I’m currently in New York where I’ve come to do some research at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research about old NY immigrant klezmers, their life trajectories, families and professional connections. I received the Fellowship in East European Arts, Music, and Theater with the general topic of “Immigrant Klezmer Musicians during the Golden Age of Commercial Recording,” which leaves me plenty of wiggle room to figure out what I can from their archival collections.
Needless to say it’s not a great time to arrive in the US. I even boarded my plane on the day of the supposed impositions of tariffs against Canada, although Trump backed off of it, or maybe deferred it for a month.
I’ve been here a week so far, but the research space at the Center for Jewish History has only been open for 3 days of it, so I’m definitely still at the start of my work and trying to make sense of which collections I can use. I started with some obvious klezmer collections, like the papers of Dave Tarras and of the Al Glaser Recording Orchestra (more on those in a later post). But those aren’t the real reason for my visit, as they are made up of musical scores with minimal contextual or biographical information.
I’ll probably spend most of my time looking at landsmanshaft and mutual aid and cultural society papers, of which YIVO has a rich collection. The first I requested was the Glinianer Young Men’s Benevolent Association (a mutual aid society for immigrants from Glina/Hlyniany); I already knew that klezmer violinist Beresh Katz was active in it around WWII, as was rather briefly the ex-klezmer Jeremiah Hescheles. It was full of dates and receipts about musical events put on by the Association and I even found the meeting minutes when Katz vouched for the newly-arrived Hescheles to become a member.
Klezmer violinist and Association vice president Beresh “Ben” Katz from a 40th anniversary booklet for the Glinianer Young Men’s Benevolent Association
That was an easy one, but I know much less about the ties of klezmers or old Jewish musicians to the many other mutual aid societies of old New York. For the rest it’s a matter of ordering boxes one by one and looking through their contents to see what connections I can make. I started with cities and towns that known NY klezmers came from; for example, Israel J. Hochman (see this old post about him) was from Kamianets-Podilskyi and his father was from nearby Zhvanets, so I looked at landsman or relief organizations associated with those places.
Cover of “Der Zvanitser,” annual journal of the Zwanitz Podolier Progressive Branch 277 circa 1939. This muscle-man art appeared in different colour schemes on several of these annual journals.
Some of the boxes aren’t of much use for music history research if they only contain non-specific invoices, cemetery documents, or cover a much later period than I’m looking at. So far I’ve found that the anniversary booklets, souvenir journals, etc. from the 1930s and 1940s to be the most interesting source because they usually contain at least one advertisement for a musician or orchestra. In the various Kamianets and Zhvanets books I’ve looked at so far, I didn’t find any Hochmans yet but I did find George C. Brandman, a Hochman relative and cornetist who I mentioned in my Hochman post, in a publication of the Kamenetz-Podolier Relief Organization.
Advertisement for George C. Brandman’s orchestra in a 1949 publication of the Kamenetz-Podolier Relief Organization, a charity organization which united the various local Kamanetzer landsmanshaftn to send aid back home.
Most interesting to me is if the musician is demonstrably a member of the association, as in the case of a member of the Radziviller-Woliner Benevolent Association, Harry Tepper, who appears in membership lists and personal greetings alongside his dentist brother(?) over a period of several years.
Advertisement for Harry Tepper’s Novelty Orchestra in Radziviller-Woliner Benevolent Association souvenir journal, 1931?
Other musicians who advertised in the Radziviler journals were definitely not members, like Naftule “Nat” Brandwein, or apparently not members, like Joe Magaziner.
Advertisement for Joe Magaziner’s Columbia Orchestra in Radziviller-Woliner Benevolent Association souvenir journal, 1936?
My current plan is to continue going through YIVO’s collections of these mutual aid associations for traces of old musicians, and to start linking them to old genealogy-type records, musician’s union records and old newspaper coverage. We’ll see where the research takes me after that.
Myself and YIVO sound archivist Eléonore Biezunski on my first day in the building, Monday Februarty 3, 2025.
