The Rag Trade

During the Victorian period the Jewish communities of London and New York were involved in the old clothes trade, acquiring garments from the wealthy who discarded them when new fashions came in, or from the family of recently deceased people. Other sources included obsolete military uniforms and (supposedly) clothes taken from deceased hospital and workhouse inmates or stolen from washing lines. When yellow fever broke out in New York, nativists were quick to accuse the Jews of selling infected (and stolen) clothes:

London Labour and the Labouring Poor

Blackwood's Magazine

Harper's Monthly (this one has some shockingly racist stereotypes)


Edited by Nick1986 - 26-Nov-2011 at 18:00

The Jews of Georgian England

Here we still use name "strachara"(strazzaria) for hand made house/shop in poor conditions.Now I know why.Jews were citizens with constrained rights:Why did do this to them?


Edited by medenaywe - 29-Nov-2011 at 14:02

In the early 19th ce America that honor was also ascribed to the Irish...and later with every signficant immigrant group to hit the east or west coast. In Tejas; it was reserved for Mexicans and Comanches.

Originally posted by Nick1986 Is that the reason why modern-day Americans make fun of the Poles? As the Germans, Irish and Chinese have assimilated, people seek a new minority to ridicule and compare themselves to

Jews in medieval Venice:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0020_0_20364.html

Photos of London's Jewish community:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2101018/Rabbis-rags-rainy-Whitechapel-Stunning-photos-celebrate-Jewish-life-post-war-East-End.html