Immigration Of The Irish To The United States
Immigration of the Irish to America during the Famine During the time the Famine began in Ireland in 1845, over a million Irish people immigrated to America. The Irish that came to America were of the poorest people to come to America. As they stepped of the boats onto Boston, Mass. soil, people pointed and laughed at them. These poor Irish people did not dress in the latest fashions but wore clothes that were two decades out of fashion, by American standards. Boston was a town of English Puritans who did not like the Irish coming into their town and made it well known. This “social revolution” was the start of many hardships the Irish had to face while trying to live in America. The Irish had no one to offer them any type of support and had to start at the bottom of the social ladder. The Irish men took such unskilled jobs as cleaning horse stables, pushing carts, and unloading ships. These low paying jobs still paid a dollar a day, better than those back in Ireland which were about eight cents a day, so they stuck with them. In 1847, Boston was overwhelmed by the vast amount of Irish immigrating into the city almost daily. As the Irish took up many of the unskilled jobs the Bostonians began to suffer as well. The lack of enough jobs to go around forced the Bostonians to put signs in the windows stating “Irish not need to apply”. The Irish were segregated and disliked throughout Boston. Irish people had to live in damp cellar like apartments with many other families. Their landlords were also heinous and would throw them out in the street if they did not pay the $1.50 a week , per family rent. By 1840 standards, $1.50 a week was a great deal of money. Living in such cramped and unsanitary conditions brought about a wave of cholera. Over sixty percent of these Irish children did not live to see their sixth birthday. And the Irish adult life expectancy after stepping off the boat was only six years. The Irish grew tired of being mistreated, the lack of jobs,...