Browse Primary Sources
"65 Cents an Hour - A Special Report" - Jane H. Lii - New York Times
"The steel doors opened into a dim, dusty warehouse. Red and blue rags covered the four windows, shutting out all natural light. Bundles of cut cloth sat piled in haphazard mounds, some stacked taller than a worker. Under fluorescent lights swinging from chains, rows of middle-aged Chinese women hunched over sewing machines, squinting and silent. . . . "
The New York Times 1995-03-12
VIII-"I Lived in a Slum" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram and Sun
Most of New York City's slum dwellers live in ignorance and fear.During my "life" in the tenement jungles, I talked to scores of tenants who were completely unaware of their basic rights under housing laws. And because of this ignorance, they are exploited and housed in quarters intolerable for decent human beings.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-06-30
VII-"I Lived in a Slum" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram and Sun
As part of my assignment to live in slums for a month, I wanted the experience of trying to get on relief. My role was that of an unemployed and inexperienced actor who drifted here from Los Angeles.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-06-29
IV-"I Lived in a Slum" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram and Sun
It's almost a blessing that Old Sam can't see the squalor of the one-room dungeon where he lives with his faithful wife in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.Old Sam is blind.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-06-26
III--"I Lived in a Slum" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram and Sun
Francisco and his seven small children are trapped in a dingy, unventilated two-room flat in a cankerous community called "Korea" in the Lower East Side.Francisco was one of the first tenants I met after I became a slum dweller in that area of the city last month. My $10-a-week hole in the wall in a cheap rooming house on Forsyth St. was barren, rat infested.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-06-25
Editorial: "I Lived in the Slums" - Unsigned - World Telegram & Sun
This is probably the first time we've ever asked our readers to refer to yesterday's paper. But we emphatically urge just that for any readers who may have missed reading the opening article in Woody Klein's "I Lived in a Slum" series.Seldom has a story revealed in such dramatic and explicit terms the atrocious conditions under which more than a million New Yorkers live. Today's article and those that will fellow present further shocking documentation of a great city's shame.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-06-24
VI-"I Lived in a Slum" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram and Sun
Twenty years ago W. 84th St. was a "good address" in a highly respectable neighborhood inhabited by successful, middle-class residents of New York City. It was clean, well-kept, a community of traditional four and five-story brownstones.But neglect, indifference and subsequent deterioration have lowered this once-select area to a hodge-podge of rooming houses and dreary apartment buildings.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-06-27
II-"I Lived in a Slum" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram and Sun
I was sitting in a dark, flooded basement apartment in the heart of the Upper West Side "jungle" during a heavy rainstorm. Water was coming in through holes in the roof, pouring down the walls of the five-story building and forming a pool three inches deep on the wooden floor.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-06-23
I-"I Lived in a Slum" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram and Sun
More than one million people are living in the filth and squalor of New York City's slums. The blighted areas of overcrowded, rundown homes are spreading farther and farther through the city.Although the Welfare Department spends $16 million a month to help some of these destitute families, thousands upon thousands of them are trapped in festering tenements, rooming houses and ramshackle dwellings.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-06-22
XI- "Boy on the Brink" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram & Sun
When I went to live in the slums, one of the persons I wanted most to meet was a sensitive boy caught in the mess and misery of tenement life.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-07-06
X-"I Lived in a Slum" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram and Sun
The city administration admitted today it had failed to meet its slum problem successfully and that blighted areas were spreading faster than rehabilitation.In the wake of a series of articles portraying horrendous conditions in the city's slums, this newspaper assigned a team of reporters to ask city officials about what they intended to do about it.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-07-02
IX-"I Lived in a Slum" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram and Sun
In a city where Health Commissioner Leona Baumgartner says there are as many rats as people - eight million - there are only four Health Department inspectors assigned to investigate rat bites and vermin.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-07-01
A Way Out of the Welfare Mess
After a week of training lectures on the job of a caseworker, my supervisor offered me the first of several helpful hints: "The main thing is to get the aid out," he said. "You can always check things later if you have suspicions." But "later" - as it turned out - I had more and more cases and there was never any time. Within two months, in fact, I was the government assigned head of household for 160 families.
