This Harper's Weekly cartoon by Thomas Nast dramatizes the
annual house-hunting ritual in New York City. For much of the
nineteenth century, there was a chronic shortage of housing and,
consequently, high rents in the rapidly growing metropolis. This
situation produced a mad scramble every spring by those who were losing
leases or seeking improved accommodations to find new quarters.
All leases were effective beginning on May 1, making the formerly
festive holiday of Mayday one of stress and strain as much of the city
moved all at once, clogging the streets and shutting down businesses in
Manhattan.
In the late 1840s, a Tenant League formed to unite renters against
the "blighting curses" of "landlordism," and to
demand that the city government enact housing regulations, such as rent
control, a ban on basement apartments, and permission for an urban
version of homesteading. The Tenant League was unsuccessful, and
the chaos of Moving Day continued.
"The annual misery," as Harper's Weekly termed it,
did benefit one group besides the landlords. In 1857, the
newspaper endorsed the "idea ... of being moved by contract. The contractor
takes a sight of the old premises, makes himself master of its various
positions and bearings, and then applies himself to a reproduction of
the same effects in the new ... This is moving made easy ..."
In other words, hire what would become known as a "moving"
company. By 1859, the journal was reporting the financial rewards
reaped by licensed cartmen on Moving Day.
Clearly a source of frustration and tension, Harper's Weekly
approached "the annual social earthquake" by encouraging
patience and forbearance and by reminding readers of the least fortunate
who would end up homeless. Another way to cope was through
humor. Along with commentary, the paper published cartoons (like
this one) and lighthearted verse on the subject almost every year
(except during the Civil War). In 1857, a columnist dryly
observed: "We are credibly informed that there are people
in this city who have lived all their lives in the same house and have
never moved. Of what solid stuff these immovables are made we can
not imagine, but we look upon them with something of the wonder and
respect with which we should survey the Pyramids."
In an apt description, Harper's Weekly pointed out that house
hunting was not limited to Moving Day on May 1. "Would that one day could
compass the horrors of moving! Alas, no! A month before the
crisis preparations begin--to say nothing of all the 'house-hunting'
necessary. One after another the luxuries and comforts of home are
withdrawn 'to be packed,' until ... there
is scarcely ... a spot in the house
which is not desolately bare. This is but the beginning of
sorrows." The common use of quotation marks or italics for
"house hunting" indicates that it was a newly-coined phrase at
this time.
The article concludes: "The house into which you move is found to be dirty to the
last degree. The purifying process is no light task ... But
carpets and curtains are to be refitted; furniture to be set up; the
broken articles mended or replaced. Then the plumbing is sure to
be out of order throughout the house, and generally nothing will coax a
fire to burn in the range short of sending for the maker--who can not
come for several days--and subjecting it to a thorough repairing. ...
Skill and tact and good management will mitigate but not remove the
evils clustering around the annual moving day."
Many of those experiences can be seen in Nast's cartoon (click on it
for the enlarged format): competition for housing, restrictions on
the lessees, differing perspectives of landlords and tenants, crowding
and privations on Moving Day, and the dismal reality of the new
domicile.
After pulling out of an economic depression in the late 1870s,
construction in New York City expanded to provide more adequately for
housing needs. Tenants began moving less frequently, and the
annual ritual subsided. The last reference to Moving Day in Harper's
Weekly occurs in 1877.
