Hollenczer József Gyarmaton, Győr megyében, Magyarországon született 1872-ben. József Hollenczer, né Jósef Holenczer was born in Gyarmat, Győr County, Hungary in 1872.
He arrived 4 May 1899, alone, aged 27, aboard Norddeutscher Lloyd's S/S H.H. Meier, provenant of Bremen on April 22nd, en route to his younger brother Péter Hollenczer (né Holenczer Péter; VII.02.1875 - X.04.1956)(cf. #71991539), now Peter, in Glen Cove, New York. In June, 1900, József, now Joseph, was a boarder next door to Peter, who likely was a toiler in the Fayerweather & Ladew leather belt factory founded by Edward R. Ladew with Ladew's father, with his brother, and with Daniel B. Fayerweather. The factory was located on the current site of Konica Imaging USA on Charles Street. In this era of the steam engine, leather belting was much in demand in factories to transfer power from the steam engines to the machinery. Joseph, meanwhile, was toiling in Duryea's Glen Cove Starch Company, noted for its dangerous working conditions, vile stench, and water pollution. First opened in 1856, the starch and sugar factory had been plagued by a series of fires and closed for good in 1903. Joseph became motivated to move to Pittsburgh, where his father-in-law Tamás had worked before. Peter, wife Mary (née Horváth Mária, cf. #71991342) and family moved to Pittsburgh and resided there at 66 Bates Street in September, 1901. Joseph was there before April, 1902. In 1907, Bates Street, described as "narrow and dirty", winding along the Monongahela River, was where mainly Hungarians and Slovaks working at the Jones and Laughlin Steel Mill resided.
Unbeknownst to hapless Joseph and his brother, Pittsburgh was a very dangerous place to be a Hungarian immigrant. Every year 500 or so workers were killed there in factory accidents alone. Countless others were maimed for life. At that time, the common law shielded the factory owner from blame if the accident was in any way due to the negligence of the employee or of his co-workers. Employees assumed all risks through "worker's right-to-die" contracts. Peter lived in Pittsburgh as late as 1905 until he lost some fingers in a factory accident.
Pittsburgh was also the typhoid capital of the world. From 1873 until 1908, typhoid fever was endemic in Pittsburgh, a city that had the highest annual death rate from typhoid of any city in the world-- well over 100 deaths per 100,000 people. Each year, 130 out of every 100,000 people in Pittsburgh died of typhoid. The rates were 59 and 4.2 per 100,000 in Washington, D.C. and Berlin, Germany, respectively. One out of every two immigrants developed typhoid within two years of arriving in Pittsburgh.
Typhoid fever is a waterborne bacterial illness that can cause gastrointestinal hemorrhage. The city drew its municipal water supply from the river, despite the fact that at least 75 municipalities, including part of Pittsburgh itself, dumped their raw sewage and industrial waste into the river upstream. Our immigrant ancestors worked for multimillionaires who drank bottled water, whilst they themselves could afford only to drink filth. Indeed, the diameter of the municipal water supply pipes depended upon the expected revenues from the neighborhood served, that is to say, a rich neighborhood received water through large pipes whilst a poor immigrant neighborhood received barely a trickle through smaller pipes. Immigrants living packed into tenements drew their water from wells next to overflowing privies.
In 1899, the citizens of Pittsburgh had approved a bond issue to construct a water filtration plant. Construction was stymied, however, by the corrupt Magee-Flinn Republican Ring (political machine) that controlled the city's politics for the final two decades of the nineteenth century. Indeed, William Flinn's Director of Public Works Edward M. Bigelow, who also was a cousin of Christopher Lyman Magee, incredibly said, as the anticontagionists believed, that the city water did not cause typhoid and, furthermore, that impugning the water supply would discourage business investment in the city. The Magee-Flinn Ring finally ended in 1901 when the "Ripper Act" empowered the governor of Pennsylvania to remove the corrupt mayor of Pittsburgh.
Only in 1907 did construction begin of a municipal water filtration plant to serve only a part of the city, alas too late for poor Joseph. Still residing on Bates Street, he took ill early in June of 1903 with typhoid fever and died 17 July 1903 in the Western Pennsylvania Hospital, Pittsburgh, exhausted after 35 days of illness, the last 3 days of which were spent in that hospital. Penniless, he was buried the next day in an unmarked grave in an area of St. Mary's Cemetery reserved for paupers.
