The Italian Rag Picker

The Italian Rag Picker

This image was drawn in 1869 and shows a mother and baby living in a slum in Jersey Street, New York.

The woman in the image is supposedly Italian and was a rag picker. A rag-picker is someone who makes a living by rummaging through bins or on the street to collect materials such as cloth, paper, cardboard anything they could find in order to be remade into something to sell to make a living. This image shows the tough living conditions immigrants had to live in as they didn't make much of an income. In the image you can see the bags of rags that the woman has collected ready to be sold on top of barrels which could have been kept with food for her and the baby. There is very little room for the woman to raise a child as well as very unsafe. There is a small wooden ladder to the left of the woman which supposedly could be leading to another room such as her bedroom as it can be clearly seen that there is no where for the woman and child to sleep amongst all the rags.

During the period of colonisation a large Italian community formed in areas such as New York where many Italians came over to start a better life in America. There is no man pictured in the image, and therefore you could question whether the woman was working and raising her child alone or that the man was the rag picker whilst the woman is raising the child.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/45502/45502-h/45502-h.htm