A painting of Borysław by Stanisław Bieńkiewicz, 19th C. From Wikimedia Commons.
Sam Young is one of those names I was vaguely aware of from the old New York klezmer recording industry, but I couldn’t have said anything about who he was or what he recorded. I’d seen him listed in books among other minor artists of the time, but hadn’t even heard any of his three 78rpm discs from 1921. When I was ordering klezmer copyright scores from the Library of Congress this spring, I obtained his 6 handwritten copyright scores among my latest batch, which correspond to those 3 discs. To mark the occasion I’ve tried my best to piece together what I can about his life from genealogy records. For the most part, his music background and career remain a mystery.
Family backround in Europe
Sam Young was born near Tarnopol, Galicia, Austria-Hungary (today Ternopil, Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine) in the late 1870s. I’m fairly confident this birth record for an Elias Simon Jung born in July 1877 in Pokropiwna village (near Kozłów, about 25 km west of Tarnopol) refers to Sam. He was never consistent about his exact birth year in later US documents. His parents, Kelman Jung (born c.1860) and Riwke Wasser (born c.1862), lived in Kozłów. His brother Mechel Jacob Wasser (later Michael Young) was born in September 1883 in Chorobrów village, also near Kozłów, but the middle brother Moses Hensel Jung (later Morris Young) was born inBorysław in 1880, near Drohobycz, 180 km to the west. I have no idea why they moved and moved back, though the Yizkor book for Drohobycz, Boryslaw and Surroundings (translated to English here) describes it as a booming oil town in that era. Ternopil is also described in its Yizkor book (translated here) including an interesting chapter about the Wolfstahl family of musicians.
Pokropiwna village circa 1915. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
In New York, Sam was a member of the First Uscie Biskupier Society (landsmanshaft), referring to Uście Biskupie (today Ustia, Ukraine), about 150 km south of Ternopil. I’m not sure what his connection was to that community, whether it was through his wife’s family or something else. It’s also about 40 km northwest of where fellow klezmer Israel J. Hochman‘s father was born, near Khotyn.
Detail of the Miczyński Map of Galicia, 1872, showing places associated with Sam Young and his family: 1 (Kozłów town), 2 (Pokropiwna village) and 3 (Chorobrów village), 4 (Borysław, near Drohobycz), and 5 (Uście Biskupie).
The only Galician place name among his 1921 78 rpm records is Drohobych in his track Drohobitcher Chosid. I mention this because I’m interested in how these American klezmers titled their discs with geographic references, which in some cases are very close to their home region (eg. Hochman, who referenced Podolian place names a fair amount, or Katzman who almost always referenced his native Chișinău).
I wasn’t able to find any direct evidence that Sam Young was from a musical or klezmer family in Europe, nor anything about his education (musical or otherwise). His great-great granddaughter mentioned to me that she had always heard he came from a musical family, although she couldn’t find out much about his life either. As far as I can tell Sam’s father Kelman was a tailor and I didn’t encounter any other musicians in the family tree in U.S. documents.
Emigration to New York and life in the LES & Bronx
The Jungs emigrated as a family, landing in New York in around 1890, although I couldn’t find any direct documentation and on various censuses the year was occasionally recorded as being a few years earlier or later. They Americanized their family name to Young, and their given names to Rebecca, Sam, Morris and Mike, although the father kept the name Kalmen. Sam got married in 1898 to Chane Taub, later Anna Young, another Galician Jewish immigrant (the marriage record is here on the NYC vital records site). On that certificate they were living at 85 Ludlow street in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
A photo of the corner of Hester and Ludlow streets from 1892, the block Sam lived on when he got married in 1898. Source: Brooklyn Public Library.
In the 1900 census Sam appears twice, first on June 2nd at his own home at 145 Orchard Street with his wife Anna and 2-year-old daughter Bella, and again on June 11th at his father’s place at 142 Eldridge Street with his parents and siblings. On that form Sam is listed as a musician, Kalmen as a tailor, Morris as a waist maker, and Mike as a furrier. Sam and Anna’s second daughter Clara (later Kate or Katie) was born in 1903. By then they were living a few doors down at 167 Orchard street; in the 1905 NY census they are still living there and Sam is still listed as “musician.”
