Irish Americans Before 1900s

Presentation By:Brook Borges

Stephanie MartinShari Ashton

Meghan BaillieAudry Holod

Jennifer HouchensCourtny Feller

Indentured Servitude

The Reasons/Causes for Servitude

• Labor Force for English Colonies * Largest number of Irish arrived in

Delaware Valley via Philadelphia • Method to Pay Passage to America

* Adults charged full freight fare, children charge half fare* Children 15 and over were charged full freight fare

Irish Children of Servitude

• Children sold first off of ships* Children under age 5 given away* Could serve up to 15 years* Most released at age 21

• Children sold to pay parents passage* Children bartered for like cattle* Children under 15 sold for full fare to pay for parents* Parents concerned for children’s welfare and future* Some families separated for long periods of time, sometimes for life.

Study Questions

• How long could children be bound in servitude for? Up to 15 Years

• At what age where the children charged “full freight fare” for passage? 15 years old

• What mainland region held the highest number of Irish indentured servants in the 18th and 19th centuries? The Delaware Valley (Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey)

Irish American Religion

Irish American Religion

• Before the Irish began immigrating to the U.S., they were faced with hundreds of years of British oppression. England insisted on the Irish converting to the Anglican Church and submitting to British rule. Before the Potato Famine, the British imposed Penal Laws against Roman Catholics of Ireland, which robbed them of many of the basic rights that their Protestant neighbors enjoyed.

• Centuries of Religious conflict between Protestant and Catholics along with the Potato Famine of 1846 drove over one million Irish immigrants to the U.S. in search of personal, political, and religious freedoms- a better life overall.

• Irish immigrants left Ireland as nationalistic Irish Catholics headed, unknowingly, to a new world of Anglo-Saxon Protestants of English decent- America.

Irish American Religion Cont’d

• When they arrived in America, they were welcomed with racism, class struggle, religious persecution, and political inequality. The only difference between their homeland and this new land was the hope they had to be able to overcome these things in time.

• There was pressure to assimilate into European Protestant communities. To lose their accents, religion, cultural practices, and even change their names.

• Through it all, one of the primary things that unified the Irish immigrants was the Catholic Church. Despite the adversity they faced as Catholics, it was one of the few things they refused to let go of. They even classified themselves according to the Parish they belonged to rather than the section of the city they lived in. They were now American Roman Catholics.

Irish American Religion Cont’d

• Some of the adversity they faced was anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic groups. One, called the American Party, committed during their inductions to be against anyone who was foreign born and anyone who was Roman Catholic. There were mob riots of Protestants who attacked Catholics, stoned Priests, and burned down churches. A popular Anglo-children’s game during this time was “Break the Pope’s Neck”.

Study Questions

• What were two of the causes for the Irish to immigrate to the U.S.?

• What two religious conflicts were a key factor?

Gender Roles of Irish Americans

Irish American Gender Roles

• Irish men went to work to provide for their families. Some would work as laborers and others as skilled tradesmen, businessmen, and professionals.

• A traditional Irish woman remained at home to take care of the household. She was the important role in raising the children. However, not all Irish women were tied to the house. Many were also active in community oriented projects such as parochial work and caring for the old and sick.

• The children, whether they were male or female, were encouraged to attend school. Many children, as young as ten years old, were sent to work to help provide for their family at the expense of their education.

Irish American Gender Role Cont’d

• In the children’s past time, they would play in the streets making up games and providing their own entertainment. * They liked to run and jump on the dead horses that were left on the street.* The children would play “duck on the rock” and “Relievo” which were boy games.* Depending on where they lived, some of the children

would fish in muddy ponds and several children from the age of 16 to 20 would steel tires and hubcaps, or they would take a horse and buggy and put the horse in backwards or unharness the horse so when the driver got in, the horse would walk off and the wagon stood still.

Study Questions

• What were some of the jobs Irish men did when they came the America? They were laborers, tradesmen, businessmen, or professionals.

