<p>Though a nation built by immigrants, the United States has traditionally been inhospitable to new arrivals. The sequential waves of immigrants who came to America’s shores were regularly greeted by the equivalent of &quot;Go Home!&quot; signs. Latinos are the latest group to experience it, but the unwelcome mat is as American as apple pie.</p>

<p><br />

In the 19th century, immigrants from Germany, Italy, Russia, Slavic nations, Scandinavia, even China were greeted, each in turn, by nativist anger. The large Irish wave that arrived after the great potato famine of the 1840s was met by the same response. St. Patrick’s Day, Mar. 17, is now one of the nation’s celebratory days, but the Irish who came in the mid-19th century would have been stunned to see how much their descendants are accepted into American national culture.</p>

<p><br />

<img width="165" height="165" class="left" title="(Matt Mahurin)" alt="(Matt Mahurin)" src="/files/washingtonindependent/folders-pics-icons/Immigration.jpg" /> Originally, U.S. officials were gravely concerned by the size of this Irish onslaught. There was talk that it would change the character and the complexion of the American nation, for Ireland’s 1845 <a id="oi1i" target="_blank" title="potato blight" href="http://www.mayo-ireland.ie/Mayo/History/Famine.htm">potato blight</a> triggered a virtual tsunami of immigrants.</p>

<p><br />

Ireland’s population fell from 8.2 million to 6.6 million between 1841-1851. In 1891, it was only 4.7 million. The Irish made up <a id="rwop" target="_blank" title="almost half of all immigrants" href="http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itsv/0208/ijse/kenny.htm">almost half of all immigrants</a> in the United States in the 1840s; and one-third in the 1850s.</p>

<p><br />

Boston and New York were major ports of arrival for those who survived the crossing in the <a id="zj:g" target="_blank" title="Coffin Ships" href="http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/famine/coffin.htm">Coffin Ships</a>.</p>

<p><br />

Neither city welcomed them, nor did conditions in either favor absorption of the large numbers involved: by 1855, <a id="b-e:" target="_blank" title="nearly a third of Boston&rsquo;s residents" href="http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/%7Eel6/presentations/Irish_Americans_S2_WS2003/Anti_Irish_Sentiment.htm">nearly a third of Boston&rsquo;s residents</a>&ndash;-50,000 out of 160,000-&ndash;were foreign-born Irish.</p>

<p><br />

Without building, health or safety codes, landlords could do as they pleased, subdividing large single-family homes into rooming houses</p>

<blockquote>The overflow Irish would settle into the gardens, back yards and alleys surrounding the house, living in wooden shacks. Demand for housing of any quality was extraordinary. People lived in musty cellars with low ceilings that partially flooded with every tide. Old warehouses and other buildings within the Irish enclave were hastily converted into rooming houses using flimsy wooden partitions that provided no privacy.<br />

A Boston Committee of Internal Health studying the situation described the resulting Irish slum as &quot;a perfect hive of human beings, without comforts and mostly without common necessaries; in many cases huddled together like brutes, without regard to age or sex or sense of decency. Under such circumstances self-respect, forethought, all the high and noble virtues soon die out, and sullen indifference and despair or disorder, intemperance and utter degradation reign supreme.&quot;<br />

The unsanitary conditions were <a id="e604" target="_blank" title="breeding grounds for disease" href="http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/famine/america.htm">breeding grounds for disease</a>, particularly cholera. Sixty percent of the Irish children born in Boston during this period didn’t live to see their sixth birthday. Adult Irish lived on average just six years after stepping off the boat onto American soil. <br />

</blockquote>

<p>Similar conditions awaited the Irish in New York. Job ads specified, &ldquo;NO IRISH NEED APPLY&rdquo; and on doors of homes and shops were signs reading, &ldquo;NO SALESMEN, NO IRISH.&rdquo;</p>

<blockquote>Poverty was not the only factor forcing the Irish to stay in the slums, shanties and cellars &ndash; they were also considered bad for the neighborhood as they were unfamiliar with the conveniences of plumbing and running water. Their living conditions bred disease and ultimately death with an estimated 80% of infants born to Irish immigrants in New York City dying.<br />

</blockquote>

<p>The Irish found themselves in competition with those at the <a id="i5.x" target="_blank" title="the lowest rungs" href="http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/%7Eel6/presentations/Irish_Americans_S2_WS2003/Anti_Irish_Sentiment.htm">the lowest rungs</a> of the economic ladders. They took the only jobs open to them, often at the docks and other areas involving a high risk of injury. These were jobs sometimes deemed too unsafe for black slaves– because slave owners did not want to risk loss of their property. Irish men were locked into employment as unskilled laborers, women as domestic servants. Opportunities for education and advancement seemed remote.</p>

<p><br />

The clash of the newcomers with the established residents brought a political backlash, in the form of the <a id="t4ew" target="_blank" title="Know Nothing" href="http://ap.grolier.com/article?assetid=0233110-00&amp;templatename=/art">Know Nothing</a> movement, officially the American Party.</p>

<blockquote>The party was opposed to foreign immigration, especially Irish Catholics, and believed that &ldquo;<a id="fy-b" target="_blank" title="Americans must rule America" href="http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/%7Eel6/presentations/Irish_Americans_S2_WS2003/Anti_Irish_Sentiment.htm">Americans must rule America</a>.&rdquo; In 1854, four years after it was founded, the Know Nothings had elected eight governors, more than 100 congressmen, the mayors of Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia and thousands of lesser officials throughout the country. Two thirds of the voters in Massachusetts voted for Know Nothing candidates. Once in power, the party passed a series of laws aimed specifically at the Irish Catholic population of Massachusetts, including compulsory readings from the King James Bible (the Protestant bible) in public schools, disbanding Irish militia units and seizing their weapons, and deporting poor Irish back to Britain. 295 Irish were sent back to Liverpool for being a drain on the public treasury. The Know Nothings also sought to deprive Irish Catholics of the right to vote and hold office.<br />

</blockquote>

<p><br />

Anti-Irish feeling continued into the following decades.</p>

<blockquote>

<div style="text-align: left;">During the late 1860s and the 1870s <a id="hqdb" target="_blank" title="anti-Irish sentiment" href="http://www.tenement.org/Encyclopedia/riots_orange.htm">anti-Irish sentiment</a> ran very high, particularly in racialized depictions of the Irish in the mainstream press, characterizations of the &quot;Stage Irishman&quot; on the vaudeville stage, and social exclusion from the Anglo-American community. Such nativism was fueled by continued streams of poor Irish arrivals, their violence during the 1863 Draft Riots, the growing influence of the Catholic Church, and the rise of Irish politicians in Tammany Hall. In addition, tensions within the Irish community had been building for years, as Protestants argued against the Catholic threat to American values and their inability to be good citizens.</div>

</blockquote>

<p><br />

Yet, as had happened to earlier waves of immigrants, the Irish gradually became established. Like so many new arrivals, before and after, they used public schools, civil-service jobs and machine politics to climb up the economic ladder.</p>

<p><br />

By the late 1800s, the Irish were leaders in many cities of the nation–just decades after their massive departure from home, deadly ocean crossing and difficult assimilation into the urban centers of the Northeast.</p>