"No Irish need apply": a myth of victimization.

Introduction

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." This "NINA' slogan could have been a metaphor for their troubles--akin to tales that America was a "golden mountain" or had "streets paved with gold." But the Irish insist that the signs really existed and prove the existence of widespread discrimination and prejudice. (1)

The fact that Irish vividly "remember" NINA signs is a curious historical puzzle. There are no contemporary or retrospective accounts of a specific sign at a specific location. No particular business enterprise is named as a culprit. No historian, (2) archivist, or museum curator has ever located one (3); no photograph or drawing exists. (4) No other ethnic group complained about being singled out by comparable signs. Only Irish Catholics have reported seeing the sign in America--no Protestant, no Jew, no non-Irish Catholic has reported seeing one. This is especially strange since signs were primarily directed toward these others: the signs said that employment was available here and invited Yankees, French-Canadians, Italians and any other non-Irish to come inside and apply. The business literature, both published and unpublished, never mentions NINA or any policy remotely like it. The newspapers and magazines are silent. The courts are silent. There is no record of an angry youth tossing a brick through the window that held such a sign. Have we not discovered all of the signs of an urban legend?

The NINA slogan seems to have originated in England, probably after the 1798 Irish rebellion. By the 1820s it was a cliche in upper and upper middle class London that some fussy housewives refused to hire Irish and had even posted NINA signs in their windows. It is possible that handwritten NINA signs regarding maids did appear in a few American windows, though no one ever reported one. Apart from want ads for personal household workers, the NINA slogan has not turned up in the newspapers. The myth focuses on public NINA signs which deliberately marginalized and humiliated Irish male job applicants. The complete absence of evidence suggests that probably no such signs ever existed at commercial establishments, shops, factories, stores, hotels, railroads, union halls, hiring halls, personnel offices, labor recruiters etc. anywhere in America.

Irish Americans all have heard about them--and remember elderly relatives insisting they existed. The myth had "legs": people still believe it, even scholars. The late Tip O'Neill remembered the signs from his youth in Boston in 1920s; Senator Ted Kennedy reported the most recent sighting, telling the Senate during a civil rights debate that he saw them when growing up (5) Historically, physical NINA signs could have flourished only in intensely anti-Catholic or anti-Irish eras, especially the 1830-1870 period. Thus reports of sightings in the 1920s or 1930s suggest the myth had become so deeply rooted in Irish-American folk mythology that it was impervious to evidence. Perhaps the Irish had constructed an Evil Other out of stereotypes of outsiders--a demon that could frighten children like the young Ted Kennedy and adults as well. The challenge for the historian is to explain the origins and especially the durability of the myth. Did the demon exist outside the Irish imagination--and if not how did it get th ere? This paper will explain how the myth originated and will explore its long-lasting value to the Irish community as a protective device. It was an enhancement of political solidarity against a hostile Other; and a way to insulate a preindustrial non-individualistic group-oriented work culture from the individualism rampant in American culture.

We must first ask if the 19th century American environment contained enough fear or hatred of the Irish community to support the existence of the NINA sentiment? Did the Irish-American community constitute an "Other" that was reviled and discriminated against? Did more modern Americans recoil in disgust at the premodern Irish immigrants? The evidence suggests that all the criticism of the Irish was connected to one of three factors, their "premodern' behavior, their Catholicism, and their political relationship to the ideals of republicanism. If the Irish had enemies they never tried to restrict the flow of Irish immigration. (6) Much louder was the complaint that the Irish were responsible for public disorder and poverty, and above all the fears that the Irish were undermining republicanism. These fears indeed stimulated efforts to insert long delays into the citizenship process, as attempted by the Federalists in 1798 and the Know Nothings in the 1850s. Those efforts failed. As proof of their citizenship th e Irish largely supported the Civil War in its critical first year. (7) Furthermore they took the lead in the 1860s in bringing into citizenship thousands of new immigrants even before the technicalities of residence requirements had been met. (8) The Irish claimed to be better republicans than the Yankees because they had fled into exile from aristocratic oppression and because they hated the British so much. (9)