• When the women weren’t tied to doing household chores, what were they doing? They did community oriented projects.

Major Events

Major Events

• “An Gorta Mor”: The greatest hunger, as it was called by the Irish. We know it as the Potato Famine

• During the repeated potato crop failures in the 1840s, a million Irish died and more then two million fled their country to avoid death from starvation.

• The Irish immigrated to the United States between 1892 and 1954. They were brought to Ellis Island.

Major Events Cont’d

• After the potato famine, immigration continued to function as an economic and social safety net for Irish society. It enabled people who could not earn a living in Ireland to seek their fortune abroad.

• Irish Americans settled in large cities on the east coast, especially in New York City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Boston Massachusetts.

• They lived in crowded ethnic ghettos and worked in the least desirable jobs. Men and boys usually did labor, while women and girls often worked as domestic servants.

Study Questions

• What does “An Gorta Mor” mean? The Great Hunger

• What were the large cities that the Irish immigrants settled in? New York City, Philadelphia, and Boston

Orphan Trains

Due to the overflow of homeless children on the street, various organizations clothe, feed, and shelter orphans, then ship them

off to live elsewhere in the Midwest.

Orphan Trains

• Why are so many young Irish children on the streets?* Children either without parents, or had a parent unable to provide for them due to lack of adequate income (discrimination) or loss of spouse.

• Mass Immigration* East Coast was unable to provide adequate food , shelter, and schooling for huge amounts of homeless children.

* Results*Children left to roam the streets* Create any means of survival* Shine shoes, sell flowers, crime, theft,

prostitution, etc.

Orphan Trains Cont’d• Solutions

* Organizations I.e.- New York Children’s Aid Society created by Reverend Charles Loring Brace provide temporary food shelter for children, prepare them to be migrated to Midwest.* Estimated approximately 300,000 children and babies mass migrated across U.S.* Especially to Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, etc.

• Exact process of Orphan Trains* 10-100 children loaded on trains with food and extra change of clothing.* Many switched trains in Chicago.

Orphan Trains Cont’d• Exact process of Orphan Trains Cont’d

* Arrive from journey, change clothes and walk to church or hotel to be presented to interested families.* Sometimes sing, recite poems, visit with crowd.* Interested family would sign agreement to provide for child, properly school them, etc.* Some families would already have placed requests for brother and sister, or specifically girls or boys.* Agents would then release child/children to new family, check up with them at a later date to ensure his/her well-being.* Highly successful results.

Study Questions

• What are two reasons so many young Irish children were on the streets? Children without parents, or they were unable to provide for them and mass migration into the U.S.

• What was the solution to the problem of homeless children provided by groups such as the New York Children’s Aid Society? Temporary food and shelter, shipment to the Midwest on trains.

• What was the main goal for the children once they reached their destination in the Midwest? To find a family to live with.

Irish Americans and Education

Irish and Education

• The Irish were primarily Catholic and generally poor, and desperate for education.

• Children were expected to attend schools where Protestant religion was the primary religion.

• The text books children used were vary much anti-Irish and anti-Catholic.

• Many children became de-nationalized to fit in.

Irish and Schools

• Those who supported the Irish tried to open new schools, but they were denied because many Irish lived in the “slums”.

• The city council did not want to put any money in these “slums,” so no funding, means no schools.

• At times there could be up to 20,000 Irish children in the streets during school hours because they did not want to be in a biased school system.

Irish and the Catholic Union

• In 1879, the Catholic Union supported an amendment that the children should be placed in an institution of their own religious background.

• It passed and Catholic institutions began to expand, which allowed more Irish children the opportunity to go to a place where they would feel comfortable to be themselves, a Catholic school.

Study Questions

• In the schools that the Irish children attended, what religion was the primary focus? Protestant

• Why did the city council not want to put money toward Catholic schools? They didn’t want to put money into the “slums”.

• Who supported an amendment that said children should be placed in institutions of their own religious background? The Catholic Union.

