"Father Mathew" Teacup from Five Points
Uncovered during an archaeological dig of the former Five Points neighborhood, this teacup depicts the Irish temperance reformer Father Theobold Mathew, who during the late 1830s and 1840s convinced Irish on both sides of the Atlantic to embrace temperance through his Total Abstinence Movement. The teacup was found at the site of a former tenement building at 472 Pearl Street, along with other similar objects from domestic life.
Unknown
Rebecca Yamin, <em>Tales of Five Points: Working-Class Life in Nineteenth-Century New York</em>. 6 Vols. (West Chester, PA.: John Milner Associates, 2000). Volume III, B-32.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1840 - 1857
English
Artifact
Antebellum America (1816-1860)
"I Am the Little Irish Boy"
Immigration and Migration
Work
Henry David Thoreau is one of America's best-loved poets and authors, known especially for his work <em>Walden</em>, with its meditations on nature. In this 1850 poem, Thoreau turns his attentive eye to a "little Irish boy," destined for a life of manual labor, whose circumstances of extreme poverty are reminiscent of those faced by many early Irish immigrants.
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau, "I am the Little Irish Boy," poem, in <em>The Book of Irish American Poetry: from the Eighteenth Century to the Present</em>, ed. Daniel Tobin (University of Notre Dame Press, 2007).
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1850
1632
English
Fiction/Poetry
Antebellum America (1816-1860)
"Katy, Hannah and Mary"
Immigration and Migration
This photograph identifies the women only as Katy, Hannah, and Mary. Over half—53%—of all Irish immigrants who came to the United States were women.  By comparison, only 41% of German emigrants were female.  Among Southern Italians, who immigrated in a later period, women comprised a mere 21% of migrants.  Most Irish women left in the aftermath of the potato famine (1845-1855) when millions were facing starvation if they stayed in Ireland.  Letters from friends and family who had already emigrated indicated that there was ample job work in the United States for Irish women as domestic servants.
Unknown
"Katy, Hannah, and Mary," in Kerby Miller and Paul Wagner, <em>Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Emigration to America</em> (Washington, DC: Elliott & Clark, 1994) 78.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1896 (Circa)
English
Photograph
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
"No Irish Need Apply"
Immigration and Migration
The Irish often faced discrimination when seeking jobs upon their arrival in the United States. Although historians have been hard-pressed to identify an actual sign bearing the notorious legend "No Irish Need Apply," contemporary newspaper advertisements and employment pages from the mid-nineteenth century expressed such sentiments. This 1862 song, composed by John F. Poole and performed by Tony Pastor, a vaudeville and variety-show performer whom the song-sheet credits as "the great Comic-Vocalist of the age," takes the "No Irish Need Apply" slogan and transforms it into a challenge for its nameless immigrant hero. The song, rendered in what passed for an approximation of Irish patois, was likely performed in the vaudeville houses and variety-show theatres that proliferated in immigrant entertainment districts like New York's Bowery, where an appreciative audience responded enthusiastically to such portrayals of themselves and their neighbors. The song ends with a patriotic appeal that betrays the composition's Civil War-era roots, with references to Irish-American brigades in the Union Army that were then battling the "Rebel ranks."
John F. Poole
John F. Poole, <em>No Irish Need Apply</em> (New York: H. De Marsan, 1862), from Library of Congress, <em>America Singing: Nineteenth Century Song Sheets</em>, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?ammem/amss:@field(DOCID+@lit(as109730)).
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1862
1632
English
Music/Song
Civil War and Reconstruction (1861-1877)
"Poor Pat Must Emigrate"
Immigration and Migration
A.W. Auner of Philadelphia was among the most prolific printers of "broadside ballads," cheaply-produced topical songs and poems that were widely available throughout the nineteenth century. "Poor Pat Must Emigrate," published by Auner sometime in mid-century, chronicles the plight of the by-then-familiar figure of the Irish immigrant. The song makes a number of references to events in Ireland that Irish immigrants would be familiar with, mentioning the famine "in forty-eight," the exploitation of tenant farmers by landlords, the heroics of Irish soldiers in service of the British Empire, and the ultimately unsuccessful struggle of "the liberator" Daniel O'Connell. However, the presence of some confusion about Irish geography (most Irish emigrants departed from Cork or Liverpool, not Dublin) as well as other references that seemingly only provide convenient rhymes (there was no Irish "St. Ruth") suggests that the song was not written by an Irishman but perhaps by Auner himself.