He arrived 4 May 1899, alone, aged 27, aboard Norddeutscher Lloyd's S/S H.H. Meier, provenant of Bremen on April 22nd, en route to his younger brother Péter Hollenczer (né Holenczer Péter; VII.02.1875 - X.04.1956)(cf. #71991539), now Peter, in Glen Cove, New York. In June, 1900, József, now Joseph, was a boarder next door to Peter, who likely was a toiler in the Fayerweather & Ladew leather belt factory founded by Edward R. Ladew with Ladew's father, with his brother, and with Daniel B. Fayerweather. The factory was located on the current site of Konica Imaging USA on Charles Street. In this era of the steam engine, leather belting was much in demand in factories to transfer power from the steam engines to the machinery. Joseph, meanwhile, was toiling in Duryea's Glen Cove Starch Company, noted for its dangerous working conditions, vile stench, and water pollution. First opened in 1856, the starch and sugar factory had been plagued by a series of fires and closed for good in 1903. Joseph became motivated to move to Pittsburgh, where his father-in-law Tamás had worked before. Peter, wife Mary (née Horváth Mária, cf. #71991342) and family moved to Pittsburgh and resided there at 66 Bates Street in September, 1901. Joseph was there before April, 1902. In 1907, Bates Street, described as "narrow and dirty", winding along the Monongahela River, was where mainly Hungarians and Slovaks working at the Jones and Laughlin Steel Mill resided.
Unbeknownst to hapless Joseph and his brother, Pittsburgh was a very dangerous place to be a Hungarian immigrant. Every year 500 or so workers were killed there in factory accidents alone. Countless others were maimed for life. At that time, the common law shielded the factory owner from blame if the accident was in any way due to the negligence of the employee or of his co-workers. Employees assumed all risks through "worker's right-to-die" contracts. Peter lived in Pittsburgh as late as 1905 until he lost some fingers in a factory accident.
Pittsburgh was also the typhoid capital of the world. From 1873 until 1908, typhoid fever was endemic in Pittsburgh, a city that had the highest annual death rate from typhoid of any city in the world-- well over 100 deaths per 100,000 people. Each year, 130 out of every 100,000 people in Pittsburgh died of typhoid. The rates were 59 and 4.2 per 100,000 in Washington, D.C. and Berlin, Germany, respectively. One out of every two immigrants developed typhoid within two years of arriving in Pittsburgh.
Typhoid fever is a waterborne bacterial illness that can cause gastrointestinal hemorrhage. The city drew its municipal water supply from the river, despite the fact that at least 75 municipalities, including part of Pittsburgh itself, dumped their raw sewage and industrial waste into the river upstream. Our immigrant ancestors worked for multimillionaires who drank bottled water, whilst they themselves could afford only to drink filth. Indeed, the diameter of the municipal water supply pipes depended upon the expected revenues from the neighborhood served, that is to say, a rich neighborhood received water through large pipes whilst a poor immigrant neighborhood received barely a trickle through smaller pipes. Immigrants living packed into tenements drew their water from wells next to overflowing privies.
In 1899, the citizens of Pittsburgh had approved a bond issue to construct a water filtration plant. Construction was stymied, however, by the corrupt Magee-Flinn Republican Ring (political machine) that controlled the city's politics for the final two decades of the nineteenth century. Indeed, William Flinn's Director of Public Works Edward M. Bigelow, who also was a cousin of Christopher Lyman Magee, incredibly said, as the anticontagionists believed, that the city water did not cause typhoid and, furthermore, that impugning the water supply would discourage business investment in the city. The Magee-Flinn Ring finally ended in 1901 when the "Ripper Act" empowered the governor of Pennsylvania to remove the corrupt mayor of Pittsburgh.
Only in 1907 did construction begin of a municipal water filtration plant to serve only a part of the city, alas too late for poor Joseph. Still residing on Bates Street, he took ill early in June of 1903 with typhoid fever and died 17 July 1903 in the Western Pennsylvania Hospital, Pittsburgh, exhausted after 35 days of illness, the last 3 days of which were spent in that hospital. Penniless, he was buried the next day in an unmarked grave in an area of St. Mary's Cemetery reserved for paupers.
Hollenczer József Gyarmaton, Győr megyében, Magyarországon született 1872-ben. József Hollenczer, né Jósef Holenczer was born in Gyarmat, Győr County, Hungary in 1872.
