You Must Remember This: An Oral History of Manhattan from the 1890's to World War II - Hardcover

Kisseloff, Jeff

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151879885 ISBN 13: 9780151879885

Publisher: Harcourt, 1989

Synopsis

Profiles Manhattan neighborhoods from the turn-of-the-century through World War II, drawing on the reminiscences of those who lived in them and offering photographs of the narrators then and now

About this title

From the Back Cover

In You Must Remember This, Jeff Kisseloff brings together 137 New Yorkers who witnessed daily life in Manhattan from the 1890s to World War II. Dividing the city into ten neighborhoods and devoting a chapter and about a dozen voices to each, Kisseloff offers a brief historical introduction, then lets the eyewitnesses speak for themselves. We hear a survivor's account of the harrowing Triangle Shirtwaist fire as well as tales of the sweatshops, the settlement houses, and the immigrants from around the world who poured into the Lower East Side at the turn of the century. There are vignettes of John Reed, Louise Bryant, Eugene O'Neill, and Edna St. Vincent Millay. We read of the bloody beginnings of the seamen's union and, down the street from the docks, visit with Thomas Wolfe and Edgar Lee Masters in the Hotel Chelsea. In Harlem, the Savoy and the cotton Club were in their heyday, as were Fats Waller, Billie Holiday, and Adam Clayton Powell. Throughout the book, Kisseloff engages us in a unique conversation between an all-but-bygone time and our own.

About the Author

Jeff Kisseloff is a native New Yorker whose grandfather owned a dry goods shop on Orchard Street. He holds a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University and currently works out of his Westchester County home as a freelance writer.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harcourt
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0151879885
• ISBN 13: 9780151879885
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 622