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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