Gangs of New York - History Review

martin scorsese's 2002 film gangster new york based on herbert asbury's novel of the same name is a sweeping historical drama scorsese called the film a historical opera and i think that is pretty accurate this wide epic covers the irish priest valon his irish gang the dead rabbits and their multi-generational struggle against william the butcher cutting and his anti-immigrant and anti-catholic nativist gangs from massive gang battles to valen's son struggling with what it means to be irish or to have a father the film strongly focuses on the experience of irish immigrants in new york in the mid-1800s the film starts in 1846 with valen and concludes with his son who goes by amsterdam getting caught up in the 1863 new york city draft riots in this review we are going to examine the history behind the movie where it gets the history right and where it could have done better let's dive right into gangs of new york part one five points in new york city life martin scorsese went all out in recreating the five points area of new york city for this film located at a strange intersection of five street this area was notorious in the early 1800s for its drinking prostitution crime racial mixing and squalor for this film set he actually built multiple square blocks in rome in order to really capture the setting and he based it off multiple contemporary paintings and engravings we see the two-story wooden tenement buildings that were a staple of five points in the first half of the 1800s originally intended to be mixed-use development where shop owners could live and work in the same building landlords saw the influx of immigrants and decided to partition the buildings into multiple tiny tenement apartments in order to get more money this led to multiple families cramming into small often windowless spaces the courtyards of these tenements usually had one water pump which was right next to a few outhouses leading to very unsanitary conditions the first scene of the film shows the notorious brewery tenement which at one point reportedly housed over a thousand residents including some in the damp partially sunken basement these buildings often didn't have heat leading to very cold winters but the later brick tenements were stifling and hot in summer as late as 1858 the new york herald set of five points that it was a nest of drunkenness roguery debauchery vice and pestilence in 1842 charles dickens wrote the following description of five points here too are lanes and alleys paved with mud knee-deep underground chambers where they dance in game the walls bedecked with rough designs of ships and forts and flags and american eagles out of number ruined houses open to the street winds through wide gaps in the walls other ruins loom upon the eye as though the world of vice and misery had nothing else to show hideous tenements which take their name from robbery and murder all that is loathed some drooping and decayed is here so the neighborhood had a reputation well into the 1850s though historian tyler onbender notes that the irish immigrants were improving it and that by 1863 where most of the film takes place it wouldn't have been quite as bad in fact the brewery building i'm sorry to say was demolished by 1853 so other than the first scene it wouldn't have existed for the rest of the movie in fact by this point landlords were seeing even more dollar signs and were actually building four five-story brick tenements to cram in even more immigrants so the five points of the 1863 part of the film was a bit behind the times as far as the look what we see here is that the movie gets the feel and the themes of the era right though it really plays fast and loose with the actual years and events we'll come back to that in a little bit part 2 gang life in 19th century new york gang violence is a large part of the film and consequently was part of new york city life in the mid-19th century to quote luke sante in his 1991 work low life the basic unit of social life among young males in new york in the 19th century was as it perhaps is still and ever more shall be the gang the manhattan of the immigrants gangs were an important marker a sort of social stake driven in violence was a normal part of life in their always contested environment turf war was a condition of the neighborhood mary ryan in her work civic wars points out that public displays of mob democracy including violence weren't a bug of the early 19th century but a feature quote in 1834 and late into the next decade the streets of new york remained open and hospitable to democratic speech even when it got a little raucous in fact a riot was not so much a breakdown of democratic process as its conduct by another means the irish and nativist gangs of the film the bowery boys the plug uglies the dead rabbits the atlantic guard and so on were from the asbury book and were true to history in fact depictions of the bowery boys one of the nativist gangs with their suits and their distinct stovetop hats and bright colors are generally well done in the film historian tyler onbender points out that many of these gangs weren't just thieves robbers pickpockets or gamblers but rather political gangs meant to carve out a niche for their people or their beliefs the bowery boys in atlantic guard would go to defend their polling places or attack irish polling places during elections in fairness to the film some of these gangs were in a crime as we've seen in the newspaper and the dickens quotes about five points as well even the woman with her fangs and claws was based on a historical woman who went by hellcat maggie who supposedly did file her teeth and give herself claws for gang fights the film shows not just battles over criminal enterprises and turf but also battles over which police and fire franchises held sway in certain areas the movie also points out how the new york city metropolitan and municipal police were in fierce rivalries with one another leading to some wiggle room that allowed criminal gangs to fill the gaps the opening gang battle is an interesting set piece we are introduced to the hero characters both sides are color-coded and then we're treated to a massive fight between hundreds of individuals that left scores dead or wounded it almost looks like a medieval battle more than something from the mid-19th century so was new york city in the five points an eternal bloodbath the answer was rarely but there were a few instances where this was plausible in 1849 a bit after the first battle of the film a squabble between two actors and their supporters turned into an event known as the astor place riots taking place in may this turned into a three-day riot which did actually have nativist gangs fighting irish gangs and while it was a bit more complex both sides did end up having clashes with police and militia it ended with over 20 of the rioters killed and over 40 wounded with tens of