Emigration to the USA

Were there strategies to success?

Irish Emigration to the USA

Jewish Immigrants

• Came from severe oppression• To a nation that really did not welcome them• How did they become so successful?

Highest Income

Highest Level of Education

Most Occupational Prestige

The Irish Catholics came from a much more Primitive

Environment and are now

a close second in each category

• How?

• Why?

• Strategies?• By Chance?

• Luck OF THE IRISH?

The First Major Minority Group:

All of the urban pathologies we now associate with the

urban poor

Subsistence to Market

Rural to Urban

Non English to English Speakers

Roman Catholic

EarlierDuring the

Eighteenth-century

Ulster Irish* 1715, 1730, 1745

Irish Catholics from UlsterCaptured Indentures

* Cromwell sent over 100,000 Irish to Barbados

To Hell or Connaught (or Barbados)

Quaker Servants

Where the British Empire Where the British Empire GoesGoes

So go the Irish:So go the Irish:

as Soldiers, Servants, as Soldiers, Servants, Missionaries, Settlers, etc.Missionaries, Settlers, etc.

Ulster Presbyterian

Ulster Presbyterians become American Frontiersmen

Irish Catholics from Ulster become Protestant in America

Irish Catholic Indentures

Also, Anglo-Irish colonlists

33% to 40% of Washington’s Army was Irish

Many British thought it was an Irish rebellion,

or a Presbyterian rebellion

By 1789

The United Irishmen

Alien-Sedition Act

1. Colonial Period:Irish as Alien Servants and Frontiersmen

2. Revolutionary Period:Irish gained claim to patriotism

3. Early Republican Period:Irish convergence of talented, educated men

4. Jacksonian Period:Emphasis returns to mass immigration of unskilled laborPeriod of intense Anti-Irish activity

The Philadelphia Example

Philadelphia

1850 72,312 Irish born18% of city’s population

1860 95,458 Irish born 17% of city’s population

In NYC & Boston 23% of the populationNot counting 1st & 2nd generation

American Irish

Poor IrishPoor Irishin Phillyin Philly

2/3 of those in Alms House

were Irish

Alms Houses lent poor out as laborers

CHOLERA EPIDEMIC

Philadelphiavs. New York &

BostonQuaker vs. Dutch/Anglican Merchants

Quaker vs. Puritan Brahmin

Housing -- 1851New York 515,000

37,730 housesPhiladelphia 490,000

61,200 houses

HOUSES

Building and Loans

UNSKILLED WORKERS

Canals:Canals:Erie, Delaware & Chesapeake, Erie, Delaware & Chesapeake, New OrleansNew Orleans

RailroadsRailroads

COMPETITION WITH BLACK LABORS

IRISH MOVE INTO CITIES ENMASSE $3 paid forwarding agents for

fictitious RR jobs They could work 12 hours for 87.5

cents a day Much lower than African Americans See Want-ads in Boston & Philly papers

NINA

ENTREPRENEURSENTREPRENEURS

Entrepreneurs Raise the Irish to New Levels 1850 48% of Irish were unskilled laborers

This has NO parallel with any other immigrant group

But only 33% of Philly’s Irish were unskilled laborers

18501850Only 1% of Boston Only 1% of Boston Irish were grocersIrish were grocers

185720% of Philly’s grocers were Irish

12% of Philly’s Dry Goods Merchants were Irish

SEVEN YEARS CANNOT MAKE THAT

MUCH OF A DIFFERENCE!