In the 1910 census Sam is living at 129 Clinton street and is listed as “violinist, teacher.” What’s a bit more interesting is that, in 1911 and still living on Clinton street, Sam appears as a guarantor on the naturalization petition for Hyman “Hymie” Millrad, a slightly better known klezmer bassist who had worked with Max Leibowitz. By the 1915 NY census and 1920 census Sam is living at 84 Essex street and listed on the latter as “musician, lieder theatre [?].” By this time his daughter Kate was 17 and listed as a bookkeeper. Here Sam was following the path of many fellow klezmers and Jewish immigrant contemporaries in moving out of tenements and into nicer freestanding houses.
The Young family home at 84 Essex where they lived during the 1910s and early 1920s, from a tax photo circa 1940. Source: New York City Department of Records.
In Sam’s 1918 draft registration card, they’re still living on Essex Street, where Sam’s occupation is listed as “Musician, Loew Vaudeville House, [at] Fulton & Livingston, B’klyn.” After this, the Youngs relocated to the Bronx. In the 1925 NY census they’ve moved to 1313 Boynton street, where Sam would live for the rest of his life. It seems the house was owned by Charles Harris, a cloak salesman & the husband of Sam’s daughter Bella. The 1930 census is Sam’s final appearance as a musician in these records; still on Boynton street and listed as a “Musician, orchestra.”
The Harris-Young home at 1313 Boynton circa 1940. Source: New York City Department of Records.
In his final census appearance in 1940, still living with Bella and her family, Sam doesn’t have any occupation listed. Sam died of natural causes on July 14, 1941 and was buried in the Uscie Biskupier section of Mount Hebron Cemetery in Queens. He was listed as a Hotel Musician in the NY death certificate.
Music Career, scores and recordings
Aside from his six 78 rpm recordings, and the corresponding copyright scores, I haven’t had much luck piecing together Sam’s music career in New York, either in the Yiddish or English press of the time. Part of the problem is that his name is so common; German, Irish or English people were also called Sam Young. But in general working klezmers of his time did not get much press coverage and did not document their work, unless they happened to appear in advertisements for concerts or balls, or on schedules making radio appearances. So far I haven’t found any of these for Sam, except for a few promoting his 78 rpm records.
Title
78 rpm Record #
Audio available?
Copyright score from US Library of Congress
DROHOBITCHER CHOSID; (The religious man from Drohobitch); by S. Young (of U. S.); violin.
Cardinal 1106
On archive.org courtesy of the Max and Frieda Weinstein Archive of YIVO Sound Recordings. Also on Jewish Orchestras vol. 2 cassette by Muziker.org.
The set of six February 1921 recordings by S. Young’s Yiddisher Orchestra, released on Cardinal Records.
disc label for Cardinal 1106 “Der Chosid Geht Tanzen” from 1921. Scanned by YIVO and uploaded to archive.org.Cardinal records ad from May 1921 issue of Talking Machine World listing Sam Young’s discs. Source: HathiTrust. A magazine blurb about new Cardinal records releases from May 1921 issue of Talking Machine World. Sam’s discs are mentioned in passing as “Some spirited numbers.” Source: HathiTrust.
The 4 sides I was able to listen to at the links above are pleasant old klezmer, if not remarkable. To me, they sound like fairly standard New York klezmer of the time, similar to Leibowitz, Frankel, Schwartz, etc. orchestras, with a kind of Ukrainian or Romanian feel to most of them.
I will update this post if I find any more info about him later. Feel free to let me know if you have any photos of Sam or other information.
Thanks to various people on facebook who commented some facts about Sam Young’s 78rpm records, including Bill Barabash, Sherry Mayrent, Lorin Sklamberg, Joel Rubin, and Tom Deakin. As well as people who helped me decipher the Austro-Hungarian birth records, including Paweł Dembowski, Riley Faelan, Paul Beck, and Sabrina Bonus.