police and militia wounded as well so while massive explosions of gang violence did happen unlike the film the police and militia would definitely have stepped in to try to break up such a large gang fight by the 1840s and beyond mary ryan points out that the police and militia made a concerted effort after astor place to take the streets back and reduce gang influence another candidate for a fight like this could be the 1857 dead rabbits riot the dead rabbits hoping to exploit the rivalry between the municipal and metropolitan police moved into the bowery neighborhood to try and increase their turf in their holdings like the film this would be accurate in that it was a group of irish gangs against generally anti-irish gangs and forces the riot did involve huge numbers but the end casualties were only 8 killed and 30-100 injured most gang violence usually only had one or two fatalities so the end result is that while scorsese did an entertaining job showing this medieval style battle going on in the middle of new york city these events were quite rare in the gang world but not impossible speaking of gangs let's take a closer look at the major antagonists of the film william the butcher cutting part 3 the butcher while the priest valin and his son amsterdam were fictitious there was an actual butcher named william poole he was a founding member of the bowery boys as we learned earlier they were a heavily political anti-catholic anti-irish and pro-protestant gang the historical pool was a boxer and a large guy and definitely known for political fighting his group would show up and cause trouble especially during elections but the real pool is less famous for being involved in the theft and taking of tribute that we see in the film most of his illegal activity in history involved his personal vices of gambling drinking and fighting he was also a firefighter so in the film when we see the fire companies battling for who's going to get to put out a fire in controlled territory that's pretty close to the actual history with poole just kind of within the wrong time frame if you're starting to see a trend in addition fool and his bowery boys were usually outside the five points and probably wouldn't have posted up in the middle of the irish stronghold but rather skirmish with them on the outskirts trying to protect what they saw as their territory he was said to be a competent knife fighter due to his butcher skills so that part was accurate a lot of this was depicted really well by the film but the end has changed a lot to make things more dramatic there was an irish assassination attempt on his life in 1855 but unlike the film it was successful john morrissey an irish immigrant who was a political and boxing rival of pools had him assassinated in march of 1855 and after several days a bullet in his leg killed poole morrissey was also a member of the tammany ring under boss tweed which the film shows by portraying the new york democratic political machine and the influx of irish immigrants and gangs getting caught up in it once again the film is getting the spirit of the times correct in the themes but it does a lot of fudging with the actual people and events and time frames speaking of the spirit of the film let's talk about one of the core stories of themes and gangs in new york part 4 the irish and u.s society the film starts with the priest valen explaining to a young amsterdam the importance of saint michael in the catholic faith and that tone really carries on throughout the movie the gangs the dirty politics and the draft riots of 1863 are all different aspects of the story of irish immigrants to the united states and new york city while irish immigrants had been coming to the united states for years the irish potato famine of 1845 and 1846 changed everything the 1845 and 1846 potato crops blighted by a fungus lost up to 90 percent of their yields during those two years for a population where the rural poor ate potatoes as a staple of their diet this led to over a million people starving and one and a half million people emigrating with hundreds and hundreds of thousands of those fleeing to the united states all this out of a nation of only 9 million people these hundreds of thousands of immigrants were flooding into a country of only 23 million people by 1850 the point is this was a pretty big change in the united states demographics the irish were also predominantly catholic and they were heading to a nation that was heavily protestant to quote fergus bordowicz in only 25 years from 1830 to 1855 the population of the five points area nearly doubled by then first generation immigrants accounted for 72 percent of the area's population one outcome of this new cruelly congested kind of city was the first american slum another was the street gang we already saw that as early as the 1830s tenements were trying to cram as many people into unsanitary conditions as possible in the five points with the arrival of new irish immigrants the tenements grew larger but even more packed with the newcomers this meant that from the 1830s to the 1850s new irish immigrants being catholic and in many cases poor refugees were seen as a threat by some americans known as nativists or know nothings these mainly protestant groups were staunchly anti-catholic and anti-immigrant which made the irish a double threat in their eyes they weren't just afraid of labor competition and jobs but also changes in culture they were often against drinking religious schools and any irish attempts to gain a foothold in government like i explained earlier this led to not just gang warfare caused by crime but frequently gang warfare caused by politics the film does a good job showing the importance of the irish trying to control aldermen fire brigades police and of course their first sheriff the irish were also seen by tammany hall as a useful source of votes and the new york city democrats did scoop them up and ally with them throughout the 1840s and 1850s john morrissey that irish immigrant who had the historical bill the butcher pool killed ended up being a democratic politician for new york that said that seen with the irishmen being made citizens and immediately recruited to the military off the boat is a stretch at that time citizenship would usually take five years but going into the army would reduce that to one year because of that many young irishmen did join the union army to expedite the process of citizenship but the ship scene dials this up to 11 and makes it just a bit too far-fetched also for good measure voting at that time wouldn't have been done behind a curtain with a pencil in fact the lack of privacy and voting was one of the contributing factors to the level of violence intimidation and coercion that went on during elections which the film does a really good job at illustrating overall the film gets the spirit of the irish experiences in the u.s more or less correct even