Harper's 1961-10-01
"Dr. Theobald Supports Most of Allen Points" - Robert Prall - New York World Telegram & Sun
Dr. John J. Theobald, superintendent of city schools, yesterday agreed with the bulk of the conclusions of reporter George N. Allen, who for two months served as a teacher in Brooklyn's John Marshall Junior High School.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1958-12-02
Editorial: "Improving New York's Schools" - Unsigned - New York World Telegram & Sun
The objective of Mr. Allen's temporary role as a teacher, and of this newspaper's printing of his factual reports on classroom conditions as he found them, has been to perform a public service. Before reforms can be achieved, we believe it is essential that the public have the facts to guide it intelligently.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1958-12-01
XIV-"Undercover Teacher" - George N. Allen - New York World Telegram and Sun
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1958-11-29
XV-"Undercover Teacher" - George N. Allen - New York World Telegram and Sun
I came away from my two months as a substitute teacher in Brooklyn's John marshall Junior High School with some strong conclusions. They are based on what I saw and heard and experienced as a duly licensed teacher of two classes of adjustment students and two classes of average students. My experiences paralleled those of many other new teachers who entered the school system this term.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1958-12-01
XIII-"Undercover Teacher" - George N. Allen - New York World Telegram and Sun
Fortunately for me, I didn't have to live on my teacher's salary during the two months I taught at John Marshall Junior High in Brooklyn.My take home par was approximately $60 a week. As was reported at the start of this series, I spent not one penny of my salary. It's safely banked in a savings account and will be turned over to a teacher's fund or spent in some manner in the interests of the city school children.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1958-11-28
XII-"Undercover Teacher" - George N. Allen - New York World Telegram and Sun
Josephine is a tall, well-built girl. She spent most of her time in class primping or looking at a magazine. Periodically she bust into a rage over some imagined insult. Her IQ, as listed on her record card, is 58.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1958-11-26
X-"Undercover Teacher" - George N. Allen- New York World Telegram and Sun
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1958-11-24
XI-"Undercover Teacher" - George N. Allen - New York World Telegram and Sun
Several teachers cited an incident they had seen the day before in the school's general office. They had seen a woman daily substitute, her eyes filled with tears, asking an assistant principal why the children in her classes that day had tried so hard to resist learning anything.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1958-11-25
IX-"Undercover Teacher" - George N. Allen - New York World Telegram and Sun
At the beginning of the school term I had to copy and recopy the registers of my various classes so many times that I once got writer's cramp. It seemed to me that in this age of modern office machinery, the school system's methods of handling its clerical work is far out of date - and wasteful.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1958-11-22
VIII-"Undercover Teacher" - George N. Allen - New York World Telegram and Sun
I got the surprise of my teaching life one morning in early October.I walked into the classroom of another teacher at JHS 210 to see how he was teaching hygiene to a group of "adjustment" pupils - neither of the groups I taught. By this time, I was aware of the learning limitation of my own "adjustment" (slow-learning) students. And I was curious to see how other teachers were handling the other ones.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1958-11-21
VII-"Undercover Teacher" - George N. Allen - New York World Telegram and Sun
From [Mary's] report card I knew that she and three sisters were living with an aunt who had four or five children of her own. A previous teacher had noted "child overworked at home" on her cumulative record card.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1958-11-20
VI-"Undercover Teacher" - George N. Allen - New York World Telegram and Sun
A group was pushing and shoving around my desk, fighting for extra sheets of paper. A jacket flew across the room. A pencil bounced off a window. Bedlam.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1958-11-19
V-"Undercover Teacher" - George N. Allen - New York World Telegram and Sun
It was Thursday, Sept. 4, when I first reported as a teacher - of what I didn't yet know - at John Marshall Junior High School in Brooklyn. Experienced teachers were not required to report until Sept. 5 and classes did not start until Sept. 8. But I was there because of a well-publicized announcement by school authorities that orientation meeting for new teachers would be held in all schools Sept. 4th.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1958-11-18
IV-"Undercover Teacher" - George N. Allen - New York World Telegram and Sun
Getting a job as a teacher in our city's school system is a relatively simple procedure, so hard pressed are school officials for teachers.I simply walked in off the street and my credentials were readily accepted by officials of the administrative headquarters of the Board of Education at 110 Livingston St., Bklyn.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1958-11-17
II-"Undercover Teacher" - George N. Allen - New York World Telegram and Sun
To the casual visitor, there is little about John Marshall Junior High School in Brooklyn to attract attention.From the outside, the five-story, red-brick building, erected in Brooklyn in 1924, looks like many of the 900 other schools in the five boroughs in New York City. The walls are unscarred, there are no broken windows, the playground is well kept.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1958-11-14
I-"Undercover Teacher" - George N. Allen - New York World Telegram and Sun
From Editor's Note: "Staff writer George N. Allen has just emerged from two months as a teacher in one of the city's "difficult" schools - John Marshall Junior High in Brooklyn. The school's principal committed suicide early this year after acts of violence in the school building and on the school grounds. Mr. Allen was assigned to obtain a teacher's job at the school, JHS 120, to learn first-hand the experiences of a teacher there, the attitudes and aptitudes of the students, the day-by-day problems of classroom instruction. School authorities, fellow teachers and students knew nothing of his true identity. From what Mr. Allen experienced himself and from what he learned from other teachers and supervisors there, he has written a series of articles the first of which appears today.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1958-11-13
XIV--"Our Costly Dilemma" - Ed [Edgar] May - Buffalo Evening News
Spend money to save money? In isolated experiments across the nation, the question has been answered. By spending welfare tax dollars you ultimately save them. For Erie County, saddled with a near $30,000,000 annual relief bill, many answers are available.
