Emigration to the USA

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Emigration to the USA Were there strategies to
success?
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Irish Emigration to the USA
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• Jewish Immigrants
• Came from severe oppression
• To a nation that really did not
• welcome them
• How did they become so
• successful?

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Highest Income Highest Level of Education Most
Occupational Prestige
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The Irish Catholics came from a much more
Primitive Environment and are now a close
second in each category
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• How?
• Why?

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• Strategies?
• By Chance?
• Luck OF THE IRISH?

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The First Major Minority Group All of the
urban pathologies we now associate with the
urban poor
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Subsistence to Market Rural to Urban Non English
to English Speakers Roman Catholic
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Earlier During the Eighteenth-century
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8 Ulster Irish 1715, 1730, 1745 8 Irish
Catholics from Ulster 8 Captured Indentures
Cromwell sent over 100,000 Irish to
Barbados To Hell or Connaught (or Barbados) 8
Quaker Servants
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Where the British Empire Goes

• So go the Irish
• as Soldiers, Servants, Missionaries, Settlers,
  etc.

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Ulster Presbyterians become American
Frontiersmen Irish Catholics from Ulster become
Protestant in America Irish Catholic
Indentures Also, Anglo-Irish colonlists
Ulster Presbyterian
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33 to 40 of Washingtons Army was Irish Many
British thought it was an Irish rebellion, or a
Presbyterian rebellion
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By 1789 The United Irishmen Alien-Sedition Act
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• Colonial Period
• Irish as Alien Servants and Frontiersmen
• 2. Revolutionary Period
• Irish gained claim to patriotism
• Early Republican Period
• Irish convergence of talented, educated men
• Jacksonian Period
• Emphasis returns to mass immigration of
  unskilled labor
• Period of intense Anti-Irish activity

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The Philadelphia Example
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Philadelphia

• 1850 72,312 Irish born
• 18 of citys population
• 1860 95,458 Irish born
• 17 of citys population
• In NYC Boston 23 of the population
• Not counting 1st 2nd generation American Irish

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Poor Irishin Philly

• 2/3 of those in Alms House
• were Irish
• Alms Houses lent poor out as laborers

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CHOLERA EPIDEMIC
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Philadelphiavs. New York Boston

• Quaker vs. Dutch/Anglican Merchants
• Quaker vs. Puritan Brahmin

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Housing -- 1851

• New York 515,000
• 37,730 houses
• Philadelphia 490,000
• 61,200 houses

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HOUSES

• Building and Loans

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UNSKILLED WORKERS

• Canals
• Erie, Delaware Chesapeake,
• New Orleans
• Railroads

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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

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ENTREPRENEURS

• 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 Phillys Irish were unskilled
  laborers

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1850Only 1 of Boston Irish were grocers

• 1857
• 20 of Phillys grocers were Irish
• 12 of Phillys Dry Goods Merchants were Irish

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SEVEN YEARS CANNOT MAKE THAT MUCH OF A DIFFERENCE!
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Easier Upward Mobility the Further west they
settled

• Chicago-
• But remember Mrs. OLearys cow, Daniel Peg
  leg Sullivan, and Mother Jones.
• San Francisco
• Shanghaid
• 1848 -- 1849ers

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Upward Mobility

• Priesthood Religious Life
• Politics
• Police
• Firemen
• Labor Unions
• Nationalism

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Key to Success Entrepreneurism
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Fields Dominated by the Irish in the
19th early 20th centuries

• Boxers
• Sportsmen
• Singers
• Actors
• Paddy Irish
• Musicians
• Organized Crime

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BUT, These fields did not lead to upward
mobility Except for a select few
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CATHOLIC SCHOOLS

• Protestant Bibles
• Proselytize Catholics
• Harass Children

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Developed an Americanized Catholic Culture,
not a Celtic or Gaelic Catholic Culture
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Prior to 1860Boston has only 4 Catholic schools

• PHILLY HAD 19

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Irish Construction Companies Build Catholic
Churches Schools

• Irish Catholic Workers
• Workers can afford homes

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NATIVISTS RIOTS

• BIBLE CONTROVERSARY
• HARASSMENT OF CATHOLIC CHLDREN

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ST AUGUSTINES

• FR. PATRICK E. MORIARTY

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How did the Jews become the richest and most
educated ethnic group in the United States?
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U
Why were Jews able to become the richest and most
educated ethnic group in the U.S.?
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EXILES
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98 of all Jews in the Russian Empire lived
in Poverty, Persecution, and Overcrowded
Conditions

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They could not own land in the Russian Empire
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Concentrate on urban skills trades
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1899 1914 64 were Skilled
Workers from Polish Pale 1902 1911 38
were Skilled Workers in Austria-Hungary
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-Market Economy- Factories pushed many Jews out
of the trades. Russian peasants moved into
cities and took factory jobs
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Common Story of Emigration
Peasants need cash to pay rent for land They go
to labor markets/ migrant farm workers Then,
migrant factory workers Then , urban factory
workers Finally, emigrants
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Tradesmen go off to work in factories Then, they
emigrate As tradesmen in USA As factory workers
in USA
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JEWS in USA
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Older German Jews had been accepted by the
WASPS Newer Eastern European Jews were rejected
by the wasps
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YIDDISH
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German Jews forced Eastern European Jews to
change their names to Germanic names Goldberg,
Greenburg,
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German Jews set up education programs Middle
Class Values WASP Middle Class Values
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Los Angles
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Harlem
2nd Stage Settlement Overcomes the divisions
b/t German East European Jews
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Institutions promoted acculturation which allowed
retention of Jewish religious heritage
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• Taught English
• Found Jobs
• Taught the Talmud Torah
• Intense Instruction in Rabbinic Text
• American Orthodoxy

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Promoted Americanization Middle Class Models for
Ghetto Youth
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Catholic Schools did the same
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Unions Entrepreneurs
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Education Jews did not go to school at 1st
Education in Europe-- Shtel Ritualistic Conservat
ive not Modern
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Previous Mercantile Banking Experience served
Jews well
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Economic Success proceeded Commitment to
Education
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Most German Jewish sons stayed in Fathers
business Many Discouraged Sons from education,
especially from Classics Economics
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Still, 1905 --- 54 of Jewish households headed
by Manuel Laborers gt 3 were professionals
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New York Gangs Bugsy Siegel, Myer
Lansky Dutch Schultz Philadelphia Boo Boo Hoff
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Russian Jews did quit school later than
nonJews But On a Retarded Test Two or more
Grades Behind their Peers 64 Italians 42
Jews 16 Swedes
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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
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By 1920s, there were too many Jews in
Harvard Threats of quotas were made
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From Europe Middlemen Armenians Lebanese Chinese J
ews
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Similar story for Irish Catholics (the other
exiles) Real Upward Mobility came through the
entrepreneurs Grocers, Saloonkeepers,
Construction Companies Then, professionals By
1920s, there was a greater percentage of Irish
Catholics in college than there were WASPs
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American Italians
http//njitalia.nj.gov/curriculum/section3.htm