Child Labor Laws

Child Labor Laws

• Prior to the 1900s in the United States, child labor was not controversial.

• Children were an essential part of the agricultural and handicraft economy.

• Children were more desirable to hire for work due to the fact that they could be paid lower wages, they were easier to manage, and it was more challenging for unions to organize children.

• With the large flow of Irish immigrants migrating to the United States beginning in the 1840s, due to The Great Hunger, it provided the U.S. with new children to hire for work related purposes.

Child Labor Laws Cont’d

• A plethora of these Irish immigrants were from an agricultural background, thus supporting the same views regarding child labor that Americans had in the 1800s.

• Due to the lack of child labor laws, Irish American Children accounted for approximately 38 to 46 percent of the household income in two-parent families in the 1880s and 1890s.

• With signs posted that read “Help Wanted, Irish Need Not Apply,” it was difficult for the Irish to find work.

Child Labor Laws Cont’d

• Many mine owners capitalized on this opportunity, hiring not only Irish men to work in coal mines, but their children as well.* Masses of children, as young as seven years of age, would work vigorously sorting coal that had been dug up by the men for hours on end, for a meager $1 to $3 dollars per week.

• It was not until the Fair Labor Act of 1938 that limitations were placed on child labor.

Study Questions

• How much household income did child labor account for in two-parent homes in the 1880s and 1890s? 38 to 46 Percent.

• Why were children more desirable to hire for work? They could be paid lower wages, they were more challenging for unions to organize, and they were easier to manage.

Bibliography

Clark, Dennis. "Babes In Bondage" Indentured Irish Children In PhiladelphiaIn The Nineteenth Century." The Pennsylvania Magazine ofHistory and Biography. 101 (1977): 475-486. Golway, Terry. The Irish in America. Hyperion, New York. 1997Miller, Kerby and Paul Wagner. Out of Ireland The Story of Irish Emigrationto American. Elliott and Clark Publishing. Washington D.C. 1994Tomlins, Christopher. "Reconsidering Indentured Servitude: EuropeanMigration and The Early American Labor Force, 1600-1775." LaborHistory. 42 (2001): 5-45.  Watts, J.F. The Irish Americans. Chelsea House Publishers. New York. 1988 Binder, Frederick M., Reimers, David M. The Way we lived: essays and

documents in American social history. D.C. Health: Lexington, Mass. 1988.

Mac Gill, Patrick. Children of the dead end. Edinburgh: Chester Springs, PA. 1994

Bibliography Cont’dwww.american.edu/bgriff/dighistprojects/Hogan/irish.htmwww.andrew.cmu.edu/user/criley/Beth_Keating.docwww.lcweb2.loc.gov/learn/features/immig/irish.htmlwww.maxwell.syr.edu/europeancatholicspresentationHoobler, Dorothy “The Irish American Family Album” http://college.hmco.comwww.children.smartlibrary.orgZelizer, Viviana. The changing social value of children. 1985, (70), 260-262.Gribben, Arthur, ed. The Great Famine and the Irish Diaspora in America.

University of Massachusetts Press, 1999. Habenstein, Robert W., www.ailf.org/ipc/policy_reports_2001_Irish2.aspwww.aislingmagazine.com/aislingmagazine

/articles/TAM19/Irish%20families.htmlMindel, Charles H., and Wright, Jr., Roosevelt, eds. Ethnic Families in

America. New York: Elsevier, 1988.

Bibliography

Hayden, Tom, ed. Irish Hunger. Boulder: Rhinehart, 1997. Irish in America: Losing Their Identity. Feb. 3, 2005. American Naval

Academy English Department. <http://www.nadn.navy.mil/EnglishDept/ilv/iramer.htm>

Moyer, Patsy. The Orphan Train. Feb. 3, 2005. <http://www.zianet.com/patsyandfriends/029%20article%20Orphan%20Train.ht m>

Orphan Train. Feb. 6, 2005. UsGen Web Project. <http://iagenweb.org/iaorphans/ >

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