The Monthly Record of the Five Points House of Industry, 1854 - 1860.
New York: Methodist Mission, 1854 - 1860. First edition. Hardcover. A bound collection of the periodical produced by the Methodist Mission at Worth Street, New York, a group founded to improve the notorious Five Points slum area of Manhattan. The Five Points slum was known around the world; by the 1830s international tourists came to see it on "slumming trips", and Charles Dickens and Abraham Lincoln both visited.
The last issues are accompanied by two stunning engraved plates depicting one of the worst fires in the city's history: the 1860 Elm Street fire, which killed 20 tenement dwellers to great public outcry, forcing the legislature to pass a law requiring fire escapes first on all newly constructed tenement houses, later on existing tenement houses.
An incomplete run, the volume includes 19 non consecutive monthly issues for the years1854 to 1860; the first two issues, for 1854 and 1856 bound without the title pages, the remaining issues all with title pages. The 1854 separate issue is titled, "What is Done for the Poor"; pp129 - 176; ads [6][pp. There are 15 monthly issues titled "Monthly Record", bound with 4 issues titled "The Message" (the monthly's title in 1857). 1858 number with a separately published 4 page advertisement tipped in.
8vo. Half black calf and brown buckram, with gilt title at spine. With a folding wood engraved plate, "Elm Street Tenement House on Fire" (slightly ruffled; short splits at plate folds) and a double plate "The Ruins on the Morning After the Fire", with articles, "The Elm Street Catastrophe" and "A Fire in New York". Previous owner name "Miss Bell" at first page. OCLC: 166633645. Item #12943
Price: $375.00