Discrimination – Popular Politics in Early America

November 12, 2013

Empowered Women: A "Force in History"

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In her article, “The Power of Women’s Networks,” Mary P. Ryan examines the Female Moral Reform movement as indicative of women’s powerful role in guiding the course of history, as she mentions, “women have acted throughout the American past to shape events and to make history.” But Caldwell believes that the female reform movement, in actuality, was counterproductive because it separated women from the same communities of which they were trying to gain independence. He notes,”I believe that the effective female advocates of the Female Moral Reform Society in Utica suffered because of their lack of prescience to see that an argument which pushed women into a separate sphere for purposes of sexual purity, would necessarily push them into a separate sphere in other ways.” While I agree with Caldwell that the decision made by women in Utica to perform in the movement may have further distanced the women from their communities, but as I argue in my post, that same decision gave them an incredible amount of both control and influence. This also demonstrates the underlying argument behind Ryan’s work which aimed to explain the history of women in America without falling for the same misconceptions and gendered stereotypes that has muddled the facts and figures to date. As she acknowledges, “one of the first impulses of the feminist historians in the early 1970s who set about discovering women’s past was simply to chart the course of sexual inequality and the oppression of women.” (66) So, in recognizing this, by including accounts of women participation in the reform movement, Ryan has already drastically shifted the perception of women’s history, from an account of subordination and oppression, to an account of solidarity and strength. Mary sheds light on the empowerment these movements gave to women at the time, “In sum women were among the most active participants in the rich social life that transpired within the voluntary associations.” (69) Thus, in conclusion, by placing women at the center of these reform movements, Mary positions women in a place of power and authority, rather than in a position that is rooted in male dominance and female subordination.

November 7, 2013

Irish Discrimination a Myth?

In No Irish Need Apply: A Myth of Victimization, Richard Jensen argues that 19th century job discrimination against Irish-Americans, symbolized by the idea of signs reading “No Irish Need Apply” (NINA) hanging in business windows, was largely a myth. Nearly everyone in America remembers learning about the discrimination Irish immigrants faced during their early years in America, and the NINA signs are an essential part of that narrative. However, in his thorough research that included combing through both newspaper ads and records of firsthand accounts, Jensen convincingly shows that there is no evidence these signs were at all common. Instead, Jensen convincingly presents us with a narrative in which NINA signs were somewhat common in private British homes seeking maids, and that the collective memory of those signs and their significance as a slogan of general distaste for the Irish carried on into the 19th century United States. (409) He then discusses how John Poole’s song spread the line even further, causing the people to believe the phrase really was printed up in many businesses and also giving the phrase a special status as a rallying cry of oppression for the Irish to bond over. (409) Jensen uses economic arguments and later statistics to assert that the Irish were not discriminated against and in fact were sought after as cheap labor, a common experience of any immigrant group entering a workforce en masse without many skills. (413)

The part of Jensen’s argument that most interested me was something I alluded to in the last paragraph: the idea that the Irish used the idea of NINA and a general sense of discrimination as a way to strengthen their sense of community in the face of what they saw as economic discrimination. Jensen claims numerous times that this tight-knit Irish community encouraged individual Irish from taking jobs dominated by the “Other.” (Presumably, this means other immigrants and Yankees). Jensen believes this was a useful tool for the community as the Irish were able to dominate certain professions such as the canal building and longshoremen industries. (412) Their numbers thus allowed them more power as workers and allowed them to negotiate with employers and organize strikes in a unified fashion. On the face of it, it seems counterintuitive to say that the Irish community could play up discrimination against themselves and use it as an economic tool, but Jensen makes it into a logical, economic argument. Immigrant groups, and really any minority or otherwise disadvantaged groups, are at their most powerful when they act collectively and act to better conditions for the entire group. If Irish workers were constantly going into the same professions, then their numbers would give them a greater collective power as workers within those professions.

If I had one issue with the article, it would be the same that Eli brought up in his post. I think that Jensen could have done a better job of including narratives that illustrated how Irish people of the time actually felt. Perhaps diaries, letter correspondences, or Irish newspapers or pamphlets could have given insight into ways they felt American society mistreated them. I appreciated Jensen’s statistical, more logic-based argument, but when evaluating an immigrant group in this way it is important to consider their own experiences as they themselves perceived them.

November 7, 2013

Debunking Discrimination of Irish-Americans

Jensen’s “No Irish Need Apply” and Kenny’s “Race, Violence, and Anti-Irish Sentiment in the Nineteenth Century” provide revealing insights into race relations in America, particularly with reference to the plight of Irish immigrants to the United States. While both authors discuss the issues of anti-Irish sentiment in the nineteenth century, however, each takes a markedly different approach to their understandings of discrimination and racism against the Irish in America.

