The Great Egg Riot of 1896
There is an obscure and seldom-enforced law on the books in New York City concerning the purchase and consumption of meals at fast-food establishments, diners and convenience stores. Even more obscure and lost to the mists of history is the event that forced the City Council’s hand.
Not anymore.
As part of this website’s redefined identity and commitment to public service, we will be exploring the little-known incidents in local history that shaped the law and culture of our land and continue to affect our daily lives even though we are completely unaware of their existence. Today we will explore the Great Egg Riot of 1896 and the subsequent Ade-Shepherd Act of 1897.
Back in the 19th century New York was still a bustling port city. Incidentally, why is it that cities always “bustle”? I mean they surely do not “amble” but they do sometimes “crawl” or even “teem” and yet they are always described as “bustling” unless you’re talking about the people who are then described as “teeming masses” that often “yearn” for something. Well in this case, the people yearned for breakfast. But that would be jumping ahead, let us return to our setup.
In the 19th century the dockworking-longshoreman types didn’t just frequent beer halls and brothels as is frequently described in the literature of the era. I mean, you couldn’t haul around weighty cargo every day if you were subsisting on a diet of alcohol and whores. At some point the average dockworker had to take a day or two off from drinking and get a decent meal, right? So it was that small diners sprung up around the waterfronts of the city. These small diners were, uh, pretty small (must install a thesaurus on this thing...) and consequently had very limited menus that they varied throughout the day to accommodate the waves of dockworkers who worked various shifts.
On brilliant September afternoon in 1896 a cargo vessel bringing in a large shipment of brass gilding (over 70% of the gilding in the United States passed through New York City ports in those days) arrived two hours late owing to a spot New York City Police inspection after the coppers (they were called coppers because you could bribe them with a mere two cents back then) got word of a secret shipment of immigrants who were attempting to enter the country without the fedoras that all immigrant men were required to wear while roaming the streets at the time (which will be the subject of another article if I can unearth enough fresh research). The delay in the ship’s arrival obviously meant the dockworkers had to wait to unload the gilding which means they got out of work late and were famished.
And there was the problem.
See, gilding ships were typically unloaded by the third-shift workers on the docks and those guys were used to having a fine and hearty breakfast after getting off of work. So it was that day that a crew of a dozen ravenous men approached McWiggin’s Boot-Black And Eating-Place which was a popular railcar diner with a shoe shine stand out front. It was 11:30 in the morning and the diner was gearing up for lunch.
Therein lay the problem. Or lie the problem. One or the other. Either way there was a problem and it was lying right behind the boot-black stand.
The men stomped into the railcar and settled on to stools, small chips of gilding fluttering off their overalls and onto the floor. Mrs. McWiggin got off the telegraph (it was a state of the art railcar diner) where she had been trying to contact a man about his lost dog that she had found and leashed behind the railcar diner. She began to take orders.
“I’ll have eggs”
“Me too”
One by one all twelve rough and tumble longshoremen ordered eggs prepared various ways. Mrs. McWiggin relayed the information to Jose, the short order cook recently of Puebla and he said “Senora, it is lunch time; we do not serve eggs now.”
This was a problem. The men did not want lunch, they wanted breakfast.
Friends, I won’t assault your ears with the hateful things that were said (particularly since many of them were based on ethnicity – the longshoremen were Italian, the diner owners were Irish and the cook was Mexican so you can imagine the sort of terrible things that were said since this was 1896 and not the tolerant, inclusive America we live in today). Let us just say that it ended with the longshoremen swearing oaths to Socialism and Unionization and a charge into the kitchen to grab two dozen eggs which were summarily thrown against the walls of the Eating-Place. The Boot-Black chair was overturned and the men then stormed the grocery a block away whereupon
All right, so there really wasn’t all that much damage. However once the sensationalist press got hold of the story it became “Ethnics Riot And Burn Down A Block Of Stores Over Breakfast” and “Italians Crack Heads Over Eggs”.
Once the story took a life of its own in the media it was only a matter of time before eatery-owners saw an opportunity to seize on ethnic hysteria to get tax breaks. The Amalgamated Eating-Place Fraternal Order of New York petitioned City Hall to pass legislation to provide tax incentives for eateries that advertised and served “breakfast all day”. This would enable diner owners to buy more land and expand operations. This legislation was passed as the Ade-Shepherd Act of 1897 right after the City Council’s Christmas recess. However because the city was worried about losing tax revenue over the long haul the Act had a sunset provision for 20 years in the future (1917). So today any place you see that specifically advertises “Breakfast All Day” is likely a descendent of those early 20th century businesses and owes its existence to a small group of angry, hungry dockworkers.