The use of systematic violence to achieve Irish communal goals might be considered a "premodern" trait; it angered many people and three bloody episodes proved it would not work in conflict with American republicanism. In 1863 the Irish rioted against the draft in New York City; Lincoln moved in combat troops who used cannon to regain control of the streets and resume the draft. In 1871 the Irish Catholics demanded the Protestant Irish not be allowed an Orange parade in New York City, but the Democratic governor sent five armed regiments of state militia to support the 700 city police protecting the one hundred marchers. The Catholics attacked anyway, and were shot down by the hundreds. In the 1860s and 1870s the Molly Maguires used midnight assassination squads to terrorize the anthracite mining camps in Pennsylvania. The railroad brought in Pinkertons to infiltrate the Mollys, twenty of whom were hung. In every instance Irish Catholics law enforcement officials played a major role in upholding the modern fo rms of republicanism that emphasized constitutional political processes rather than clandestine courts or mob action. In each instance the Irish leaders of the Catholic Church supported modern republicanism. (10) After the 1870s the Irish achieved a modern voice through legitimate means, especially through politics and law enforcement. Further enhancing their status as full citizens making a valuable contribution to the community, the Catholics built monumental churches (which were immediately and widely praised), as well as a massive network of schools, colleges, hospitals, orphanages and other charitable institutions. (11)

Regardless of their growing status, something intensely real was stimulating the Irish Catholics and only them. The NINA myth fostered among the Irish a misperception or gross exaggeration that other Americans were prejudiced against them, and were deliberately holding back their economic progress. Hence the "chip on the shoulder" mentality that many observers and historians have noted. (12) As for the question of anti-Irish prejudice: it existed but it was basically anti-Catholic or anti-anti-republican. There have been no documented instances of job discrimination against Irish men. (13) Was there any systematic job discrimination against the Catholic Irish in the US: possibly, but direct evidence is very hard to come by. On the other hand Protestant businessmen vigorously raised money for mills, factories and construction projects they knew would mostly employ Irishmen, (14) while the great majority of middle class Protestant households in the major cities employed Irish maids. The earliest unquestioned us age found comes from the English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, using the phrase in Pendennis, a novel of growing up in London in the 1820s. The context suggests that the NINA slogan was a slightly ridiculous and old-fashioned bit of prejudice (15) Other ethnic groups also had a strong recollection of discrimination but never reported such signs. The Protestant (Orange) Irish do not recall "NINA signs. (16) Were the signs used only against Irish targets?

An electronic search of all the text of the several hundred thousand pages of magazines and books online at Library of Congress, Cornell University Library and the University of Michigan Library, and complete runs of The New York Times and The Nation, turned up about a dozen uses of NINA. (17) The complete text of New York Times is searchable from 1851 through 1923. Although the optical character recognition is not perfect (some microfilmed pages are blurry), it captures most of the text. A search of seventy years of the daily paper revealed only two classified ads with NINA--one posted by a Brooklyn harness shop that wanted a boy who could write, and a request for a couple to take charge of a cottage upstate. (18) Unlike the employment market for men, the market for female servants included a small submarket in which religion or ethnicity was specified. Thus newspaper ads for nannies, cooks, maids, nurses and companions sometimes specified "Protestant Only." "I can't imagine, Carrie, why you object so strong ly to a Roman Catholic," protests the husband in an 1854 short story. "Why, Edward, they are so ignorant, filthy, and superstitious. It would never do to trust the children alone with one, for there is no telling what they might learn." (19) Intimate household relationships were delicate matters for some families, but the great majority of maids in large cities were Irish women, so the submarket that refused to hire them could nor have been more than ten percent. (20)

The first American usage was a printed song-sheet, dated Philadelphia, 1862. It is a reprint of a British song sheet. The narrator is a maid looking for a job in London who reads an ad in London Times and sings about Irish pride. The last verse was clearly added in America. (21)

NO IRISH NEED APPLY.

Written and sung by Miss KATHLEEN O'NEIL.