Easier Upward Mobility the Further west they settled

Chicago- But remember Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, Daniel

“Peg leg” Sullivan, and Mother Jones. San Francisco

Shanghai’d 1848 -- 1849ers

Upward MobilityPriesthood & Religious LifePolitics

Police Firemen

Labor UnionsNationalism

Key to Success:

Entrepreneurism

Fields Dominated by the

Irish in the 19th & early 20th centuries

BoxersSportsmen

SingersActors

Paddy IrishMusiciansOrganized Crime

BUT,These fields did not lead

to upward mobility

Except for a select few

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS

Protestant BiblesProselytize CatholicsHarass Children

Developed an Americanized

Catholic Culture, not a

Celtic or Gaelic Catholic Culture

Prior to 1860Boston has only 4 Catholic schools

PHILLY HAD 19

Irish Construction Companies Build Catholic Churches & Schools

Irish Catholic WorkersIrish Catholic Workers

Workers can afford homesWorkers can afford homes

NATIVISTS RIOTSBIBLE BIBLE

CONTROVERSARYCONTROVERSARYHARASSMENT OF HARASSMENT OF

CATHOLIC CHLDRENCATHOLIC CHLDREN

ST AUGUSTINE’S

FR. PATRICK E. MORIARTY

How did the Jews become the richest and most educated ethnic group in the

United States?

U

Why were Jews able to become the

richest and most educated ethnic

group in the U.S.?

EXILES

98% of all Jews in the Russian Empire lived inPoverty, Persecution, and Overcrowded Conditions

They could not own land in the Russian Empire

Concentrate on urban skills & trades

1899 – 1914 64% were Skilled Workers from

Polish Pale

1902 – 1911 38% were Skilled Workers in Austria-

Hungary

-Market Economy-Factories pushed many Jews

out of the trades.

Russian peasants moved into cities and took factory jobs

Peasants need cash to pay rent for land

They go to labor markets/ They go to labor markets/ migrant farm workersmigrant farm workers

Then, migrant factory workersThen, migrant factory workersThen , urban factory workersThen , urban factory workers

Finally, emigrantsFinally, emigrants

Common Story of Emigration

Tradesmen go off to work in factories

Then, they emigrateAs tradesmen in USA

As factory workers in USA

JEWS in

USA

Older German Jews had been accepted by the WASPS

Newer Eastern European Jews were rejected by the

wasps

YIDDISH

German Jews forced Eastern European Jews to change their

names to Germanic namesGoldberg, Greenburg,

German Jews set up education programs Middle Class ValuesWASP Middle Class

Values

Los Angles

2nd Stage Settlement

Overcomes the divisions b/t German & East European Jews

Harlem

Institutions promoted

acculturation which allowed

retention of Jewish religious

heritage

•Taught English•Found Jobs

•Taught the Talmud & Torah

•Intense Instruction in Rabbinic Text

•American Orthodoxy

Promoted Americanization

Middle Class Models for Ghetto Youth

Catholic Schools did the same

Unions&

Entrepreneurs

EducationJews did not go to school

at 1stEducation in Europe-- Shtel

Ritualistic

Conservative – not Modern

Previous Mercantile & Banking Experience served Jews

well

Economic Success proceeded

Commitment to Education

Most German Jewish sons stayed in Father’s business

Many Discouraged Sons from education, especially from Classics &

Economics

Still,1905 --- 54% of Jewish households headed by

Manuel Laborers> 3% were professionals

New York GangsBugsy Siegel, Myer Lansky

Dutch Schultz

Philadelphia: Boo Boo Hoff

Russian Jews did quit school later than nonJews

ButOn a “Retarded” Test

Two or more Grades Behind their Peers

64% Italians42% Jews16% Swedes

Jewish entrepreneurship led to upward mobility

Tradition of nonland-owning people

They had to deal with money – buying & selling

They established a Middle Class

Children or Grandchildren sent to College and enter professions

Education, Academics, Law, Medicine, Politics

Jewish Tradesmen in the unions sent children to college

Opportunities available within the Jewish community

They too became professionals

By 1920s, there were “too many” Jews in

HarvardThreats of “quotas” were made

From EuropeMiddlemenArmeniansLebaneseChinese

Jews

Similar story for Irish Catholics (the other exiles)

Real Upward Mobility came through the entrepreneurs:

Grocers, Saloonkeepers, Construction Companies

Then, professionalsBy 1920s, there was a greater percentage of

Irish Catholics in college than there were WASPs

American Italians

http://njitalia.nj.gov/curriculum/section3.htm