if it's off by about a decade for example the know-nothings as an official political party were fading out of favor by the 1860s so seeing a know-nothing poster in 1863 would have probably been unlikely though nativist sentiment was still around newspaper and cartoon depictions of the irish often showed them as sub-humans or as a catholic threat to protestant children no irish need apply signs did exist in the u.s and were often posted alongside signs disregarding black workers as well that said by the 1860s unbender argued that the irish were starting to improve the five points and establish themselves he even points out that gang fights in the five points by 1863 were more likely to have been irish on irish instead of irish against nativist nolan native in his book how the irish became white points to the irish joining police and fire departments as a major tool for becoming seen as white or american if you click this link you can see more about the history of whiteness in the us but the film actually points out that the irish were not seen as white when bill the butcher uses the n-word to refer to a would-be irish assassin the film isn't just about a fight between rival criminal enterprises but the definitions of what it means to be white or what it means to be american that brings us to the final scene of the film and how it discusses race part 5 the 1863 draft riots and race amsterdam though taken under the butcher's wing in the film never forgives him for the death of his father this sets up a climactic final battle between the butcher and amsterdam the confederacy of american patriots and the dead rabbits the nativists and the irish then as the two sides are about to have their final battle they're completely overtaken by the events of the 1863 new york city draft riots the film had been building up to this event subtly throughout we see nativists yelling and throwing slurs at black citizens we see unrest about the fact that men were exempt from the draft for 300 thus portraying it as a war for the rich fought by the poor at one point nativists yell out that lincoln wants to make white men into slaves at first it seems like the film is going to take the easy way out and only show the nativists as being the viral racist and then the riot scene occurs let's get some inaccuracies out of the way the draft riots were in july not in the middle of winter and the union navy did not shell new york city but right when i thought the film wouldn't be realistic in its portrayal about race they show mostly irish mobs performing lynchings you hear the ticker tech's talk about black boarding schools and orphanages being raided right along with government buildings the irish and other immigrant groups with many lower semi-skilled workers viewed free black people as direct labor competition as such at least 10 black people were lynched during the riots so it wasn't just about the draft in opposition to a war for the union and to end slavery earlier we discussed how nolagnative and how the irish became white use civic service and ethnic pride as well as their gang to establish themselves as american he also argued that they used violence against black people to distinguish themselves as white we saw the butcher directly compare the irish to black people using a slur in the film but depictions of the irish's non-white or direct comparisons with african americans were not uncommon the irish were not just in labor competition with african americans but they were in a battle to carve out a slice of whiteness the film makes sure to include the racial economic and political stresses that led to the draft riots and it doesn't dance around any of these issues including race if you take out the gang battle the union navy and it being winter this depiction is visceral but pretty close to reality with this event being part of the irish quest for belonging it makes sense now why scorsese fudged so many of the other events to fit this finale into the timeline to drive the point home the draft riots interrupt the final gang battle leading to a rather anticlimactic struggle between a tired and depleted amsterdam and cutting as if to show that the focus of society and new york city had moved on by then speaking of race fans of the depictions of chinatown and the chinese in this film would be disappointed to know that again scorsese's playing fast and loose with the time frame chinatown becomes an important part of new york city but the chinese population in new york was small at this time and chinese women were rare enough that newspapers would remark when they gave birth to children by the later 1800s you might see more chinese immigrants but by 1863 this wasn't quite accurate part six conclusions overall scorsese did a fantastic job capturing the look and feel of new york in the five points in the early to mid 1800s while his depictions are more in line with the 1830s and 1840s rather than the 1840s to 1860s he captures the irish first nativist conflict to the irish verse black worker conflict the corruption of the democratic machine in new york the class struggles between rich and poor and the use of public displays of democracy including violence in the mid-19th century if you can put aside most of the people being fabricated or being in the wrong time period and the dates being messed up by a couple decades then this story does a great job capturing the themes of the era if not the actual history itself professor onbender gave it an a for theme but a c for the actual historical accuracy and i'm inclined to agree with his assessment as a film i love it though nearly three hours of run time does make it a bit of a beast some have accused it of cherry-picking atrocities and the worst riots in american history to portray american a negative light but i personally believe that showing the mob politics and riots as part of american life in the first half of the 1800s is something that audiences need to see there were gangs they were often ethnic and political and they quite literally brawled and battled as an extension of democracy for their peace of the american pie thank you all for watching and thank you for my patrons who made this video possible special thanks to irish thunder for being the executive producer and suggesting this topic want to suggest a film or topic for me to cover next head to patreon.com history clarified to support the channel i hope you enjoyed watching and as always stay excited about history

Channel: History Clarified

Views: 2,050,641

Keywords: Is Gangs of New York accurate?, Did gangs of new york happen?, Gangs of new york history, gangs of new york review, five points history, Gangs of New York review, Irish history, gangs of new york, gangs of new york history review, history of gangs of new york, history buffs, gangs of new york history buffs

Id: 0F2HC51TydQ

Length: 20min 27sec (1227 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 17 2020