Irish – Popular Politics in Early America

November 7, 2013

Irish Discrimination a Myth?

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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

"Without enough sleep, we all become tall two-year olds."-Jojo Jenson

According to an extensive academic study conducted by BroBible (http://www.brobible.com/sports/article/10-most-hateable-fan-bases-college-football/page-2), Notre Dame Irish football fans are the most hated fans in the country. While college football seemingly has nothing to do with either of these articles, the hatred behind the Irish, specifically the Irish-Catholic at least runs along the same lines as both of these articles. As I read through the “‘No Irish Need Apply’: A Myth of Victimization,” I felt Richard Jenson’s research was thorough, yet quite selective. I agree with his overall argument, but not necessarily the method he used as justification. Initially, his argument focused on the lack of a visible NINA sign as justification for the myth of victimization felt by Irish during the period and many subsequent generations later. I kept reading, however, and warmed up to his argument when he discussed the economic plight of the Irish, which was what I thought he lacked initially. As is my understanding of Irish immigration, a massive wave occurred concurrently with the potato famine. Why were so many Irish migrating? They left their homeland because they were tired, hungry, and poor. They were the wretched refuse that Emma Lazarus later described in her poem “A New Colossus”. These immigrants came to this country with nothing, so they probably did not fit the traditional mold of a white settler from the Old World. I would imagine that these newcomers were shunned due to their extreme poverty rather than their Irish heritage, but at this time, the two were interwoven and topped off with Catholicism. Furthermore, Jenson uses many diverse geographic and time periods to create his argument. For the most part, and where I think his argument holds the most weight, Jenson discusses Irish encounters in New York City during the mid-1800s. He continues, however, by bringing up farmers in Iowa and treatment of Irish in Brooklyn. While these statistics and narratives have their place in history, it is not in this article. Another point of contention that Jenson makes describes the relationship the Irish had with African-Americans and the Chinese. He says the Irish “repeatedly attacked employers who hired African-Americans or Chinese.” (415) Did he think that maybe the Irish attacked these groups to “fit in” with other whites? Or maybe they attacked these employers because the Irish were on strike and members from either of these two races worked for cheaper thereby nulling the Irish strike? I understand he’s saying that the Irish weren’t attacked, but they were white. Irish or not, violence against whites was more frowned upon than violence against another race during this period. I just don’t buy a lot of his arguments. One of his strongest details alludes to the lack of socioeconomic mobility of the Irish. Granted this is all my speculation without additional research, but I think this restricted mobility refers back to the problem of being a penniless, hungry immigrant who is willing to work anywhere that puts food on the table. The Irish stuck together as a group, so people in the neighborhood helped others get jobs where they were working; therefore, (because Irishmen were helping Irishmen get jobs) the Irish dominated the fields of work, specifically as canal workers and longshoremen. I agree much more with Kevin Kenny’s article, “Race, Violence, and Anti-Irish Sentiment in the Nineteenth Century” which can be discussed further in class. I also agree with Wade’s comments about Kenny’s article. I didn’t notice until reading Wade’s post that I enjoyed Kenny’s clarity and consistency over Jenson’s arguments. I just didn’t think Jenson used appropriate justification, as I’ve already said, and his arguments were more jumbled and not flowing chronologically. Is that Vince Vaughn in the background of Lamo’s picture? Let’s embrace that as well.

November 7, 2013

Now Wait Just a Minute

Richard Jensen’s work “No Irish Need Apply: A Myth of Victimization” has me questioning my entire understanding of the struggle “my people” (three of four of my grandparents are immigrants from Ireland) went through in the U.S. Growing up all I heard about was the lack of the opportunities my grandparents had growing up and how WASP America had kept their relatives down for years (relatives in this case being aunts and uncles of my grandparents). Jensen’s work though brings to light thought about an issue I never once questioned. As Eli said in his work everything that I had been told growing up was “plausible” due to where the stories I was hearing came from as well as the number of people saying the same exact story. But now I simply have to change my understanding of the “struggle” my ancestors went through. To that I am going to have to steal the words of College Gameday Analyst Lee Corso “NOT SO FAST SWEETHEART!”

I get that some of the prejudices that the Irish claim they went through were fabricated but life was by no means a walk in the park for these individuals. Irish citizens in the United States I would argue were the slaves of the North due to the type of work that they performed. Their desire for work in whatever capacity possible made them open to anything (and I mean anything) and because of that the argument can be made that the Irish are to blame for their role in society (something that can be seen by many Irish society members to remain with their “kind”). However, just because one is willing to work at the lowest possible level does not mean that they have no dignity or sense of pride. The Irish were exploited for the willingness to work, plain and simple. I don’t think that Jensen gives the Irish enough credit in the fact that they may have recognized their role in society. I believe that the Irish community’s close bond stems from the recognition that many community members simply had no option but to do as told. There is an old expression that goes “one man is no man,” and the Irish embody this philosophy. While one or maybe even many community member may have had wealth because the majority of the community didn’t have that value there was an issue with society. I think the Irish think that if one many can’t attain the life they desired, outside forces must be working against that person because others got what they desired.

