Louis Vigotsky / Rosen

1870s–1880s

Born about 1873–1875 in Russia, possibly near Minsk, the son of a man named Jacob. Arrived in New York around 1888.

1890s–1900s

A tailor on the Lower East Side. Married Rachel Lazansky; their first son, Sam, was born in 1896. Filed for naturalization in 1899. The family lived on Broome, Clinton, and Monroe Streets.

1910s

A garment operator, living on Grand Street from 1915, with more than a dozen children. Registered to vote as a Socialist.

1920s–1940s

Ran an illegal saloon during Prohibition and later worked for himself at home, sometimes with his son Abe. Widowed in 1940.

1950s

Living with his second wife in the basement of the family house on East 89th Street in Brooklyn in 1950. Died on 29 November 1953.

From Russia to Broome Street

Louis Vigotsky, whose American family took the surname Rosen, was born in Russia around 1873 to 1875; one record places his birth in Minsk. His Hebrew name was Eliezer, and his father's name was Jacob. Family lore says he left Russia after getting a girl pregnant. His records disagree about when he came, anywhere from about 1885 to 1891, but his naturalization papers say he landed in Manhattan on September 17, 1888. He said he had known Noah Schlossberg, later the husband of his wife's sister Lena, back in Russia, and he had a brother who also came to New York.

Louis was a tailor. By 1893 he knew another tailor, Jacob Marcus of Norfolk Street, who in July 1899 stood as his witness when he petitioned for citizenship. He married Rachel Lazansky, and in 1898 they were living at 204 Broome Street. Their son Sam, born in 1896, was one of the oldest of more than a dozen children: Gussie, Jaffee, Jack (Ben's great-grandfather), Isidore, Abe, Eddy, Helen, who died as a little girl, Harry, Ruby, Lillian, Elsie, Chubby, and Ralph. The family moved from tenement to tenement, to Clinton Street, Monroe Street, Rutgers Place, and in 1915 the sixth floor of 403 Grand Street.

Tailor, Socialist, Saloonkeeper

Louis worked as a tailor or sewing-machine operator in the garment shops, in 1918 at the New York Uniform Company on Sixth Avenue. His draft card that year describes him as tall, of medium build, with blue eyes and brown hair. His politics moved over the years: he registered to vote as a Socialist in 1915–17, as a Democrat from 1925 to 1936, and with the American Labor Party from 1937. His granddaughter, the writer Eleanor Rackow Widmer, remembered him as "a socialist, follower of Norman Thomas; open-hearted to all."

After Prohibition began in 1920, Louis ran an illegal saloon. From the mid-1920s he worked for himself, sometimes with his son Abe and often at home, at 205 East Broadway, then Norfolk Street, and from 1937 on the fourth floor of 214 Broome Street.

Later Years

Rachel died in 1940. Louis married again, and in 1950 he and his second wife were living in the basement of the family house at 124 East 89th Street in Brooklyn, where his son Jack had lived and his daughter Elsie's family was living. At some point he had a stroke. Louis died in Brooklyn on November 29, 1953, and was buried at Montefiore Cemetery in Springfield Gardens, Queens, where Rachel also lies.