WANTED.--A smart active girl to do the general housework of a large family, one who can cook, clean plates, and get up fine linen, preferred. N. B.--No Irish need apply

--London Times Newspaper, Feb. 1862.

I'm a simple Irish girl, and I'm looking for a place, I've felt the grip of poverty, but sure that's no disgrace, 'Twill be long before I get one, tho' indeed it's hard I try, For I read in each advertisement, "No Irish need apply."

Alas! for my poor country, which I never will deny, How they insult us when they write, "No Irish need apply." Now I wonder what's the reason that the fortune-favored few, Should throw on us that dirty slur, and treat us as they do, Sure they all know Paddy's heart is warm, and willing is his hand, They rule us, yet we may not earn a living in their land,

....

Ah! but now I'm in the land of the "Glorious and Free," And proud I am to own it, a country dear to me, I can see by your kind faces, that you will not deny, A place in your hearts for Kathleen, where "All Irish may apply." Then long may the Union flourish, and ever may it be, A pattern to the world, and the "Home of Liberty!"

In 1862 or 1863 at the latest John Poole wrote the basic NINA song that became immensely popular within a matter of months. (22)

NO IRISH NEED APPLY.

Written by JOHN F. POOLE, and sung, with immense success, by the great
Comic-Vocalist of the age, TONY PASTOR.


I'm a dacint boy, just landed from the town of Ballyfad;
I want a situation: yis, I want it mighty bad.
I saw a place advartised. It's the thing for me, says I;
But the ditty spalpeen ended with: No Irish need apply.
Whoo! says I; but that's an insult--though to get the place I'll try.
So, I wint to see the blaggar with: No Irish need apply.

I started off to find the house, I got it mighty soon;
There I found the ould chap saited: he was reading the TRIBUNE.
I tould him what I came for, whin he in a rage did fly:
No! says he, you ate a Paddy, and no Irish need apply!
Thin I felt my dandher rising, and I'd like to black his eye--
To tell an Irish Gintleman: No Irish need apply!

I couldn't stand it longer: so, a hoult of him I took,
And I gave him such a welting as he'd get at Donnybrook.
He hollered: Millia murther! and to get away did try,
And swore he'd never write again: No Irish need apply.
He made a big apology; I bid him thin good-bye,
Saying: Whin next you want a bating, add: No Irish need apply!

Sure, I've heard that in America it always is the plan
That an Irishman is just as good as any other man;
A home and hospitality they never will deny
The stranger here, or ever say: No Irish need apply.
But some black sheep are in the flock: a dirty lot, say I;
A dacint man will never write: No Irish need apply!

Sure, Paddy's heart is in his hand, as all the world does know,
His praties and his whiskey he will share with friend or foe;
His door is always open to the stranger passing by;
He never thinks of saying: None but Irish may apply.
And, in Columbia's history, his name is ranking high;
Thin, the Divil take the knaves that write: No Irish need apply!

Ould Ireland on the battle-field a lasting fame has made;
We all have heard of Meagher's men, and Corcoran's brigade. (23)
Though fools may flout and bigots rave, and fanatics may cry,
Yet when they want good fighting-men, the Irish may apply,
And when for freedom and the right they raise the battle-cry,
Then the Rebel ranks begin to think: No Irish need apply

After a few rounds of singing and drinking, you could easily read the sign. Note that in the New York City version, Poole changed the London maid to a newly arrived country boy; the maid lamented, but the lad fights back vigorously. This is a song to encourage bullies. The lad starts his job search by scanning the want ads in the city's leading Republican newspaper, the New York Tribune, which seems an unlikely resource for a new arrival from a remote village. In the draft riots of 1863 the Tribune was a special target of Irish mobs. (24)