He arrived 4 May 1899, alone, aged 27, aboard Norddeutscher Lloyd's S/S H.H. Meier, provenant of Bremen on April 22nd, en route to his younger brother Péter Hollenczer (né Holenczer Péter; VII.02.1875 - X.04.1956)(cf. #71991539), now Peter, in Glen Cove, New York. In June, 1900, József, now Joseph, was a boarder next door to Peter, who likely was a toiler in the Fayerweather & Ladew leather belt factory founded by Edward R. Ladew with Ladew's father, with his brother, and with Daniel B. Fayerweather. The factory was located on the current site of Konica Imaging USA on Charles Street. In this era of the steam engine, leather belting was much in demand in factories to transfer power from the steam engines to the machinery. Joseph, meanwhile, was toiling in Duryea's Glen Cove Starch Company, noted for its dangerous working conditions, vile stench, and water pollution. First opened in 1856, the starch and sugar factory had been plagued by a series of fires and closed for good in 1903. Joseph became motivated to move to Pittsburgh, where his father-in-law Tamás had worked before. Peter, wife Mary (née Horváth Mária, cf. #71991342) and family moved to Pittsburgh and resided there at 66 Bates Street in September, 1901. Joseph was there before April, 1902. In 1907, Bates Street, described as "narrow and dirty", winding along the Monongahela River, was where mainly Hungarians and Slovaks working at the Jones and Laughlin Steel Mill resided.
Unbeknownst to hapless Joseph and his brother, Pittsburgh was a very dangerous place to be a Hungarian immigrant. Every year 500 or so workers were killed there in factory accidents alone. Countless others were maimed for life. At that time, the common law shielded the factory owner from blame if the accident was in any way due to the negligence of the employee or of his co-workers. Employees assumed all risks through "worker's right-to-die" contracts. Peter lived in Pittsburgh as late as 1905 until he lost some fingers in a factory accident.
Pittsburgh was also the typhoid capital of the world. From 1873 until 1908, typhoid fever was endemic in Pittsburgh, a city that had the highest annual death rate from typhoid of any city in the world-- well over 100 deaths per 100,000 people. Each year, 130 out of every 100,000 people in Pittsburgh died of typhoid. The rates were 59 and 4.2 per 100,000 in Washington, D.C. and Berlin, Germany, respectively. One out of every two immigrants developed typhoid within two years of arriving in Pittsburgh.
Typhoid fever is a waterborne bacterial illness that can cause gastrointestinal hemorrhage. The city drew its municipal water supply from the river, despite the fact that at least 75 municipalities, including part of Pittsburgh itself, dumped their raw sewage and industrial waste into the river upstream. Our immigrant ancestors worked for multimillionaires who drank bottled water, whilst they themselves could afford only to drink filth. Indeed, the diameter of the municipal water supply pipes depended upon the expected revenues from the neighborhood served, that is to say, a rich neighborhood received water through large pipes whilst a poor immigrant neighborhood received barely a trickle through smaller pipes. Immigrants living packed into tenements drew their water from wells next to overflowing privies.
In 1899, the citizens of Pittsburgh had approved a bond issue to construct a water filtration plant. Construction was stymied, however, by the corrupt Magee-Flinn Republican Ring (political machine) that controlled the city's politics for the final two decades of the nineteenth century. Indeed, William Flinn's Director of Public Works Edward M. Bigelow, who also was a cousin of Christopher Lyman Magee, incredibly said, as the anticontagionists believed, that the city water did not cause typhoid and, furthermore, that impugning the water supply would discourage business investment in the city. The Magee-Flinn Ring finally ended in 1901 when the "Ripper Act" empowered the governor of Pennsylvania to remove the corrupt mayor of Pittsburgh.
Only in 1907 did construction begin of a municipal water filtration plant to serve only a part of the city, alas too late for poor Joseph. Still residing on Bates Street, he took ill early in June of 1903 with typhoid fever and died 17 July 1903 in the Western Pennsylvania Hospital, Pittsburgh, exhausted after 35 days of illness, the last 3 days of which were spent in that hospital. Penniless, he was buried the next day in an unmarked grave in an area of St. Mary's Cemetery reserved for paupers.
