Westward Cork Migration by Sail 1815-1860 by John Sutton

PART II EMIGRANT PERSPECTIVE

foreign-born residents indicated that 42% were from Ireland, 34% were from Germany, and 11% were from England. The huge flow of immigrant Irish and Germans into the USA between the Treaty of Ghent in 1814 and the American Civil War (1861-65) changed the ethnic mix of the country, and uneven distribution of the Irish to the Northeast and the Germans to the Midwest allowed for even greater regional influences of those two ethnic groups on the prevailing American cultural mix. The Irish arrivals were less skilled on arrival than the Germans or English, with reputedly 28% unskilled in 1826 and 80% unskilled in 1846 - this compares with Cohn’s estimates of 21% in 1820 and 79% in 1851. However, Ireland’s massive infusion of able-bodied men into America provided the army of labourers that helped drive the United States into the modern world, with the building of a transportation network of canals, bridges, railways, tunnels, and roads. While Famine-era Irish emigrants are recognized to have arrived with fewer skills and filled lower-level jobs, they persisted and generally outperformed their peers in Ireland. “The Irish skill level grew faster than the other groups, but their low starting level kept their overall skill level well below that of the other groups as late as 1870. Had immigrants not improved their well-being by migrating to the United States, it is doubtful, given the well-developed trans- Atlantic communication system, that others would have continued to migrate”. (Cohn, 2009). The Catholic Irish who survived the voyage developed occupational skills and achieved financial stability despite socio-religious biases. Less of a problem for the Protestant Irish who often distanced themselves from the Catholic Irish, just as in Canada. “…with respect to Irish American Protestants, it is often argued that for them the Famine emigrants served as a sort of foil, or negative reference group, which spurred their communal self-designation as not ‘Irish’ but as ‘Scotch-Irish’ and hence superior and more acceptable to America’s Protestant bourgeoisie”. (Miller, 2012, 220). The right to vote in the US proved hugely beneficial for the Irish. The transition from property qualifications to universal white manhood suffrage occurred gradually during the 1800s, and the Irish were quick to respond. Irish immigrants flocked to the Democratic Party, lending the party a solid voting block and an important relationship to the benefit of both the Party and the Irish, enabling them to establish their permanent mark and reputation in US regional and national politics. Occupational opportunities previously denied to the Irish became possible. Relative to patronage - “Irish immigration immediately after the Famine introduced a new voting bloc into New York City politics and invited the extant political parties to determine the best ways to woo the new votes. In consequence, from a very early stage the Irish became involved in New York politics, and in doing so perpetuated systems of patronage that favoured the Irish over other emigrant groups” (Shrout, 2012, 536-546). Thomas Keneally described Thomas Francis Meagher’s introduction to the New York political system in the 1850s … “Meagher saw that the locale of Irish political power under Tammany was the saloon. It served as both bank and political meeting place. The saloon was also where favours, contracts, city and state jobs were dispensed by emigrant Irish political bosses. The august court system was also exploited by the Irish: local Democrat bosses

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