I can’t dispute the evidence that Jensen provides, it is all backed in the research that he performed (research that is very commendable as I feel that he went against popular opinion throughout his entire writing process). However, I believe that history is largely based upon the ways in which an individual wants to view history. History often plays out in a “to the victor go the spoils fashion,” and because of that everything can always be argued. Did the Irish win their and that’s why they can claim they were held down by oppressive white business owners? An Irish Catholic from Massachusetts did become President of the United States so I would say that they Irish did win their struggle and because of that they can present their history as they like. Irish community bonds where one wants to see everyone succeed before declaring a movement/cause a success and because that was never possible I truly believe that is where Irish ideology of the world against an individual emerges from.

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

Cultural Consciousness

My paternal great grandfather emigrated from Ireland and I remember, as a child, hearing about the “NINA” signs in stores. As children, I think that we judge the truthfulness of a claim, not by the facts, but rather by the statement’s plausibility, and the credentials of the people making the claim. NINA signs certainly seem plausible; in my imagination, they paralleled the “Whites Only” signs of Jim Crow. As far as credibility, parents are about as credible as it gets–at least that’s the way it seems when you’re little. Only now, reading these articles, has my collective, cultural memory been challenged.

Richard Jensen marshals a compelling argument that the NINA signs were, in fact, a mostly imagined phenomenon. While they may have appeared in windows of private homes, especially in Britain, they were non-existent within the commercial world. He discusses the discrimination that the Irish perceived, contradicting it with examples of Irish economic success in America.

Kevin Kenny, though sounding a tone more sympathetic to the Irish than that of Jensen, seems to be in relative agreement. He acknowledges that “demand for unskilled male heavy labor and unskilled female domestic labor in the nineteenth century was simply too great for the Irish to have suffered much by way of anti-hiring discrimination, racial or otherwise.” In seeming agreement about labor, these two historians also write in concordance regarding political discrimination against the Irish, including nativist fears.

Essentially, I think, this discussion comes down to disagreements about what it felt like to be Irish or Irish-American during the nineteenth century. Did it feel discriminatory, or welcoming? The truth can likely be determined from evidence and thoughtful intuition: the Irish, despite being a poor and unskilled immigrant group, often succeeded in the labor market in America. Yet, cultural fears about their race, or their Catholicism persisted. They displayed economic mobility, but were discriminated against politically. The Irish likely felt unwelcome in America, even as they found employment, dominated some industries and gained political franchise. That feeling, not reality, seems to have created the NINA signs that exist in my imagination and the imaginations of millions of other Irish-Americans: sitting in shop windows, they remind us that our ancestors once felt unwelcome, even if that feeling didn’t come from a sign in the window, or a mass inability to find work.

I think that I echo Michael’s final line, where he writes “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.” A focus on the experience of the Irish, and their own understanding of their cultural history, would be extremely useful in conjunction with this factual analysis of the ways the Irish were and were not discriminated against 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

What Do You Mean, "You People"?

In ““No Irish Need Apply”: A Myth of Victimization,” Richard Jensen examines the myth of Irish-Catholic exclusion from mainstream American jobs and activities and its origins as a protective tool for the Irish community. He argues that Irish claims of its (NINA) existence were a political statement that enhanced and perpetuated non-individualistic work culture.

In order to fully understand the myth of discrimination in the Irish pathos, Jensen needed to show the full extent of evidence there was that supported it. He seemed to have boiled it down to a single piece of sheet music with the refrain “No Irish Need Apply!” in 1862(409). It is important to note that this was based off a song from London about discrimination against Irish maids, because of the fact that the American version is about Irish working men. I think this is significant because of the association of labor and masculine activities mentioned in Wilentz such as day drinking and putting out fires. In Kenny’s chapter on racial perceptions of Irish in American culture, he writes that racially-based stereotypes were mainly directed at men rather than women. In a paper I wrote for a different class about the rise of white supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina, masculinity and race were also closely related because African Americans and women in the antebellum South were dependents. White supremacy in this case was a reaction to the eclipsed dominance of the white man.

Both Jensen and Kenny return to the 19^th century Irish phenomenon of collective violence. Jensen views mob violence as one of the instances where Irish acted out in a way that demonstrated solidarity against what was perceived as hostility and “othering”. Kenny points out that these massive bursts of social and political violence provided the strongest evidence for nativists making racial claims about Irish. By comparing these two statements, it is easy to see how the solidarity could have been viewed instead as self-segregation based on racial standards.