Jensen writes a bold, new interpretation of Irish–American history, and argues that the “No Irish Need Apply,” or NINA ideology said to have pervaded businesses in the United States was largely a fabrication of the Irish people. He effectively asserts that there is a surprising scarcity of evidence to support the widely-held view that the Irish were victims of workplace discrimination in the nineteenth century. In fact, Jensen writes that unskilled Irish workers were very likely welcomed into American business (409). While I agree with Jensen that there appears to be a definite lack of sufficient support to argue that the Irish were discriminated against under the NINA ideology, I believe his claim that the Irish used the NINA slogan as a protective tool falls short of his own criticism. While I found his argument about the possibility of Irish-Americans using NINA as an agent to ensure solidarity interesting, Jensen’s use of a single man’s assessment of the collective spirit of the Irish people to represent a century’s worth of political, economic, and racial struggles for Irish-Americans is audacious (417). With that being said I applaud Jensen’s effort because of this risk. As Kevin Kenny states in response to Jensen’s work, the conclusions presented are not supported by any other historians in the field (Kenny 372). In this way Jensen presents a novel method of evaluating the Irish-American solidarity of the nineteenth century, but ultimately falls short in providing a convincing argument for why it persisted.

On the other hand, Kenny’s work is much more conservative than Jensen’s, and ultimately this works in his favor. In his essay, Kenny successfully classifies the differences between anti-Irish sentiment among British and American societies. Unlike Jensen, Kenny also focuses on the progression of racism against the Irish, beginning with the caricature of “Paddy” in the news media; Paddy “was a uniquely racialized figure” (369). Kenny is also able to use several cases of Irish labor groups – the Molly Maguires, the Whiteboys, and the Ribbonmen – to illustrate the collective violent practices used by these groups, leading to the growth of anti-Irish sentiment because of perceived potential threats towards American society (373). Kenny’s statement that labor and class were largely inseparable from race in nineteenth century America was also well supported through his discussion of racism against Asian and black people in comparison to the Irish (375). Augmenting the evidence he provides for depicting an American culture with racist attitudes towards Irish-Americans is Jensen’s organization of his essay. Through his clearly articulated arguments and thorough treatment of historiography his claims are more cogent than those presented by Jensen.

While I agree with Max’s comments in stating that Kenny could have extended his essay to elaborate upon other factors affecting Irish-American racism in the nineteenth century, in doing so I believe Kenny may have lost his central argument that Irish collective violence was the basis for anti-Irish sentiment in the United States. By adding interpretations to this work Kenny might be falling back into the historiography he is trying to distance himself from, making his argument less an original piece than an amalgamation of what other scholars have stated about Irish-American racism. While narrowing one’s focus definitely runs the risk of weakening the quality of a historical work (just see my criticism of Jensen), I ultimately think both Kenny’s and Jensen’s article make important contributions to understanding the development of the Irish-American community in the 19th century.

November 6, 2013

Naught but a Myth

In “No Irish Need Apply: A Myth of Victimization”, Richard Jensen presents his views, substantiated with what seems like many studies and evidence, on why the the Irish were not really disfranchised to the extent that many contemporary Irish would have told. The “No Irish Need Apply” signs which formed the symbolic nexus of such claims are debunked as nowhere near as commonplace as people would have and really sets the tone for the article’s analysis of how Irish came to feel so marginalized. As Jensen asserts, labor was one of the most concerning elements of Irish life, so he spends much of the essay explaining how the work force was truly not so discriminatory.

Jensen uses very consistent, if not excessively repetitive argumentation, that there is no record of people seeing NINA signs on public businesses nor of business literature from the given period espousing anti-Irish business beliefs to the point that the Irish should be eliminated completely from employment consideration. The feelings of victimization and “chip-on-the-shoulder” ideas that emanated from these predicaments pushed the Irish to believe that all other ethnic and religious groups like the British and Protestants solely had nothing but hostility for towards them as potential citizens. These sentiments carried over to the United States where they realized that if they were to live prosperously they would have to bond together and profit from the advantages that a group of like-minded individuals conferred.

The group of the “Other”, which the Irish perceived as anyone outside their ethnic group or not wholly akin to them, was the enemy. They could not be trusted or reasoned with. This misunderstanding only led to outbursts of violence on the part of the Irish in attempts to maintain a solid status without being infringed upon by the “discriminatory” Americans. Assertions in this vein often seemed to have little sound basis. This facilitated a portrayal of the Irish as having a sort of irrational and groupthink mentality that all “other Americans were prejudiced against them, and were deliberately holding back their economic progress.” Jensen counters this notion by citing numerous statistics concerning the upward social mobility of the Irish as a collective group which was usually average or above average, showing no signs of discrimination. Thus it proved difficult to reconcile Irish anxieties with labor with the statistics that were disseminated in the period.

I agree with AJ’s post that “likely, the strong group ethos that encouraged Irish to always work together, and resist individualistic attempts to break away attributed to the popular myth.” It is very evident that the Irish were so caught up in maintaining a strong core of Irish support, they were hard-pressed to make significant progress in assimilating into other segments of American society. I enjoyed reading this article as it presented compelling arguments as a result of debunking previous myths and arguments perpetuated by historians without significant evidence. Jensen cites studies and methodically, step-by-step, undermines assertions that previous historians had made in order to present the most compelling argument.

