Six years previously, it was the best of times for Susannah Cook and her modest family in Philadelphia. Her husband was working, and her two toddlers were growing everyday. Then, tragedy struck. An outbreak of yellow fever swept over the city during another hot summer. As many members of the economic elite had already made their customary departure to the outskirts of the city in late July, they would keep their lives and their fortunes for another year. .
For 'the lower sort' (the term used for the poor in colonial America), it was a drastically different outcome. In order to stretch their pounds sterling, their diets centered around the consumption of grain. Fruit and vegetables, which commanded prohibitive prices to impecunious laborers, were an infrequent luxury. The result? 'The lower sort' were far more vulnerable to disease - twice and four times as likely to die from tuberculosis and yellow fever respectively.
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When Susannah's husband died, she was able to take in a couple of boarders into her tiny residence and find informal employment as a washerwoman. After a couple of months, however, her health began to fail, and she perished in an almshouse - a woman no more than 30 or 35 years old.
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Most likely, the Guardians of the Poor, a private city organization that assumed the duty of placing orphaned children with foster parents, took temporary custody of Susannah's children. Unfortunately, the poverty and heartbreak of Susannah Cook and her family was not an isolated case in late colonial Philadelphia. A majority of people in Benjamin Franklin's adopted city lived on the margins of existence. At the other end of the spectrum, the upper stratum of society owned a preponderant percentage of Philadelphia's wealth. While ninety percent of what came to be called the working class fell into the lowest tax bracket and had little to no property, the richest members of the town saw their percentage of overall taxable wealth rise 25% (47%-72%) in the latter half of the eighteenth century.
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In the meantime, 'the lower sort' and much of 'the middling sort' were going nowhere. Wages remained largely stagnant, and few increased their savings or social station. Many of them were crowded into the poor district around Elfrith's Alley. As an area with a reputation of crime and disorder, the elite directed their burnished carriages to drive around its hopeless streets. Yet, the myth of a 'land of opportunity' still managed to attract thousands of immigrants to Philadelphia every year.
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After more than 250 years, America is still regarded as 'the land of opportunity.' This myth still pervades even though more than twenty percent of the working population cannot find gainful employment, and at least as large a segment remains underemployed. Similar to 'the lower sort' of colonial Philadelphia, America's lower classes of 2011 are forced into poor diets (fast food) to save money and are more vulnerable to illness - an illness they cannot afford as they likely have no health insurance. By contrast, the richest 1% of Americans own 34% of the total wealth, and the richest 20% own a staggering 85.0% of the total wealth. Socio-economic mobility has always been the cornerstone of the American ideal. Hard work and honesty has always been said to lead to the twin 'successes' of wealth and higher status. Unfortunately, this 'American dream' has been just that for most people in America's history - a mere dream.
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Will America ever look in the mirror?
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Photo: Elfrith's Alley in Philadelphia today. Click to enlarge this beautiful, historic street.
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JRoquen