Did the Irish feel discriminated against before the NINA slogan became current? First note the last stanza of the 1862 London song shown above. If the NINA slogan had been current in America surely the songwriter would not have included the line "you will not deny, A place in your hearts for Kathleen, where 'All Irish may apply.'" The second evidence comes from the Confederacy in 1863. The Rebels hailed and incited Irish unrest in the North. A major editorial in the Richmond Enquirer May 29, 1863 enumerated multiple reasons for the Irish to hate the Yankees, such as convent attacks and church burnings. The catalog of grievances focused on anti-Catholicism and did not mention job discrimination or NINA--probably because the Poole song had not yet reached Richmond. (25)

We can now summarize our explanation of where the NINA myth comes from. There probably were occasional handwritten signs in London homes in the 1820s seeking non-Irish maids. The slogan became a cliche in Britain for hostility to the Irish. Tens of thousands of middle-class English migrated to America, and it is possible a few used the same sort of handwritten sign in the 1830-1850 period; the old British cliche was probably known in America. There is no evidence for any printed NINA signs in America or for their display at places of employment other than private homes. Poole's song of 1862 popularized the phrase. The key change that made the second version such a hit was gender reversal--the London song lamented the maid's troubles, the New York City version called for Irishmen to assert their manhood in defiance of a cowardly enemy. By 1863 every Irishman knew and resented the slogan--and it perhaps helped foment the draft riots that year. The stimulus was not visual but rather aural--a song about NINA sung only by the Irish. There was indeed such a song, and it became quite popular during the 1863 crisis of the draft riots of the Civil War; it still circulates. The song was a war cry that encouraged Irish gangs to beat up suspicious strangers and it warned Irish jobseekers against breaking with the group and going to work for The Enemy.

Recollection is a group phenomenon--especially in a community so well known for its conviviality and story telling. Congressman Tip O'Neill of Massachusetts grew up hearing horror stories of how the terrible Protestants burned down a nearby convent school run by the Catholic Ursuline nuns. When O'Neill went to college he was astonished to read in a history book that it happened a century earlier in 1834--he had assumed it was a recent event. (26) It is most unlikely that businesses in Boston routinely displayed NINA signs in the 20th century and yet left no trace whatever in the records. People who "remember" the signs in the 20th century only remember the urban legend. (27)

Political mobilization against the Irish was never successful. The most important effort was the Know Nothing movement, which swept the Northeast and South in 1854-56. It was a poorly led grass roots movement that generated no significant or permanent anti-Catholic or anti-Irish legislation. There was no known employment discrimination. Know-Nothing employers, for example, were never accused of firing their Irish employees. The Know-Nothings were primarily a purification movement. They believed that all politicians were corrupt, that the Democrats were the worst, and that Irish support for Democrats, plus their growing numbers, made them highly suspect. The party lasted longer in the South where it was the anti-Democratic party but only slightly anti-Catholic. Ray Billington concludes "The almost complete failure of the Know-Nothings to carry into effect the doctrines of anti-Catholic and anti-foreign propagandists contributed to the rapid decline of this nativistic party." (28) Likewise there were few visibl e effects of the APA movement of the 1890s, or the KKK in the 1920s. The conclusion is that, despite occasional temptations, Americans considered their "equal rights" republicanism to be incompatible with systematic economic or political discrimination against the Irish. Given the overlap of anti-Catholic and anti-Irish prejudice how can historians tell the difference? In both cases, the anti's would attack on political grounds--elections, candidates, appointments, bosses, machines, election frauds, registration laws, civil service reform. (29) Anti-Catholics would focus on certain issues, especially saints and Mariolatry, parochial schools, sacramentalism, convents, missions to the Indians, and Bible-reading in schools. (30) They also were intensely alert to activities of the Papacy, and the political power of priests and bishops. The Vatican certainly controlled ecclesiastical affairs, but it carefully avoided American political issues. (31) By 1865 politicians realized that bishops and priests largely avoi ded even informal electoral endorsements of any kind--they were far less active than pietistic Protestants, as the annals of temperance and anti-slavery demonstrate. (32)

Were Irish men the victims of job discrimination in reality? That was possible without any signs of course. The evidence is exceedingly thin--the Irish started poor and worked their way up slowly, all along believing that the Protestant world hated them and blocked their every move. Contemporary observers commented that the Protestant Irish were doing well in America, but that preindustrial work habits were blocking progress for the Catholics. As Thernstrom has shown, Irish had one of the lowest rates of upward mobility. (33)