A.W. Auner
"Poor Pat Must Emigrate," lyrics, (Philadelphia: A.W. Auner), available from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, <em>Poor Pat Must Emigrate: 19th Century Irish Immigration</em>, http://www.hsp.org/default.aspx?id=452.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1848 - 1860
English
Music/Song
Antebellum America (1816-1860)
"The Irrepressible Conflict"
Race and Ethnicity
<p>In this cartoon from the weekly satirical magazine <em>Vanity Fair</em>, an Irish longshoreman tells a black worker seeking employment on New York's waterfront: "Well, ye may be and man and a brother, sure enough; but it's little hospitality ye'll get out of yer relations on this dock, me ould buck!" The sharp competition for unskilled jobs between Irish immigrants and free African Americans contributed to the New York draft riot of 1863, in which more than 100 New Yorkers were killed and many African Americans were attacked and murdered by the mostly Irish rioters. </p>
Unknown
"The Irrepressible Conflict," <em>Vanity Fair</em>, August 2, 1862; from <em>Who Built America? Working People and the Nation's Economy, Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol 1</em> (New York: Worth Publishers, 2000), 563.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1862
English
Civil War and Reconstruction (1861-1877)
"The Voting-Place"
During the 1840s and 1850s, anti-immigrant feelings grew among many native-born whites. Nativists argued that immigrants caused many of the nation’s ills by rejecting “American†work habits, culture, and religion. Nativists and and their reformer allies often voiced objection to the undisciplined and sometimes violent atmosphere of working-class saloons, like the one depicted in this 1858 engraving of a Five Points neighborhood bar. As the title indicates, nativists and reformers also objected to the political activity that took place in saloons, and the growing political power of immigrant voters.
Unknown
"The Voting-Place," engraving, <em>Harpers Weekly</em>, 13 November 1858.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1858
English
Antebellum America (1816-1860)
"Two Views of a Dead Rabbit"
This essay examines two images of members of an Irish street gang in the mid-nineteenth century that address issues of immigrant stereotyping, urban immigration, poverty, and reform in the wake of large-scale Irish immigration. The link includes the essay and both of the images under discussion.
Joshua Brown
Joshua Brown, "Two Views of a Dead Rabbit," 2008, from <em>Picturing U.S. History: An Interactive Resource for Teaching with Visual Evidence by American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning</em>, http://picturinghistory.gc.cuny.edu/item.php?item_id=168.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
2008
Copyright American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
<div><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/"></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 United States License</a>.</div>
English
Antebellum America (1816-1860)
<em>Five Points in 1859</em>
This print showing a view of one of New York City's more notorious poor neighborhoods offers a variety of picturesque and sensational incidents, including an assault in broad daylight. It also indicates that African Americans worked and resided in a district usually identified as composed largely of Irish immigrants.
Unknown
D. T. Valentine, comp., "The Five Points in 1859," <em>Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York for 1860</em> (McSpedon & Baker: New York, 1860), 397.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1860
English
Antebellum America (1816-1860)
<em>Five Points: New York's Irish Working Class in the 1850s</em> Viewer's Guide
Immigration and Migration
This booklet is curriculum support for the American Social History Project's 30-minute documentary <em><a href="http://ashp.cuny.edu/ashp-documentaries/five-points/" target="_blank">Five Points: New York's Irish Working Class in the 1850s</a></em>. The viewer's guide contains background information on issues raised by the documentary as well as additional primary source materials for use in the classroom.
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, 2007.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
2007
Copyright American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
<div><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/"></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License</a>.</div>
1504
English
Antebellum America (1816-1860)