The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

332 Chapter 12 The Sections Go Their Own Ways

Indians came to the New World from Asia. But only
with the development of nationalism, that is, with the
establishment of the independent United States, did
the word immigrant,meaning a foreign-born resident,
come into existence.
The “native” population (native in this case
meaning those whose ancestors had come from
Europe rather than native Americans, the Indians)
tended to look down on immigrants, and many of the
immigrants, in turn, developed prejudices of their
own. The Irish, for example, disliked blacks, with
whom they often competed for work. Antiblack prej-
udice was less noticeable among other immigrant
groups but by no means absent; most immigrants
adopted the views of the local majority, which was
often unfriendly to African Americans.
Social and racial rivalries aside, the infusion of
unskilled immigrants into the factories of New
England speeded the disintegration of the system of
hiring young farm women. Already competition and
technical advances in the textile industry were increas-
ing the pace of the machines and reducing the num-
ber of skilled workers needed to run them. Fewer
young farm women were willing to work under these

ROSCOMMON

LEITRIM

CAVAN

MONAGHAN

FERMANAGH

LOUTH

MEATH

GALWAY DUBLIN

WEST MEATH

LONGFORD

KINGS KILDARE

QUEENS WICKLOW

CARLOW

WEXFORD

KILKENNY

TIPPERARY

CLARE

LIMERICK

KERRY

CORK

WATERFORD

DONEGAL

LONDONDERRY

ANTRIM

ARMAGH DOWN

TYRONE

SLIGO

MAYO

ROSCOMMON

LEITRIM

CAVAN

MONAGHAN

FERMANAGH

LOUTH

MEATH

GALWAY DUBLIN

WEST MEATH

LONGFORD

KINGS KILDARE

QUEENS WICKLOW

CARLOW

WEXFORD

KILKENNY

TIPPERARY

CLARE

LIMERICK

KERRY

CORK

WATERFORD

DONEGAL

LONDONDERRY

ANTRIM

ARMAGH DOWN

TYRONE

SLIGO

MAYO

Dublin

Belfast

+9

0

-13

-20

-25

-31

Percentage of variation per county:

Population change

in Ireland, 1841–1851

Dublin

Belfast

Over 50 percent of

population pauper

for over 1 year by

Poor Law union

Pauperism in Ireland,

1847–1851

The Potato Famine and Irish EmigrationDuring the potato famine from 1845 to 1851, about a million Irish died and another million

emigrated to the United States. The first map shows that western counties of Ireland were the poorest, with more than half of the

residents of Mayo, Galway, Limerick and other counties receiving public relief as paupers. The second map shows that during these years

tens of thousands of Irish flooded into Dublin, the largest city in Ireland. The greatest population losses were in the poor western regions

of Ireland.

conditions. Recent immigrants, who required less

“coddling” and who seemed to provide the mills with

a “permanent” working force, replaced the women in

large numbers. By 1860 Irish immigrants alone made

up more than 50 percent of the labor force in the New

England mills.

How Wage Earners Lived

The influx of immigrants does not entirely explain the

low standard of living of industrial workers during

this period. Low wages and the crowding that

resulted from the swift expansion of city populations

produced slums that would make the most noisome

modern ghetto seem a paradise. A Boston investiga-

tion in the late 1840s described one district as “a per-

fect hive of human beings... huddled together like

brutes.” In New York tens of thousands of the poor

lived in dark, rank cellars, those in the waterfront dis-

tricts often invaded by high tides. Tenement houses

like great gloomy prisons rose back to back, each with

many windowless rooms and often without heat or

running water.