Transcript Irish Americans Before 1900’s

Irish Americans Before 1900s
Presentation By:
Brook Borges
Stephanie Martin
Shari Ashton
Meghan Baillie
Audry Holod
Jennifer Houchens
Courtny 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,
for life.
sometimes
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 Anglochildren’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 wellbeing.
* 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 antiIrish 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 Philadelphia
In The Nineteenth Century." The Pennsylvania Magazine of
History and Biography. 101 (1977): 475-486.
Golway, Terry. The Irish in America. Hyperion, New York. 1997
Miller, Kerby and Paul Wagner. Out of Ireland The Story of Irish Emigration
to American. Elliott and Clark Publishing. Washington D.C. 1994
Tomlins, Christopher. "Reconsidering Indentured Servitude: European
Migration and The Early American Labor Force, 1600-1775." Labor
History. 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’d
www.american.edu/bgriff/dighistprojects/Hogan/irish.htm
www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/criley/Beth_Keating.doc
www.lcweb2.loc.gov/learn/features/immig/irish.html
www.maxwell.syr.edu/europeancatholicspresentation
Hoobler, Dorothy “The Irish American Family Album”
http://college.hmco.com
www.children.smartlibrary.org
Zelizer, 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.asp
www.aislingmagazine.com/aislingmagazine/articles/TAM19/Irish%20families.html
Mindel, 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/ >
The End