I added a new page to hold the transcription of my great-grand-uncle’s ledger, which contains a Deasy family history and 3 months worth of a combined budget and diary kept in Cambridge in 1892. I can’t vouch for how reliable he is or isn’t, but it’s an interesting snapshot of an immigrant laborer’s days. Mostly work!
A few notes:
- Cambridgeport is a neighborhood in Cambridge, Mass. It runs roughly between Central Square and MIT.
- Kennedy Biscuit was the factory that made Fig Newtons and Lorna Doones. It is now luxury housing. A family cookie connection!
- According to this Lexington, Mass. history, Lexington had a whole community of immigrant Irish farmers hiring immigrant Irish farmhands in the 1890s.
- The Ivy Leaf was a melodramatic Irish musical theatre production, according to Gerald Bordman’s American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1869-1914. (via Google Books)
- The Palace Theatre was in Scollay Square in Boston. There is a long discussion of the Palace Theatre at the Cinema Treasures site.
theatre poster for The Ivy Leaf