He arrived 4 May 1899, alone, aged 27, aboard Norddeutscher Lloyd's S/S H.H. Meier, provenant of Bremen on April 22nd, en route to his younger brother Péter Hollenczer (né Holenczer Péter; VII.02.1875 - X.04.1956)(cf. #71991539), now Peter, in Glen Cove, New York. In June, 1900, József, now Joseph, was a boarder next door to Peter, who likely was a toiler in the Fayerweather & Ladew leather belt factory founded by Edward R. Ladew with Ladew's father, with his brother, and with Daniel B. Fayerweather. The factory was located on the current site of Konica Imaging USA on Charles Street. In this era of the steam engine, leather belting was much in demand in factories to transfer power from the steam engines to the machinery. Joseph, meanwhile, was toiling in Duryea's Glen Cove Starch Company, noted for its dangerous working conditions, vile stench, and water pollution. First opened in 1856, the starch and sugar factory had been plagued by a series of fires and closed for good in 1903. Joseph became motivated to move to Pittsburgh, where his father-in-law Tamás had worked before. Peter, wife Mary (née Horváth Mária, cf. #71991342) and family moved to Pittsburgh and resided there at 66 Bates Street in September, 1901. Joseph was there before April, 1902. In 1907, Bates Street, described as "narrow and dirty", winding along the Monongahela River, was where mainly Hungarians and Slovaks working at the Jones and Laughlin Steel Mill resided.
Unbeknownst to hapless Joseph and his brother, Pittsburgh was a very dangerous place to be a Hungarian immigrant. Every year 500 or so workers were killed there in factory accidents alone. Countless others were maimed for life. At that time, the common law shielded the factory owner from blame if the accident was in any way due to the negligence of the employee or of his co-workers. Employees assumed all risks through "worker's right-to-die" contracts. Peter lived in Pittsburgh as late as 1905 until he lost some fingers in a factory accident.
Pittsburgh was also the typhoid capital of the world. From 1873 until 1908, typhoid fever was endemic in Pittsburgh, a city that had the highest annual death rate from typhoid of any city in the world-- well over 100 deaths per 100,000 people. Each year, 130 out of every 100,000 people in Pittsburgh died of typhoid. The rates were 59 and 4.2 per 100,000 in Washington, D.C. and Berlin, Germany, respectively. One out of every two immigrants developed typhoid within two years of arriving in Pittsburgh.
Typhoid fever is a waterborne bacterial illness that can cause gastrointestinal hemorrhage. The city drew its municipal water supply from the river, despite the fact that at least 75 municipalities, including part of Pittsburgh itself, dumped their raw sewage and industrial waste into the river upstream. Our immigrant ancestors worked for multimillionaires who drank bottled water, whilst they themselves could afford only to drink filth. Indeed, the diameter of the municipal water supply pipes depended upon the expected revenues from the neighborhood served, that is to say, a rich neighborhood received water through large pipes whilst a poor immigrant neighborhood received barely a trickle through smaller pipes. Immigrants living packed into tenements drew their water from wells next to overflowing privies.
In 1899, the citizens of Pittsburgh had approved a bond issue to construct a water filtration plant. Construction was stymied, however, by the corrupt Magee-Flinn Republican Ring (political machine) that controlled the city's politics for the final two decades of the nineteenth century. Indeed, William Flinn's Director of Public Works Edward M. Bigelow, who also was a cousin of Christopher Lyman Magee, incredibly said, as the anticontagionists believed, that the city water did not cause typhoid and, furthermore, that impugning the water supply would discourage business investment in the city. The Magee-Flinn Ring finally ended in 1901 when the "Ripper Act" empowered the governor of Pennsylvania to remove the corrupt mayor of Pittsburgh.
Only in 1907 did construction begin of a municipal water filtration plant to serve only a part of the city, alas too late for poor Joseph. Still residing on Bates Street, he took ill early in June of 1903 with typhoid fever and died 17 July 1903 in the Western Pennsylvania Hospital, Pittsburgh, exhausted after 35 days of illness, the last 3 days of which were spent in that hospital. Penniless, he was buried the next day in an unmarked grave in an area of St. Mary's Cemetery reserved for paupers.
Family Members
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
See more Hollencer or Hollenczer memorials in:
- Saint Mary Catholic Cemetery Hollencer or Hollenczer
- Pittsburgh Hollencer or Hollenczer
- Allegheny County Hollencer or Hollenczer
- Pennsylvania Hollencer or Hollenczer
- USA Hollencer or Hollenczer
- Find a Grave Hollencer or Hollenczer
Advertisement
