Charity and Integration: the Archaeology of Jewish Soup Kitchens 

Summary

Soup kitchens emerged in nineteenth century Britain and America as part of the pattern of industrialisation and urban expansion, although the tradition of such charitable provision is a good deal more ancient.  Significant factors in the development of these charities were urban expansion and mass immigration from Eastern Europe and Ireland.  

Almost all the buildings that accommodated such soup kitchens have disappeared, either having been demolished or been converted to other uses.  This paper will consider two soup kitchen buildings, one in Manchester, England and one in London, England, established by the local Jewish communities at the start of the twentieth century and the role they played in integrating recent immigrants into English society.  The paper will compare these institutions to nineteenth century soup kitchens both in the UK and the USA and explore how they might be a response to the challenges that new immigrants were perceived to pose. 

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeology of Reform / Archaeology as Reform   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 176