Five Points

During orientation here at Stonehill, I was one of the lucky candidates asked to take the CLA testing. A portion of this exam included writing an essay to support or refute a statement regarding America's nickname of "the land of opportunity" and how the growing gap between the rich and poor might suggest otherwise. I chose to support the statement, with one of my focuses of the paper targeting urban American centers where poverty was common and the living conditions were anything but sanitary. Five Points in New York (circa 1860) would definitely be a section of the nation which would immediately refute any inclination of America being a land full of wondrous opportunities.

According to the primary sources, Five Points was filthy, it was filled to the brim with gangs making their name known, prostitutes flaunting their bodies because it was the only thing they possessed, and men and women who had no where else to go. Five Points encaptures its victims; "those who once enter into this diabolical traffic are seldom saved" (Foster, 220). There are no means of escape form the dreadful and horrible life of those unfortunate souls who befall this fate. It is an easy ride to the depths of this mess and an impossible climb out.

During the prime days of Five Points, the Civil War had also overtaken the United States, inclusive of the Draft which Lincoln had to utilize. New York draft riots emerged as a consequence of the draft as angry civilians rebelled against the government. The citizens of Five Points, primarily the gangs, were suspects of these riots. Destined for a terrible and rancid life, war might not be a far step from the life the gang members were living already. After all, the gangs waged war against each other all the time. Why then would members object to being sent off to fight for a greater cause?

I believe that the gang members and citizens of Five Points in New York did not object to the actual act of fighting for the nation but held objections to the politics behind the draft. The draft allowed for the rich upper class men to pay their way out of fighting to spare their lives while the poor and unfortunate people had no choice but to answer their country's call for help. They had lived lives of destitution and were enslaved in the American system and the only means of escape that America was providing them with was to fight, and almost inevitably die. America as a land of opportunity should not place higher value on some one's life based solely on the amount of monetary profits which a person makes.

The question I hold after reading these articles and analyzing the pictures, lays in the necessity of a run down area of a city like Five Points in the seemingly grand and opportunistic view we hold of America. I want to know how Americans can be so indifferent to this level of poverty in the 1800s as well as today in our very own country. How did a place like this occur in our history and how can education of similar situations help to teach Americans about what they can do to help?