, selling necessary goods inexpensively right outside the tenement homes of hard-working residents like themselves.
In 1866, four pushcart peddlers on the Lower East Side defied a law mandating that pushcarts move to a different location every half hour. These vendors stayed on Hester Street, and more pushcarts soon joined them. Outdoor markets sprang up on Hester, Orchard, Essex, and other nearby streets in the rapidly growing neighborhood, which had long been the first American home for successive waves of immigrants from different lands.
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