Essay On Irish Immigration In The 19th Century

Words: 1326
Pages: 6

Each immigrant faced different challenges in their journey, no two people experienced it the same; but they all had similar reasons to come to America and they all faced difficulty along the way. Of the immigrant groups that came to America throughout the 19th century, the Irish were by far the largest group. Despite having come from the same area in Europe as many other groups, they were looked at differently because the vast majority of them were poor. The Irish had fled their country because of a widespread potato famine and disease, bringing little or nothing with them. They were forced to take whatever jobs were available, many of which were demeaning and very hard. Many of them were forced to live in horrible conditions and in over run slums. The Irish were a huge asset to The Civil War, both because there was a huge number of them, and because they were already known for being violent. They were also a big part of the progress made in America. They had to perform unskilled labor for the shipyards, railroads, and construction sites. In large part, they literally built America.

The Russian immigrants fled their homeland for many of the same reasons that the
…show more content…
Their goal was to ‘purify’ the country again and limit the influence that Catholic’s had on the nation. This meant excluding the Irish and other European immigrants who were largely a Catholic base. This group believed that the Catholic immigrants were being controlled by the Pope and that they were more loyal to him than to their country. They also saw the behavior of these Catholic people to be a threat to their Republican values. This party consisted mainly of Protestant men, and they were threatened by the sheer number of immigrants. The thought that they may lose their jobs lead them to fear for their families and in turn to reject further