My Interview
About John Brodie
JC: What is your name, where do you come from, and when did you come here?
JB:My name is John Brodie I’ve lived in the Lower East Side for ten years. I moved here from Scotland when I was five. So that makes me fifteen right now. I have a brother named Jack. When we got here a photographer named Augustus Sherman took a picture of me, my older brother, and my older older brother. We were not prepared for the picture. Augustus Sherman was rapidly taking pictures of other immigrants who were on Ellis Island waiting to get to Manhattan.
JC: What is your job, and do you go to school?
JB: My life is normal. Back ten years ago my job was horrible I had to go to school sometimes I went to see my older brother after school at his job. He didn’t like to be a peddler, but he had to. Right now I am a peddler. I peddle fruits and vegetables.
JC: Who is in your family?
JB: My family has only five people. The people in my family are John, Jack, Julien , Jamie, and Joe. We came from a small town in Scotland. This year we are trying to make a lot of money to have a better life, and maybe move into a better house.
JC: Why did you leave Scotland?
JB:The reason we left is because there was a depression going on and we didn’t have enough money.
JC: Who makes money to pay rent?
JB: In America my mom has to work in a sweatshop and the conditions are terrible. I’ve been in there a few times it wasn’t nice. It wasn’t nice because it was very hot, the chairs were broken, everything was dirty, and it was crammed with a lot of people. The conditions changed after the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. They decided that if other factory’s had better conditions that the sweatshops could have better conditions. After the conditions changed my Mom started to make a lot more money and we could afford our rent easily. My brother Jack also works at Bob and Sons.
JB:Finally after the Tenement Act of 1901 and after the tenement inspector came we had running water and a real bathroom that actually works. Speaking of the bathroom I have to go!
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2014 at 5:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
7:58 pm on April 7th, 2014
nice recording. I liked that you made a funny ending “speaking of bathrooms, I have to go.”
but you might want to add a little more info from the check list.
2:47 pm on April 8th, 2014
What is Bob and Sons, John? My favorite part was when you said the reason we left is because there was a depression going on and we didn’t have enough money. I didn’t know that’s why you left Sweden!
10:26 pm on April 8th, 2014
Nice job on your oral history. It really looks like you worked hard on it.
11:59 pm on April 8th, 2014
That sounds good. But it does sound hard