Reader Review: New York Undercover

James Batty reviews New York Undercover: Private Surveillance in the Progressive Era by Jennifer Fronc.

by James Batty,

This fascinating but frustrating book shines a light on the murky, seething, metropolitan world of New York City in the early 20th century. Jennifer Fronc, an assistant professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, delves deep into the records kept by various social and moral activist organisations that formed and dissipated in these formative years for modern New York.

The book is fascinating for the detail it gives of the lives of ordinary working class people during this period. Organisations such as the Committee of Fourteen, the Committee of Fifteen and the National Civic Federation hired both professional private investigators and lay men and women to walk the streets of the city looking for vice or behaviour considered ‘disorderly’ and ‘immoral’ by the standards of these activist groups. This mainly involved going into bars, hotels, entertainment venues and other places of public gathering in the more insalubrious parts of town and either observing or actively encouraging vice-like or other lewd behaviour.

What emerges is a world full of vice, trickery and deception. The investigators themselves show through their reports that they took full part in this world, and noted down their experiences in a dispassionate detached voice. Fronc rightly questions the veracity of a number of these reports. In their dealings with prostitutes, for example, the investigators record that they go so far as to pay the women and wait until they get undressed before they make their excuses and leave. Some, however, omit to mention that they left at all – leaving a telling silence in the record, or perhaps just being more truthful that the others.

The characters are the most fascinating part of these reports. Fronc recounts the story of a gang war in Chinatown during this period, when the local criminal ‘godfather’ and sometime ‘mayor’ of Chinatown, Tom Lee, is challenged in his supremacy by the fantastically named Mock Duck. In another set of reports one investigator, Edward Barrows, emerges as a hero of child welfare in the notorious Hell’s Kitchen district. Barrows, working for the People’s Institute, moved into the area to become a ‘denizen of the street corners’, living there for an extended period of time and ingratiating himself to the locals. This way he was able to see the ‘criminal’ children for what they really were, just bored kids looking for something to do.

The reader is kept enthralled by such details, which run throughout the book. The only concern is that the argument can appear quite forced at times. The information is arranged well into different investigative areas and gently guides the reader through the period from the end of the 19th century to the 1920s. At times, however, the main argument can get lost in the detail, leaving the reader struggling to understand how one section is linked to another.

Nevertheless, the sheer vividness of these investigative reports shines through, begging even more questions about the lives of the investigators and the investigated in this lively and corrupt world. One particularly zealous investigator who begs for more attention is David Oppenheim, a specialist in getting into African American establishments, often by arguing at the door that he isn’t white but Cuban, and soliciting any prostitutes that might be on the premises. His skills at attracting these ladies of ‘low moral standards’ appeared strong at the beginning, but by the end, in 1919, Oppenheim was reduced to walking the deserted streets of Brooklyn at night desperately looking for prostitutes to entrap.

James Batty is a History Today reader. He has lived in New York and is particularly interested in the history of the city.

If you would like to review one of the latest history books, see our selection of books for reader review.

Reader review: Journalism's Roving Eye

Nell Darby reviews Journalism’s Roving Eye by John Maxwelll Hamilton.

by Nell Darby,

Academic and former journalist John Maxwell Hamilton, in his latest book, attempts to explore the way the American media has reported foreign affairs since the days of the early settlers up to the period of the second Iraq War. It is a dense and meticulously researched book, but is perhaps inhibited rather than freed by its wide-ranging subject matter. Hamilton glosses over pre-20th century reporting, and is especially brief with 18th and early 19th century subjects, which is a shame, as this section has the scope to be particularly interesting.

Hamilton’s study focuses on white male reporters, editors and newspaper proprietors. The author justifies this approach by explaining that ‘the role of reporter was chiefly a man’s part’. However, he names enough female reporters, editors or publishers in passing to make one wonder why they are only mentioned in brief. The Associated Press’ Edith Lederer, as well as Marguerite Higgins and Katherine Graham, get a few mentions, but otherwise, women are grouped together in a single chapter, which is given the unfortunate heading ‘Send The Whole Bunch Of Them Packing’. Journalists such as Martha Gellhorn are virtually ignored, and female correspondents are marginalised from the main narrative.

Likewise, just one chapter is devoted to black reporters. This is equally inexcusable; Hamilton states that the first black newspaper in America was established in 1827, yet there is no mention of it in the somewhat cursory section of the book dealing with pre-20th century media, where a description of its establishment would have been timely and interesting. Rather than being part of the book’s roughly chronological sequence, it is instead relegated to one paragraph in the single chapter dedicated to ‘black journalism’. It is sad that race and gender are not seen as part of mainstream history.

The emphasis of the book is, inevitably, on war. John Maxwell Hamilton is particularly assured in his writing in the section of the book that covers the relatively recent events of the Vietnam War. Focusing on the events of the war, rather than on a particular personality, this chapter flows with greater ease than others. It considers a variety of reporters over a broader period of time, establishing their similarities and differences and how views shifted over the course of the war. The chapter also examines government propaganda and attempts by Kennedy, for example, to influence the media’s depiction of the war.

Because Hamilton began writing this book in 2000/2001 relatively little time is spent looking at modern conflicts such as Iraq or Afghanistan. The coverage of earlier wars cries out, however, for a detailed comparison of how modern conflict differs. In the last chapter, there are, nonetheless, references to citizen journalism and to modern examples of news bloggers, such as Iraq’s Salam Pax, which hint at the state of foreign reporting today. This chapter thus forms a natural epilogue, stressing the fact that journalism is in flux and that traditional forms of reporting are being replaced to a certain degree by internet-based dissemination of material and the use of accounts by non-media workers.

At times, the author’s style makes the narrative jerky. His use of separate boxes, alongside the main text, detracts from the narrative. Hamilton also includes certain statistics, which often lack contextualisation and adequate explanation as to how they contribute to the chapter and main argument. In some chapters the narrative is organised chronologically, but other accounts jump around in time, which also breaks up the narrative. Lastly, certain excerpts of original newspaper reports featured within the main text are overly long and would have benefitted from further editing.

The main problem with this book is that it is overly amibitious. It tries to cover too much; both too broad a period and too many types of media. It is still interesting; but would have been a more fulfilling read if Hamilton had focused on what he is more comfortable writing about, such as the Vietnam War. It is a history of US foreign reporting; but not a wholly satisfactory one.

Nell Darby is a freelance journalist, specialising in history and media. She is the author of Foul Deeds And Suspicious Deaths In The Cotswolds (Pen & Sword, 2009).

Old World, New World

Old World, New World: The Story of Britain and America
Kathleen Burk
(Abacus)

The story, told from both sides, of the 400 year old Anglo-American relationship, from the very first settlers to the American Revolution and Civil War, from the global conflicts of the 20th century to Tony Blair’s support of George W. Bush, and to the exchange of culture, manners and romance.

Giants

John Stauffer
Little Brown

A dual-biography of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, which describes the transformations in the lives of the two men and their personal and political struggles at a time of social and cultural change, when men rejected the status quo and embraced new ideas of personal liberty.

Clash of Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War

Marc Egnal (Hill and Wang)

A reinterpretation of the American Civil War from the 1820s through Reconstruction, which moves beyond the reigning orthodoxy that the American Civil War was waged over moral principles, to argue that economics was instead the main factor that moved the country to war.

The Titanic Experience: The Legend of the Unsinkable Ship

Beau Riffenburgh
Carlton

The Titanic Experience contains photographs, facsimile items of the Titanic memorabilia and first hand accounts from the survivors, providing an insight into life aboard the ship.