Reformers versus Residents in Five Points: A Role Play In this activity you learn about the religious, class, and ethnic tensions between reformers and residents in the working-class Irish immigrant neighborhood of Five Points. You will research roles of a Protestant reformer and two Irish women debating whether the reformer should send Irish children to live with upper-class parents. Objectives • You will be able to describe different contemporary perspectives, reformer and resident, on life in Five Points during the 1850s. • You will choose evidence from different primary and secondary sources to support your interpretation of reformer and resident roles. Instructions 1. Step 1: You will be writing and performing a script of a scene between reformers and residents in the Five Points neighborhood. To gather evidence to build your characters, you will first watch a film, and then read some primary and secondary documents. You will divide into three groups and each group will have an identity: Reverend Pease, Catherine, or Mary Mulvahill. a. Please locate the worksheet "Reformers versus Residents in Five Points" and quickly gloss over the scene and cast of characters. 2. Step 2: We will view à a. Chapter 1 (Rev. Louis Pease: Reforming the Five Points), b. Chapter 2 (Mary Mulvahill: Surviving in a New Land), c. and Chapter 5 (Matthew Mulvahill: Boyhood in the Streets) of the Five Points DVD. i. As you watch, you should think about the events described from the perspective of your character in the role play. 3. Step 3: Gather in your groups to read through the various primary and secondary sources. You should read the documents and use the Character Research Sheet to develop your character's talking points for the scene. 4. Step 4: Now make new groups of three, with one student from each character group, to work together to create a script of the encounter between Reverend Pease, Catherine, and Mary Mulvahill. The scene should begin with Rev. Pease's arrival at Mary Mulvahill's house, where the meeting will occur. Each script should incorporate the characters' talking points, and address the “issues/conflicts” and the "Questions to Consider" on the worksheet. 5. Step 5: Perform scenes. a. As students perform, the other students should use the rubric to assess how well each script uses evidence. Use student evaluations for follow-up discussion. 6. Step 6: GTS discussion: • How did you see the issues surrounding child adoption (class, religion, family, etc.) differently, and why? • How did different characters interpret the historical evidence? Historical Context During the 1840s and 1850s, there were no state or federal agencies available to help people with all the problems created by slums; religious groups generally took up that role. Protestant reformers such as Reverend Pease were horrified by the growth of the city's first major slum, Five Points, and saw it as their responsibility to improve poor people's lives. The upper and middle classes, most of whom were native-born Protestants, prided themselves on being different from the poor, and were very critical of Irish Catholics, whose faith was seen as proof of their backward ways. These reformers believed that poverty was caused by a person's immorality and lack of self-control and wanted to save immigrant children from poverty and abusive parents. Reformers vs. Residents in the Five Points The Scene The Reverend Lewis M. Pease plans to send Irish children from the Five Points to be adopted by Protestant families, in order to “loosen the young from the grip of their parents’ wretchedness.” The Mulvahill’s neighbor Catherine is a widow with two young children—she is struggling to support her family and is considering letting Pease find a new home for her young son. Mary Mulvahill is disturbed by this idea and agrees to be with Catherine when Pease arrives to discuss the adoption. The Cast of Characters Reverend Lewis M. Pease: A Protestant reformer Catherine: an Irish immigrant widow with two young children Mary Mulvahill: Catherine’s neighbor, also an Irish immigrant The Task • Write a script of the encounter between Catherine, Mary and the Reverend Pease. The script should incorporate information and quotes from the following sources: o Five Points: New York’s Irish Working Class in the 1850s (film) o “Seeing is Believing?” (page 12 from Five Points viewing guide) o “Uptown, Downtown” (page 5 from Five Points viewing guide) o A Five Points “Orphan” Is Taken in by Reverend Pease and the Five Points House of Industry (book excerpt) o A Member of the Ladies’ Home Missionary Society Visits a Five Points Family (book excerpt) o Map of the Five Points Neighborhood, 1855-67 • The script should also address conflicts of the time and place: The Five Points neighborhood in the 1840s and 1850s. o Religious conflict: Protestant vs. Catholic o Class conflict: Upper classes vs. lower classes o Immigration: Native-born vs. immigrant The script begins with Rev. Pease’s arrival at Mary Mulvahill’s house, where the meeting will occur. Questions to Consider • What criticisms does Rev. Pease have of the residents of the Five Points? What can he offer Catherine and her son? • How might Mary convince Catherine to keep her children? (Religion, pride, family, labor) • What factors does Catherine need to consider? What decision does she make? Character Research Sheet Character Name: __________________________________________________ Character Description (religious, ethnic/national, class background): KEY POINTS YOUR CHARACTER WILL MAKE SOURCE OF KEY POINTS SCENE ASSESSMENT RUBRIC: REFORMERS VS. RESIDENTS IN THE FIVE POINTS As each group performs its script, answer the questions below to assess the work: 1. What evidence did each character use to support his/her argument? Catherine_______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ Mary Mulvahill____________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ Rev. Pease______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ 2. What sources did the group use evidence and/or quotes from? Five Points DVD A Member of the Ladies' Home Missionary Society… Five Points Viewer’s Guide A Five Points "Orphan" Is Taken In by Rev. Pease… Map of the Five Points Other ________________________________ Neighborhood, 1855-67 3. What examples of conflict were present in the script? How? Religion (Protestant vs. Catholic) Example _______________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ Class (Upper vs. Lower) Example _____________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ Immigration (Native-born vs. immigrant) Example _________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ 4. How did the script reflect the historical setting of the Five Points in the 1850s? Name ______________________________ A Five Points "Orphan" Is Taken In by Reverend Pease and the Five Points House of Industry The Five Points House of Industry was organized by the Methodist minister Lewis M. Pease and headquartered in a notorious former slum building known as the Old Brewery. It was the first missionary effort in the neighborhood to offer vocational training and employment for adults and free meals and schooling for children, in addition to the more traditional Bible classes, temperance meetings, and religious services. More controversial, at least to the largely Catholic residents of the neighborhood, were efforts by Pease and other Protestant missionaries to adopt impoverished children like "Wild Maggie," the subject of an 1853 news story. Perhaps a majority of the so-called "orphans" put up for adoption in the Five Points had at least one living parent, which furthered tensions between residents and missionaries. Historian Tyler Anbinder describes the "Wild Maggie" case below. the majority of children put up for adoption by the Five Points charities were not actual orphans; at least 60 percent put up by the mission had living parents. Anecdotal evidence from the Monthly Record of the Five Points House of Industry suggests that most of the children it sent to adoptive homes also had at least one living parent. A variety of circumstances prompted parents to give their children up for adoption. Alcohol abuse frequently played a role. The most famous adoption case from the two Five Points institutions also involved alcoholic parents. In 1853, the Tribune published a story by Solon Robinson titled “‘Wild Maggie,’ of the Five Points.” Pease had apparently bestowed this nickname on a disheveled little girl named Margaret Reagan who lived in a basement on Centre Street near Anthony. Maggie came to Pease’s attention because of the way she relentlessly taunted and berated him. In a typical tirade, Maggie called Pease an “old Protestant thief. I heard Father Phelan tell what you want to