A likely explanation is the strong group ethos that encouraged Irish to always work together, and resist individualistic attempts to break away. (The slogan tells them that trying to make it in the Yankee world is impossible anyway.) No other European Catholic group seems to have shared that chip on the shoulder (not the Germans or Italians--not even anti-Irish groups such as the French Canadians). Historians agree the political hostility against the Irish Democrats in the Civil War Era was real enough. Critics complained that the Irish had poor morals and a weak work ethic (and hence low status). Much more serious was the allegation that they were politically corrupt and priest-controlled, and therefore violated true republican values. The Irish could shoot back that The Enemy did not practice equal rights. The Irish community used the allegation of job discrimination on the part of the Other to reinforce political solidarity among (male) voters, which in any case was very high indeed--probably he highest fo r any political group in American history before the 1960s.

It is easy to identify job discrimination in the 19th century against blacks and Chinese (the latter indeed led by the Irish in California). Discrimination against the Irish was invisible to the non-Irish. (34) That is perhaps why this urban legend did not die out naturally. Benign Protestant factory owners could not soften the tensions by removing signs that never existed. When Protestants denied NINA that perhaps just reinforced the Irish sense of conspiracy against them (even today people who deny NINA are suspected of prejudice.) The slogan served both to explain their poverty (35) and to identify a villain against whom it was all right retaliate on sight--a donnybrook for the foes of St. Patrick. (36) The myth justified bullying strangers and helped sour relations between Irish and everyone else. (37) The sense of victimhood perhaps blinded some Irish to the discrimination suffered by other groups. (38)

Perhaps the slogan has reemerged in recent years as the Irish feel the political need to be bona-fide victims. The Potato Famine of course had all the ingredients to make them victims, (39) but it will not do to have the villains overseas: there must be American villains. (40) If we conclude the Irish were systematically deluding themselves over a period of a century or more about their primary symbol of job discrimination, the next question to ask is, was it all imaginary or was there a real basis for the grievances about the economic hostility of Protestants to Irish aspirations? Historians need to be critical. Because a group truly believes it was a victim, does not make it so. On the other hand, 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 on the occupational experience of the Irish.

How successful were the Irish in the job market? Observers noticed that the Irish tended to work in equalitarian collective situations, such as labor gangs, longshoremen crews, construction crews, or with strong labor unions, usually in units dominated numerically and politically by Irishmen. Wage rates were often heavily influenced by collective activity, such as boycotts, strikes and union contracts, or by the political pressures that could be exerted on behalf of employees in government jobs, or working for contractors holding city contracts, or for regulated utilities such as street railways and subways.

The first arrivals formed all-Irish work crews for construction companies in the building of railroads in the 1830s. (41) Sometimes the Irish managed to monopolize a specific labor market sector--they comprised 95% of the canal workers by 1840 (see zhttp://ameba.lpt.fi/~zaphod/lyrics/paddy_on_the_canal) and 95% of the New York City longshoremen by 1900. (42) The monopoly of course facilitated group action, and once a crossing point was reached it was possible to exclude virtually all Others. Solidarity (with or without formal union organization) made for excellent bargaining power, augmented as needed by the use of intimidation, strikes, arson, terrorism and destructive violence to settle any grievances they may have had with their employers, not to mention internal feuds linked to historic feuds back in Ireland. Direct evidence that employers did not want Irish workers is absent. By the early 20th century major corporations had personnel offices and written procedures. If the Irish had a reputation for being unsatisfactory, the personnel managers never commented upon it. Job discrimination against blacks and Asians continued, and was quite visible in the corporate records and the media. Discrimination against newer immigrant groups can be identified as late as 1941 (when it was banned for government contract holders). No trace of anti-Irish hostility has turned up in the corporate records of the literature of personnel management. Can we prove there was no job discrimination against the Irish? Zero is too hard to "prove"--though no historian has found any evidence of any actual discrimination by any business or factory. (43) The main "evidence" referenced in the historical literature is three fold:

