The Bowery B'Hoys

There is a lot of great information out there on the Bowery B’Hoys. In general, the term Bowery B’Hoys refers to the groups of young working class men who frequented the Bowery section of lower Manhattan for entertainment in the 1830’s/40’s. According to the book Five Points: The 19th Century New York City Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum by Tyler Anbinder (lengthy but great title!), the bowery b’hoys “loved fun, adventure, hard drinking, and a night out with his pals.” While the group had a unique style of dress (which was partially tied to their frequent role as firefighters), the book also quotes George C. Foster who described a unique attitude maintained by most bowery b’hoys: “the governing sentiment, pride and passion of the B’hoy is independence – that he can do as he pleases and is able, under all circumstances, to take care of himself. He abhors dependence, obligation.” The book goes on to further describe the bowery b’hoys as maintaining a commitment to family and friends, a dislike of the aristocracy, and a love of adventure (known for feats of courage). In addition, they are described as typically being native Americans working as tradespeople.

The bowery b’hoys status as working class men was certainly one that appealed to Whitman. While Song of Myself espouses little animosity for any group (excluding a few pokes at the upper class), Whitman certainly related to the working class and functions through his poetry as a champion of the common working person regardless of class status – man, woman, white, black, etc. According to David Reynolds, Whitman frequently mixed with the bowery b’hoys, attending plays and other forms of entertainment and tried to capture the “vitality and defiance” of the b’hoys in his poetry. And while Whitman was not a fan of the frequent violence in lower Manhattan that was sometimes associated with the bowery b’hoys, he held their defiance in high regard – as he states in his preface to Leaves of Grass: “A heroic person walks at his ease through and out of that custom or precedent or authority that suits him not.” In this sense, Whitman was certainly a b’hoy himself.