November 6, 2013

Historical Memory and Reality

Historical memory continues to be one of my favorite things to study and learn about in history, and Jenson’s work on the myth of victimization in the Irish community showed how a group’s historical memory does not necessarily correlate to actual historical events. Moreover, I found it interesting that Jenson sought to disprove the existence of Irish economic victimization, and offer possible explanations as to why the social mobility of the Irish was lower than other immigrant groups and proves an interesting contrast to the more traditional historical studies. As AJ and David have already mentioned, Jenson does a superb job of pointing out the fact that the actual existence of documentation suggesting an organized effort of discrimination against the Irish is non-existent.
What I think is missing in this piece was a more detailed observation on how other forms of discrimination, such as dehumanizing images that are plentiful in Kenny’s descriptions in Race, Violence, and Anti-Irish Sentiment in the Nineteenth Century, helped facilitate the perpetuation or creation of this myth of economic discrimination. Jenson alludes to this by saying, “The question is not whether or not the Irish were admired. (They were not)” (9). He continues by offering a quick dismissal of the pervasiveness of all forms of discrimination against the Irish, there is no evidence that more than one in a thousand Americans considered the Irish as racially inferior.” However, Jenson also acknowledges what Kelly’s work shows, namely that the contemporary literature at the time contained and promoted a negative portrayal of the Irish (9). I think an effort to better connect how the discrimination in other aspects of the Irish experience contributed to the myth of economic discrimination would have added to Jenson’s work.

November 6, 2013

Self-inflicted prejudice

“No Irish Need Apply”: A Myth of Victimization by Richard Jensen may be the first work I have read this semester that I completely agree with. Jensen’s explains his thesis claiming, “This paper will explain how the myth originated and will explore its long-lasting value to the Irish community as a protective device” (406). Jensen’s work does a nice job explaining the background behind the slogan as well as giving multiple possible explanations for the significance of the myth without factual historical evidence. His work delves into the Irish myth of victimization using the popular slogan “No Irish Need Apply.” He explains that the Irish American community harbors a deeply held belief that it was the victim of systematic job discrimination in America, and that the discrimination was done publicly in highly humiliating fashion through signs that announced “Help Wanted: No Irish Need Apply” (405). Without historical evidence many historians viewed this slogan as a metaphor for Irish troubles; however, the Irish insist that the signs did exist and seem to prove their discrimination.

The “NINA” slogan seemingly originated out of England after the 1798 Irish rebellion and came over to America with the migration. The myth in America seemed to focus on the public “NINA” signs hanging up in shops and restaurants that deliberately marginalized and humiliated Irish male job applicants. However, with that being said, “No historian, archivist, or museum curator has ever located one; no photograph or drawing exists” (405). Along with no historical evidence of the signs, no other ethnic group complained about being singled out by comparable signs as well as there was no known employment discrimination ever documented. I found this is to be very strange especially after Jensen noted some very famous Americans that said they had heard about the signs growing up. Something had to be going on and Jensen offers some rather valid options. The one I was most interested in was the one he mentions last.

With no physical evidence or documentation of the myth Jensen offers the explanation that myth fostered among the Irish a misconception that other Americans were prejudiced against them, and were deliberately holding back their economic progress. This perceived prejudice gave the Irish a “chip on the shoulder” mentality and directly added to their encouragement of the myth. No other European Catholic group shared this chip on their shoulder; likely the strong group ethos that encouraged Irish to always work together, and resist individualistic attempts to break away attributed to the popular myth. The Irish must have been held back by something because they had a statistically lower rate of upward social mobility than average in the 1850-1880 period; but was it internal or external (412)? Jensen argues that there is something else going on that is fostering this self-proclaimed discrimination by the Irish stating, “the Irish chip-on-the-shoulder attitude may have generated a high level of group solidarity in both politics and the job market, which could have had a significant impact on the occupational experience of the Irish” (411). Records show that many Irish worked together in large groups such as labor gangs and construction crews adding to the theory of group solidarity driving the myth. Touching on CT’s previous post, it is important to note the atmosphere of the region at the time and realize that many different cultures and backgrounds could have easily lead to the congregation of Irish immigrants in the some workplaces and communities and held them back from political and social mobility.

In my opinion, self-denial was the king and self-infliction was what led the Irish to popularize this myth. Pete Hamill provides Jensen with a tremendous example of this collective Irish spirit, “This was part of the most sickening aspect of Irish-American life in those days: the assumption that if you rose above an acceptable level of mediocrity, you were guilty of the sin of pride” (417). Their own slogan only pushed them down into lesser jobs. The slogan was in the mind’s eye, and gained steam and significance from the popular song from 1862. With no evidence, the Irish, in my view, become self-proclaimed victims. Discrimination by others may have been relatively irrelevant compared to the effect the Irish slogan had on reinforcing political, social and religious solidarity amongst its own people. It was more of a warning to stick to the neighborhood than it was a prejudice act by Others. I agree with Jensen’s final analysis and believe the slogan identified an enemy to blame for the Irish inability to move socially upward besides their own faults and community ideals.