The Shirt Tails were a mid-19th-century

street gang A gang is a group or society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collective ...

based in the Five Points

slum A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, United States, who wore their shirts on the outside of their pants as 19th-century Chinese laborers would dress as a form of insignia and as a sign of gang group affiliation. Members kept their weapons—as many as three or four at a time—concealed beneath their shirts; this discreet measure stands in contrast to competing gangs who flaunted their weapons in order to intimidate. Never numbering more than a few hundred members, the Shirt Tails, like many other gangs, disappeared shortly before the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

(although they did participate in a coalition of gangs under the

Dead Rabbits The Dead Rabbits was the name of an Irish American criminal street gang active in Lower Manhattan in the 1830s to 1850s. The Dead Rabbits were so named after a dead rabbit was thrown into the center of the room during a gang meeting, prompting s ...

and fought against the Bowery Boys during the

New York Draft Riots The New York City draft riots (July 13–16, 1863), sometimes referred to as the Manhattan draft riots and known at the time as Draft Week, were violent disturbances in Lower Manhattan, widely regarded as the culmination of white working-cla ...

), with its remaining members dissipating or joining other Irish gangs.

References

*Asbury, Herbert. ''The Gangs of New York''.

: Alfred A. Knoff Inc., 1927. Former gangs in New York City Irish-American gangs 19th century in New York City {{NYC-stub