NHD Theme Book 2016 | Page 42

C 40 NATIONAL HISTORY DAY 2016 Irish Women’s Immigration olonial America’s European immigrants were predominantly of British origin, reflecting its status as a British colony. Many thousands of Irish men and women made new homes and lives in America before and after the Revolutionary War. However, the Irish Potato Famine of 1845 to 1849 increased the number of emigrations out of Ireland, as residents sought to escape terrible conditions there, which resulted in many deaths. Between 1820 and 1860, the Irish constituted more than one third of all immigrants to the United States.6 During the worst years of the famine, they accounted for nearly half of all U.S. immigrants. Irish immigration prior to the 1840s was predominately male.7 This mirrored Anne Murphy (left) and co-worker in packing room at Newberger’s Towel Factory, c. 1918 Library of Congress other European immigrant groups in which men immigrated alone and either returned home or brought over other family members. That pattern changed during the famine, when entire families left the country, raising the representation of women. Though the Irish exodus continued throughout the nineteenth century, after the famine’s worst years had passed, single Irish women began to dominate Irish immigration. By the end of the nineteenth century, single women accounted for 53 percent of Irish immigrants. The Irish were the only nineteenth- or twentieth-century immigrant group in which women outnumbered men.8 Held at Ellis Island—undesirable emigrants to be taken back by steamship company that brought them Library of Congress “Irish-Catholic Immigration to America,” Library of Congress, accessed January 6, 2015, http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/ presentations/immigration/irish2.html. 7 Hasia R. Diner, Erin’s Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 31. 8 Ibid, 31. 9 Ibid, 34. 6