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Irish
Contents
Irish Immigration to New York City >The Irish at 97 Orchard
Street > 19th Century Dublin > Irish Immigrants in the Workplace
> Irish Immigrants and the Catholic Church in America > Tammany
Hall and Irish Political Participation > Irish Nationalism >
Irish Fraternal and County Organizations > 19th Century Health
Care and the Immigrant Irish > The Irish Wake
Irish Immigrants in the Workplace
According to the 1870 census, nearly 52 percent
of all Irish gainfully employed in New York City worked as unskilled
laborers, domestic servants, and launderers; saloon, restaurant,
and hotel keepers and employees; livery-stable keepers and hostlers;
sailors, steamboatmen, and watermen; and carmen, draymen, and teamsters.
Unskilled laborers (21,496) and domestic servants (24,269) made
up much of this number; forty-three percent of the Irish workforce
(106,362) and nearly fifty-nine percent of the total workforce in
these categories (77,891).1
Irish Men
The harsh reality for Irish immigrants throughout the nineteenth
century was that their primary source of work lay in the least skilled,
lowest-paying jobs that New York City had to offer. Laboring on
the docks as longshoreman, in the factories as unskilled operatives,
as porters, coachmen, boatmen, ferrymen, stage drivers, carters,
and undifferentiated common laborers, they performed jobs requiring
physical strength and occupational flexibility. The same was true
of Irish laborers in the building trades, where they served as bricklayers,
hod-carriers, and carpenters and played an indispensable role in
the continued expansion of the city. Gravitating to jobs that no
longer functioned on the artisinal craft system, they strengthened
the ties of work and ethnicity.2
The largest single occupational group among New York's 19th century
Irish male population, menial day laborers, would have made about
$1.00 for a 10 hour day during the mid-19th century. They ordinarily
would work 6 days a week, but such work was seasonal and subject
to fluctuations in the economy. In comparison, Irish immigrants
who worked at a skilled trade made considerably more. Carpenters
took in $8-9 a week, bakers $9-10 per week, cabinetmakers up to
$10 a week, and ship's carpenters $12-15 a week.3
Late nineteenth-century New York also had a booming hotel, restaurant,
and entertainment business. As such, it is likely that waiters and
bartenders found opportunities for employment throughout the year,
but might have had to move to different establishments. For example,
most wealthy New Yorkers left the city during the sweltering summer
months, so it is likely that some of the more exclusive hotels like
the Waldorf-Astoria and restaurants like Rector's and Delmonico's
thinned their staffs during this time.4 In letters written home
to his family in Ireland, John Nolan describes his frequent migrations
to various hotels both in the United States and abroad in search
of better or more remunerative work. If Nolan's experience was at
all typical, Irish waiters and bartenders made about $5 a week,
or $20 a month, a wage not much better than that of the common laborer.5
The possibility that waiters enjoyed a better social or psychological
wage is likely.
Working-class saloons and restaurants were usually full year-round,
given the male-dominated drinking culture of various immigrant groups
and the fact that many single men lived in boardinghouses without
cooking facilities. Many saloons, for example, offered a "free
lunch" of cold meat, pickles, tomatoes, and onions, which patrons
could partake of after purchasing two-nickel beers.6
The most likely place for an Irish waiter or bartender like Joseph
Moore to look for work after arriving in New York would be with
those he was most familiar, which would be Irish saloon and restaurant
owners on the Lower East Side. Following the separate social spheres
they followed in Ireland and other European countries, workingmen
did not spend their free time at home as much as at the pub, which
served as an informal club for many working-class immigrants in
the period. Bartenders and waiters encouraged this culture, serving
as their patrons' advisor, political debater, counselor, and gossipmonger.
As such, owners hired their own countrymen whenever possible, recognizing
that their customers would feel most comfortable with them.7
Opening a saloon was the pinnacle of success for many Irish immigrants.
