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UNITED STATES 1840 BACKGROUND NOTES

“Here is not merely a nation, but a teeming nation of nations.” Walt Whitman from his preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass

The following are excerpts describing conditions relating to the Irish immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century United States taken with permission from Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Emigration to America, Miller and Wagner, Elliott & Clark Publishing, Washington D.C., 1994. The publishing rights to Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Emigration to America are now owned by Robert Rinehart Publishers, Boulder, Colorado. Any printing or reproduction of the material in this link must be obtained in writing from Robert Rinehart Publishers, Boulder, Colorado.

Letter to Home

September 14, 1848

My Dear Uncle and Brothers

It’s inconceivable the thousands that land here every week from all the old countries flying from tyranny and oppression. Wealthy farmers with their whole families are coming here and purchasing farms, some of the best land in the whole world. Germans, French and Hollanders are doing this on a large scale.

But most of the Irish come out poor, unable to purchase farms. They are digging quarries, carrying brick and mortar in fourth stories of houses, in winter nothing to do, all their money spent. They are despised and kicked about. Many write home they are happy and wealthy, when they are of that class above mentioned. I heard friends of a young man in this city inquiring if John (Mr. Such a One) was not a banker here, as he wrote home about that he was so and persuaded all his relatives to come join him. But was he, think you? He was sweeper of the office of the bank. They were astonished when told so. And thousands are just like him.

Write immediately,

William Dever

Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Emigration to America, Miller and Wagner, Elliott & Clark Publishing, Washington D.C., 1994, p. 41. The publishing rights to Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Emigration to America are now owned by Robert Rinehart Publishers, Boulder, Colorado. Any printing or reproduction of the material in this link must be obtained in writing from Robert Rinehart Publishers, Boulder, Colorado

Beginning of a Popular Song of the 1870’s

I am a decent Irishman from Ballifad,

And I want a situation and I want it mighty bad.

A position I saw advertised is the thing for me says I,

But the dirty spalpeen ended with “No Irish Need Apply.”

Well, says I, but that’s an insult, but to get to this place I’ll try.

So I went to see the blackguard with “No Irish Need Apply.”

Some may think it a misfortune to be christened Pat or Dan,

But to me it is an honor to be born an Irishman.

written by Miss Kathleen O’Neil

Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Emigration to America, Miller and Wagner, Elliott & Clark Publishing, Washington D.C., 1994, p. 56. The publishing rights to Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Emigration to America are now owned by Robert Rinehart Publishers, Boulder, Colorado. Any printing or reproduction of the material in this link must be obtained in writing from Robert Rinehart Publishers, Boulder, Colorado

Women Immigrants

Ireland was the only country in the nineteenth and early twentieth century to send as many females as males to America. In several decades, Irish female immigration actually surpassed males. The vast majority of women came, not as married women, but in the company of relatives or friends.

One reason was that employment opportunities were actually better for females than males. There was a great demand for single Irish women as domestic servants is middle and upper class American homes. Their wages could range from $.50 to $0.75 a week (as well as a great many presents if they got into a good house), and they seemed to be the most successful at saving money since they received room and board and had little other expenses.

Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Emigration to America, Miller and Wagner, Elliott & Clark Publishing, Washington D.C., 1994, p. 70-71. The publishing rights to Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Emigration to America are now owned by Robert Rinehart Publishers, Boulder, Colorado. Any printing or reproduction of the material in this link must be obtained in writing from Robert Rinehart Publishers, Boulder, Colorado

Health of Immigrants

Many Irish immigrants remained in Boston, where their ship docked. Their first home was often a shack in a slum on the waterfront or a tenement. The tenements were often crowded and unsanitary. Diseases such as tuberculosis spread through the tenements and infant mortality among the Boston Irish were the nation’s highest. “It is a well established fact that the average length of life of the emigrant after landing here is six years, and many insist it is much less” wrote one Irish immigrant.

Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Emigration to America, Miller and Wagner, Elliott & Clark Publishing, Washington D.C., 1994, p. 40. The publishing rights to Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Emigration to America are now owned by Robert Rinehart Publishers, Boulder, Colorado. Any printing or reproduction of the material in this link must be obtained in writing from Robert Rinehart Publishers, Boulder, Colorado

Schooling of Irish Immigrant Children

“Many afforded only a few years of schooling for their children before sending them off to work to earn a few pennies a day sewing shirts or selling newspapers.”

Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Emigration to America, Miller and Wagner, Elliott & Clark Publishing, Washington D.C., 1994, p. 40. The publishing rights to Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Emigration to America are now owned by Robert Rinehart Publishers, Boulder, Colorado. Any printing or reproduction of the material in this link must be obtained in writing from Robert Rinehart Publishers, Boulder, Colorado

Washing Clothes and Digging Ditches

Although (they were) the sons and daughters of small farmers and agricultural workers, the Famine Irish immigrants were ill-equipped to become farmers themselves. Most of them arrived with few skills and little or no capital. Many were illiterate, and some spoke only the Irish language.

And so, most Irish found work only at the bottom of the American Economy: the women ad millworkers, servants and cooks for America's expanding middle class; the men as unskilled factory laborers, miners, lumbermen, dockhands, construction workers, (and) ditch-diggers... .

Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Emigration to America, Miller and Wagner, Elliott & Clark Publishing, Washington D.C., 1994, p. 39. The publishing rights to Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Emigration to America are now owned by Robert Rinehart Publishers, Boulder, Colorado. Any printing or reproduction of the material in this link must be obtained in writing from Robert Rinehart Publishers, Boulder, Colorado

Irish Entry into American Politics

"Dear Friend, ...It is refreshing, however, to find that in this (political) process, our Irish countrymen have their share. In all political proceedings - primary elections, smashing ballot boxes, impersonating citizens, filling minor offices of all kinds, and plundering the public for the public good, in readiness to gull others or be gulled themselves - the children of our native land are eminently successful."     A letter from Richard O'Gorman   -  January 1, 1859   (Mr. O'Gorman was elected as New York City's Corporation Counsel (its' chief law enforcement officer) and then later elected as a judge on the New York Superior Court.

It was the (Irish-American's) loyalty to the (Democratic political) organizations that enabled them to circumvent Yankee prejudice in the private sector and secure lucrative contracts and steady jobs. Those jobs include work done directly for the city as policemen, firemen, gas workers, and so forth, or indirectly for construction companies and other firms that did business with urban governments.

By the 1880's the Yankee reformers were complaining bitterly of what one called "the Irish conquest of our cities."

Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Emigration to America, Miller and Wagner, Elliott & Clark Publishing, Washington D.C., 1994, p. 61-66. The publishing rights to Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Emigration to America are now owned by Robert Rinehart Publishers, Boulder, Colorado. Any printing or reproduction of the material in this link must be obtained in writing from Robert Rinehart Publishers, Boulder, Colorado

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