Immigration

As the 19th century progressed from the age of the Napoleonic wars, many events throughout the world began changing age old social and cultural patterns in ways that affected not only the United States, but every country on every continent. The general movement, especially in Europe, toward more liberal or democratic forms of government and improvements in communications and transportation tended to mobilize populations. Prior to the 19th century the great mass of people could expect to live their lives within a very small radius around their birthplace. But by 1850 populations had begun to move in number, and the results of that movement began to change the face of America.

Industrial expansion in America created jobs that attracted thousands of immigrants to the New World. The most conspicuous of the groups that changed the social makeup of America were the Irish Catholics, who arrived by the thousands in the 1830s, 40s, and 50s. Thus began a pattern that would repeat itself throughout the course of American history: A wave of immigrants from a part of the world that had not brought people to America's shores before began to accelerate. In the period before the Civil War, that wave included Irish and German Catholics; in the period between the Civil War and 1900, more people came from southern and eastern Europe—Italy, Greece, Poland, Russia, Armenia—as well as Asia. In the decades following World War II, the Hispanic population in America began to grow; and the late 20th and early 21st centuries brought populations from the Middle East, West and Southwest and Asia to America. Every one of those immigration shifts brought out the phenomenon known as "Nativism," an understandable but generally unfortunate development that tends to lead to discrimination, hostility, and calls for tightening borders and immigration policy. In the beginning of the 21st century the focus is on illegal immigrants in this country, but the pattern is similar to what happened in previous times.

The Irish. The first immigrants from Ireland came mostly from the area known as Ulster, or Northern Ireland, during the 1700s. They were for the most part Protestants, heavily Presbyterian, and not particularly well disposed toward the English, to say the least. Andrew Jackson is the most famous descendent of those early Irish immigrants. Once their Catholic brethren from the South began to arrive, they began to refer to themselves as Scots-Irish in order to distinguish themselves as a separate group.

Because the Celtic Irish, or Irish Catholics, have become so fully assimilated into American society, it is difficult for us to imagine that the reaction of older Americans to the first wave of Irish was as hostile as anything ever seen in this country. One can understand the full history of the Irish in America only by delving into the history of Ireland itself, a history marked by centuries of struggle against what the Irish saw as their British oppressors. English prejudice toward the Irish is centuries old. Cambridge historian Charles Kingsley referred to the Irish as "human chimpanzees" with "skins... as white as ours." Although tensions between England and Ireland have subsided in the past decade, prejudice against the Irish persists in some quarters.

Most of the immigrants from Ireland between 1830 and 1860 were poor, and many of them spoke Irish, a Gaelic tongue, rather than English. The well-known potato famine of the 1840s drove many Irish to America's shores. Because many were weak and suffering from various diseases, they often died en route; thus the ships that brought them became known as "coffin ships." As the Irish population became depleted because of emigrants to the New World, a practice known as the "American wake" began to be part of the process of leaving. As family members prepared to depart, rituals similar to those accompanying a death would be carried out, for the families who remained behind expected never to see their loved ones again.

Some two million Irish emigrated to America in the decades before the Civil War. Because American ports often rejected ships inbound from Ireland (generally via Liverpool), many immigrants made their way to Canada and from there into the United States. Because the immigrants were poor, they were bound to remain close to the ports where they arrived in order to find quick work; thus large concentrations of Irish began to appear in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. As the numbers of Irish increased, so did the level of discrimination and violence directed against them. Anti-Catholic prejudice, which was nothing new in Protestant Europe or America, fueled the fires of anti-Irish discrimination.

When they first began to arrive in America, many Irish felt themselves akin to African-Americans because of what they saw as a common experience of having been enslaved. But because they initially shared the lowest rung on the social order with Blacks, the Irish began to distance themselves from African-Americans. During the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation helped lead to one of the worst race riots in American history in New York City in 1863. Although the draft was a factor in the riots, many poor people felt that releasing blacks from slavery would hurt their economic welfare, and working-class Irish were heavily represented among those who rioted against blacks.63

The intense discrimination manifested itself in various ways. "Dogs and Irish keep out" signs are said to have appeared on public establishments, as well as ads for employment saying, "No Irish need apply." (A difference of opinion exists regarding the prevalence and intensity of the signage, but there is no doubt that the discrimination against Irish was real.) Catholic churches were stoned, and a Catholic orphanage in Philadelphia was burned to the ground. As oppressive as the conditions could be, however, the Irish worked hard and eventually prospered. By the turn of the century in 1900, the Irish dominated the Catholic hierarchy in America. In the latter part of the 19th century the Irish were one of the groups that helped construct the earliest transcontinental railroads. Many Irish worked in the coal mines and oil fields of Pennsylvania, and the Irish began to dominate institutions such as metropolitan police and fire departments and urban politics.64

Prejudice against members of the Catholic faith continued well into the 20th century. The overwhelming defeat of New York Governor Al Smith in 1828 was related in part to his being an Irish Catholic. Thus the election in 1960 of the first Irish Catholic American president,

John F. Kennedy, was a political event of significant proportions. Throughout the campaign Kennedy had to respond to charges that his presidency would be subject to pressure from the Vatican. Anti-Catholic prejudice is still alive in some parts of America, though it is not as obvious nor pronounced as it once was.

The Nativist Reaction. Nativism, an attitude driven by xenophobia65 or unfriendliness toward people of a different ethnicity or religious persuasion from one's own, led to the development of what became known as the Native American Party. Concentrated heavily in the Northeast, the Party achieved some political success, electing officials to local and state governments and sending a few members to Congress. Even those who were not actual members of the American Party often sympathized with nativist attitudes and goals. It should be clear to anyone who follows the news that nativism is not dead in America. The American Party, or "Know Nothings," will be discussed further below.

Working Class People. As was true even in colonial times, America was seen as a land of opportunity where people willing to work might have an opportunity to raise their standard of living. But the immigrant population generally had to start on the bottom rung of the ladder, arriving as they did with few resources and often mediocre skills. The union movement had not yet taken hold in the 1830s and 40s, and working-class families were obliged to send all members, including children, into the workplace. The economic swings often brought hard times, as in the depression of the late 1830s. By 1850 some states had begun passing laws that attempted to regulate fundamental conditions at the workplace, limiting the work day to 10 hours and controlling child labor.

The socialist movement that progressed in Europe in the mid-19th century did not take hold in America. The abundance of land, the relatively high value placed on labor as railroads were constructed and factories expanded, and the business-friendly Republican attitudes in America impeded the development of a permanent working-class. There was no rigid class structure in America that prevented those who were hard-working—and lucky—from improving their station in life. Cheap land existed in the West for those with the skills to try their hand at farming. Although the distance between the top and bottom echelons of the economic structure remained wide, relatively few workers felt themselves trapped by a system that did not offer them the means to rise in society.