Buffalo Evening News 1960-06-22
XIII-"Our Costly Dilemma" - Ed [Edgar] May - Buffalo Evening News
"I'm wasting my time working. I'd be better off on welfare." The man holding the steaming cup of coffee could have been your neighbor, the worker at the next machine or the bus passenger sharing a seat. What he said is repeated often in the mounting public distress over high welfare costs. It is the echo of revelations of laxity, chiseling, laziness and dishonesty. It is also wrong. Because a man would be better off "on the welfare" only if he wanted to feed and clothe each of his children for less than a dollar a day.
Buffalo Evening News 1960-06-21
XII-"Our Costly Dilemma" - Ed [Edgar] May - Buffalo Evening News
The Erie County Department of Social Welfare has fixed rent ceilings it is willing to pay for welfare recipients. However, because of housing shortages in Negro neighborhoods, exceptions frequently are made. A single caseload may have between 20 and 30 exceptions.
Buffalo Evening News 1960-06-20
XI-"Our Costly Dilemma" - Ed [Edgar] May - Buffalo Evening News
Every day in Erie County there are scores of men, women and children sitting in doctors' waiting rooms. When they come out their bill will be sent to you - the taxpayer.Today, too, there are hundreds occupying public and private hospital beds. When they are discharged the statement will be sent to you - the taxpayer.
Buffalo Evening News 1960-06-18
IX-"Our Costly Dilemma" - Ed [Edgar] May - Buffalo Evening News
If a man picked your pocket today, most likely he'd go to jail.But if he taps your wallet via the Welfare Department route, the chances are that he'll never see the inside of a cell.
Buffalo Evening News 1960-06-16
VIII-"Our Costly Dilemma" - Ed [Edgar] May - Buffalo Evening News
Tony has received public assistance almost all of his adult life. His son was on welfare in Erie, Pa. A daughter, living at home now, gets monthly Aid to Dependent Children checks for herself and Tony's grandson. Here are some excerpts from his relief history: 1932 - Victor found man had a car licensed in his grandmother's name. Victor knows that the man drives car and is out nights with it. Man doing window washing but denies it.
Buffalo Evening News 1960-06-15
VII-"Our Costly Dilemma" - Ed [Edgar] May - Buffalo Evening News
Joey P. had been on welfare for a month. He filled out job applications at half-a-dozen Buffalo plants, hitched a ride to the Niagara Power Project and visited the N.Y. State Employment office regularly. What he told me, as a caseworker for the Erie County Department of Social Welfare, could almost be a recording of what other workers hear repeated day after day, week after week. In many cases its true. But when it comes from men who have a two or three-year relief ride, then it sounds as if the needle got stuck.
Buffalo Evening News 1960-06-14
VI-"Our Costly Dilemma" - Ed [Edgar] May - Buffalo Evening News
In New York City, for example, ADC in 1958 supported 54,000 illegitimate children.On the other side of the coin the question is often put this way: What do you propose to do? Let these children starve because of the mistakes of their parents?
Buffalo Evening News 1960-06-13
V-"Our Costly Dilemma" - Ed [Edgar] May - Buffalo Evening News
In Erie County today and in other New York counties, there are thousands of men and women who weekly deduct part of their take home pay and give it to a needy parent, an elderly aunt or children whose early marriage is being threatened by financial shoals.But there are others whose charity never began at home or anywhere else.
Buffalo Evening News 1960-06-11
III-"Our Costly Dilemma" - Ed [Edgar] May - Buffalo Evening News
As a group, many of the relief recipients have become a dependent society. During the three months I was a caseworker I gave your tax dollars to children who are fourth-generation welfare cases."Don't let them save you," was the advice I received when I first started. "Some of these people, you'll find, know more about welfare than all of us. They've got every angle."
Buffalo Evening News 1960-06-09
IV-"Our Costly Dilemma" - Ed [Edgar] May - Buffalo Evening News
In a gray filing cabinet in the office of the Erie County Welfare Department where I worked there are supplies of forms that include a list of 65 different ones most frequently used by caseworkers.Each, used in duplicate or triplicate, serves a particular function in the paper empire that has grown with the administration of public welfare.
Buffalo Evening News 1960-06-10