Irish saloons could be small cellar oyster saloons, or grandiose
hotel/billiard parlors. By the 1840s, such places dotted the Bowery
and Broadway, catering to working-class Irishmen. Successful saloonkeepers
often gained influence in Tammany Hall and became politicians, while
politicians would open saloons with the profits they gained through
graft. For example, Peter Barr Sweeney owned a saloon in the Sixth
Ward and was a member of the Tweed Ring. While avoided by "respectable"
people, it became a place to make oneself known and gain political
supporters.8
It is possible that bartender and waiter positions became prizes
in exchange for votes or other services, much like public positions
were. In addition, it is also possible that Irishmen became bartenders
in the hopes of learning how saloons were run to prepare for their
own future establishments or to prepare for a career with Tammany,
since saloons were the political centers of ward politics.
Irish waiters and bartenders were not limited to Irish establishments,
however. The city directory lists a number of hotels, saloons, dining
rooms, and oyster houses-of both a respectable and questionable
nature-along the Bowery, Broadway, and the vicinity. These establishments,
along with those further uptown in the Tenderloin district and the
more exclusive restaurants located in midtown (such as Delmonico's,
Rector's, and the Waldorf-Astoria), had late hours and often had
entertainment, allowing for ample opportunities for employment.9
Significantly, Irish immigrants made up over one quarter of all
government employees, pointing to the influence of the Irish in
Tammany Hall by 1870. They made up the second-largest percentage
after native-born Americans, who totaled sixty percent. As many
of these Americans were probably of Irish parentage, the total Irish
number is probably much larger.10
Irish Women
By the second half of the nineteenth century, a growing number of
Irish immigrants were young adults; men and women between the ages
of fifteen and twenty-four were about 45 percent of all Irish emigrants.
About half of this number consisted of women, many of them traveling
alone. Largely unskilled and subject to the same discrimination
in white-collar professions as Irish men, Irish immigrant women
did not have a variety of employment options in New York during
this period. However, given that many building projects and factory
work was curtailed during the Civil War, they did have more opportunities
than Irish men, especially in domestic service. This shortage of
male employment might have been one reason why Bridget Meehan came
before Joseph Moore if they were married or planned to marry.11
Domestic service was the single biggest form of employment for single
Irish women in America between 1850 and 1900. Native-born women
shunned service as too demeaning, particularly as the Irish came
to dominate the field, while other immigrant groups did not wish
their daughters to live away from home. Conversely, Irish women
saw no social stigma in service, they traveled to America alone
for the most part, and were long used to serving in an economic
capacity at home. As early as 1855, between 75-80 percent (about
8,000) of all domestics in New York City were Irish, which included
over 45 percent of all Irish women under 50. In the Sixth Ward alone,
over 50 percent of all Irish women were domestics in middle-class
families, while 40 percent were seamstresses. As late as 1870, four
out of ten Irish-born women worked as domestics, making up half
of all who worked in service in the city.12
Given these numbers many Irish women seem to have preferred domestic
service. Irish domestics often negotiated terms of their service,
and quit if they were mistreated, did not receive time off to attend
church on Sundays, or received unfair wages. In addition, domestics
received free room and board in their employers' homes and earned
regular paychecks at rates much higher than factory work, allowing
them to save large amounts of money to send home to their families,
buy passage for siblings, or provide dowries for their own marriages.
Between 1847 and 1867, for example, it was estimated that Irish
immigrants had sent more than $120 million home to Ireland, with
most of that amount coming from domestic servants. Irish domestics
also provided much of the financial support for New York's Catholic
parishes and other religious institutions; while they were stuck
in Protestant neighborhoods, for the most part, they remained active
in their local parish and neighborhood activities.13
The appeal of domestic service to Irish immigrant women, however,
should not be overstated. Although the pay received was often higher
than other available options and included room and board, living
in an employer's home could prove constraining and claustrophobic.
