The contribution of Irish labor following the Great Famine

Ten thousand Micks They swung their picks To build the new canal But the choleray wasstrongerAndkilled

- Ballad, 1800s.

Irish labor became an invaluable re‐ source for the development of America in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the Midwest and Far West, the Great Lakes region and upstate New York, farming and ranching were common trades for Irish immigrants.

In the East, labor contractors hired men to work in “labor gangs” that built rail‐ roads, canals, roads, sewers and other construction projects. Their work provided a significant portion of the la‐ bor that built infrastructure in expand‐ ing cities.

Over 3,000 Irish helped to build New York’s Erie Canal, which had to be dug with shovels and horsepower, and thou‐ sands more worked on railroads, farms and in mines. In mill towns in New England, Irish provided low-cost labor at textile mills.

Some, including children, worked long and dangerous hours at factories. Within view of the Western New York Irish Famine Memorial are the Erie Canal and the grain and steel mills where the Irish helped to build American industry and solidify their place in the country. Many men who had in Ireland been un‐ employed or worked as basic laborers and farmers found work in mines. The work was dangerous and caused many health problems, and only low wages for long days were offered as a reward. Miners lived in “mine patch” communi‐ ties, overcrowded and crudely built towns in which the housing, the commu‐ nity stores, and the land were all owned by the mining companies, characterized by mine bosses whose practices in‐ cluded intimidation and oppression to avoid worker unrest or complaint. Min‐ ers’ children worked in “breaker rooms,” where they picked off slate from coal and broke coal lumps.

In New Orleans, the Irish played a major role in the building of the New Basin Canal. An outbreak of yellow fever meant that workers were dying in large numbers. Irish immigrants were desper‐ ate enough to take on the dangerous and difficult work for $1 a day.

As boatloads of Irish continually arrived, the New Orleans Canal and Banking Company had no trouble replacing the Irish who died by the thousands.

By the time the canal opened in 1838, 8,000 Irish laborers had succumbed to cholera and yellow fever. Over the fol‐ lowing decade, the canal was enlarged and shell roads were built alongside. While there are no official records of immigrant deaths, somewhere between 8,000 and 30,000 are believed to have perished in the building of the New Basin Canal, many of whom are buried in unmarked graves in the levee and road‐ way fill beside the canal.

Textiles in MA

Mills also began to hire more Irish dur‐ ing the influx of Famine immigration. “No Irish Need Apply” signs were prevalent through the 1830s, and some Irish women were segregated when first hired in mills in Lowell, Massachusetts, where Yankee Protestants called “Lowell Girls” had previously held the majority of the jobs.

However, by the 1850s mills were hiring the Irish regularly because they would work for less money and did not make the same demands for reasonable work‐ ing conditions that Yankee mill girls were beginning to stand for in their his‐ torically famous strikes. Between 1828 and 1850, Lowell’s population grew from 3,500 to 35,000. In 1860, ap‐ proximately 62 percent of Lowell’s tex‐ tile workers were immigrants, half of whom were Irish.

Connecticut River Valley

The Connecticut River Valley saw a