Not anymore.
As part of this website’s redefined identity and commitment to public service, we will be exploring the little-known incidents in local history that shaped the law and culture of our land and continue to affect our daily lives even though we are completely unaware of their existence. Today we will explore the Great Egg Riot of 1896 and the subsequent Ade-Shepherd Act of 1897.
Back in the 19th century New York was still a bustling port city. Incidentally, why is it that cities always “bustle”? I mean they surely do not “amble” but they do sometimes “crawl” or even “teem” and yet they are always described as “bustling” unless you’re talking about the people who are then described as “teeming masses” that often “yearn” for something. Well in this case, the people yearned for breakfast. But that would be jumping ahead, let us return to our setup.
In the 19th century the dockworking-longshoreman types didn’t just frequent beer halls and brothels as is frequently described in the literature of the era. I mean, you couldn’t haul around weighty cargo every day if you were subsisting on a diet of alcohol and whores. At some point the average dockworker had to take a day or two off from drinking and get a decent meal, right? So it was that small diners sprung up around the waterfronts of the city. These small diners were, uh, pretty small (must install a thesaurus on this thing...) and consequently had very limited menus that they varied throughout the day to accommodate the waves of dockworkers who worked various shifts.
On brilliant September afternoon in 1896 a cargo vessel bringing in a large shipment of brass gilding (over 70% of the gilding in the United States passed through New York City ports in those days) arrived two hours late owing to a spot New York City Police inspection after the coppers (they were called coppers because you could bribe them with a mere two cents back then) got word of a secret shipment of immigrants who were attempting to enter the country without the fedoras that all immigrant men were required to wear while roaming the streets at the time (which will be the subject of another article if I can unearth enough fresh research). The delay in the ship’s arrival obviously meant the dockworkers had to wait to unload the gilding which means they got out of work late and were famished.
And there was the problem.
See, gilding ships were typically unloaded by the third-shift workers on the docks and those guys were used to having a fine and hearty breakfast after getting off of work. So it was that day that a crew of a dozen ravenous men approached McWiggin’s Boot-Black And Eating-Place which was a popular railcar diner with a shoe shine stand out front. It was 11:30 in the morning and the diner was gearing up for lunch.
Therein lay the problem. Or lie the problem. One or the other. Either way there was a problem and it was lying right behind the boot-black stand.
The men stomped into the railcar and settled on to stools, small chips of gilding fluttering off their overalls and onto the floor. Mrs. McWiggin got off the telegraph (it was a state of the art railcar diner) where she had been trying to contact a man about his lost dog that she had found and leashed behind the railcar diner. She began to take orders.
“I’ll have eggs”
“Me too”
One by one all twelve rough and tumble longshoremen ordered eggs prepared various ways. Mrs. McWiggin relayed the information to Jose, the short order cook recently of Puebla and he said “Senora, it is lunch time; we do not serve eggs now.”
This was a problem. The men did not want lunch, they wanted breakfast.
Friends, I won’t assault your ears with the hateful things that were said (particularly since many of them were based on ethnicity – the longshoremen were Italian, the diner owners were Irish and the cook was Mexican so you can imagine the sort of terrible things that were said since this was 1896 and not the tolerant, inclusive America we live in today). Let us just say that it ended with the longshoremen swearing oaths to Socialism and Unionization and a charge into the kitchen to grab two dozen eggs which were summarily thrown against the walls of the Eating-Place. The Boot-Black chair was overturned and the men then stormed the grocery a block away whereupon
All right, so there really wasn’t all that much damage. However once the sensationalist press got hold of the story it became “Ethnics Riot And Burn Down A Block Of Stores Over Breakfast” and “Italians Crack Heads Over Eggs”.
Once the story took a life of its own in the media it was only a matter of time before eatery-owners saw an opportunity to seize on ethnic hysteria to get tax breaks. The Amalgamated Eating-Place Fraternal Order of New York petitioned City Hall to pass legislation to provide tax incentives for eateries that advertised and served “breakfast all day”. This would enable diner owners to buy more land and expand operations. This legislation was passed as the Ade-Shepherd Act of 1897 right after the City Council’s Christmas recess. However because the city was worried about losing tax revenue over the long haul the Act had a sunset provision for 20 years in the future (1917). So today any place you see that specifically advertises “Breakfast All Day” is likely a descendent of those early 20th century businesses and owes its existence to a small group of angry, hungry dockworkers.
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