Rooted in nineteenth -century conceptions of the home, frequent
tensions between the mistress of the home and her servants erupted
over the conduct of housework. Time off was another arena of struggle
between employers and domestics. By the mid-nineteenth century,
domestics often had to wrangle for time off on Sunday alone. In
addition, domestic servants were sometimes subjected to sexual harassment
at the hands of male employers. As such, some women chose to explore
other options.14
The needle trades were second to domestic service as a source of
employment for Irish women in New York, which was quickly becoming
the center of the fast-growing garment industry. Irish women worked
as seamstresses, milliners, dressmakers, shirt and collar makers,
embroiderers, and pieceworkers in the new factories and sweatshops.
By the 1850s, 40 percent of all Irish women age fifteen to nineteen
sewed and stitched for a living in the Sixth Ward alone, as did
30 percent of those between the ages of 20 and 29. Needlework was
one of the worst-paying occupations in the city. Women labored under
poor working conditions, with long hours, bad lighting, and exacting
bosses. There was little room for advancement, and many seamstresses
ended up needing to accept help from the city's charitable institutions.15
It is likely that Bridget Meehan worked as a domestic servant in
New York before Joseph arrived. Service would have allowed her to
earn the most money in the shortest amount of time, particularly
if she was paying for his passage and saving money for their life
together. In addition, getting free room and board in an employer's
home would allow Bridget to save money that otherwise would have
gone to rent and food while living in a boarding house or with another
family (as many Irish preferred to do). If Bridget and Joseph met
in Dublin and were married before she left, or planned to marry
after he came to New York, domestic service would also have been
a temporary means of employment with a foreseeable end, since it
would only be a matter of time before Joseph arrived.16
Since Bridget Meehan came in 1863 during the Civil War, it is even
more likely that she worked as a domestic rather than a seamstress.
Garment slopwork was in decline at the start of the 1860s, anticipating
the start of the War. Northern clothing manufacturers often sold
slopwork to slaves in the South and this market was cut-off with
the commencement of hostilities. Completing the circle of the global
markets, in the opposite manner that Ulster's linen trade benefited
from the rise of cotton prices during the war, tailors in New York
would have suffered from the increase.17
At the same time, however, Bridget might have preferred the freedom,
if lower pay, of working as a seamstress or in other needle trades.
Presuming she came by herself, as many Irish women did, she might
have wanted to live among her own people, rather than alone in a
Protestant family, especially since she was still a young girl when
she arrived. If Bridget came over with her parents and lived with
them, she would probably have been expected to pay room and board
or contribute to their family income, depending on her father's
occupation, which would take away from the money she could save
for her own future family.18
Irish women rarely worked outside the home after marriage. Needlework
offered daughters and married women the opportunity to contribute
to the family income and perhaps afford better accommodations or
furnishings. Despite the low pay, sewing was one of the few means
of earning money for married women and widows, especially those
with small children. They often took piecework on a contract basis,
enlisting the children's help in finishing buttons and seams. In
addition to sewing, however, married women and widows also took
in laundry or worked as scrubwomen and peddlers. Many also took
in boarders, which was often necessary to pay escalating rents,
but made their small apartments even more crowded.19
1 Ninth U.S. Census, 1870, volume 1: The Statistic of the Population
of the United States, 793; Tyler Annbinder, Five Points:
The 19th Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance,
Stole Elections, and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum
(New York: Free Press, 2001); Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace,
Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1999); Jay Dolan, The Immigrant Church: New
York's Irish and German Catholics, 1815-1865 (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University, 1976; Kevin Kenny, The American Irish: A
History Kerby Miller, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish
Exodus to North America (New York: Oxford University Press,
1985); Luc Sante, Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York
(New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1991).
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Letters of John Nolan, Personal Collection of Kerby Miller.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Tyler Annbinder, Five Points: The 19th Century New York City
Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became
the World's Most Notorious Slum (New York: Free Press, 2001);
Hasia Diner, Erin's Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women
in the 19th Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1983); Christine Stansell, City of Women: Sex and Class in New
York, 1789-1860 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986).
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid
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