First, the NINA myth was so convincing that the Irish saw no need to investigate further, or to document the discrimination, or to set up a protective organization. (They of course organized extensively, in both Ireland and America, to protest maltreatment back in Ireland.) (44)

Second, historians point to contemporaries who commented unfavorably on the Irish, generalizing from a handful of cases to create a stereotype of the dominant views of all of American society. Now indeed the 19th century literature is filled with eyewitness and statistical descriptions of Irish drunkenness, crime, violence, poverty, extortion, insanity, ignorance, political corruption and lawless behavior. The reports come from many cities, from Catholics and non-Catholics, social scientists and journalists, Irish and non-Irish. (45) The question is not whether the Irish were admired. (They were not.) The argument that the dominant popular stereotypes of the Irish were especially nasty does not hold up under careful examination. There is no evidence that more than one in a thousand Americans considered the Irish as racially inferior, non-white or ape-like. (46)

Third, as noted, historians point to statistical evidence that the Irish had lower rates of upward social mobility than average, in the 1850-1880 period. The Irish must have been held back by something: but was it internal or external, or just random historical luck? Given the 20th century success story of the Irish--they are among the wealthiest groups today--the disability or discrimination ended somewhere along the line.

Many different models can explain the Irish condition: First there was lack of financial and human capital. The Irish who arrived in the 1840s and 1850s came with few useful industrial or agricultural skills, while the British and Germans who came at the same time brought cash and much more human capital. Thus the distribution of human capital can be said to have allocated Irish to unskilled jobs, and other immigrants to more skilled opportunities. After 1890 the Irish had acquired some schooling and skills, while the current newcomers were primarily unskilled peasants from southern and eastern Europe. The latter groups moved into the unskilled jobs while the Irish moved up. In the coal fields, with very few job opportunities above the level of unskilled miner, the arrival of new competitors led to significant tensions and violence. In some cases the new competitors were more skilled than the Irish; thus the Swedes who came to Worcester in the late 19th century displaced the less skilled Irish in the metals f actories.

The Irish did invest heavily in human capital, through their system of parochial schools and colleges. The impact of such investment was necessarily long-term, and seems to have become visible by 1900. To a considerable extent the goal was preservation and protection of traditional religious values, and the creation of a social system that would discourage intermarriage. However the schools did follow a standardized curriculum that inculcated literacy and learning skills. Negative investment in human capital involved internal self-defeating factors, such as heavy alcoholism, weak motivation, poor work habits, and disorganized family life. This was widely commented on regarding 19th century Irish, but not much reported in 20th century. (47) Rather few Irish became entrepreneurs; the community did not generate pools of financial capital. Perhaps more important was a low communal value on the individualistic businessman. Construction contracting seems to have been the only business in which they had any signific ant ownership role, and that depended on control of labor and access to government contracts rather than financial capital. The Irish did operate many saloons, but they were financed by the German brewers and generated little new capital for the community. (48)

Comparing rates of social mobility assumes that the Irish were seeking that goal to the same extent as the Yankees. Perhaps their ambitions looked more toward non-individualistic goals (such as building impressive churches), or non-career family advancement strategies focused on political leadership or home ownership, or (in the case of nuns and priests) honorific careers that involved a vow of poverty. A strikingly high proportion of talented Irish youth went into very low paying, very high prestige religious careers. The community more often honored priests and bishops than business entrepreneurs.

Social mobility depends upon strong family structures. Weak ties in a group would indicate fathers and uncles did not assist their kin. The Irish had a reputation for the opposite traits (clannishness and nepotism), but also had reportedly high rates of internal family discord. (49) On the other hand kinship ties could be too strong and impede upward mobility. Parents might demand more child labor, valuing family collective goals over the child's individualistic career potential. Did the Irish tend to remove their children from schools to put them to work early? This would produce ready funds for home ownership, but less long-run human capital. Census data indicate high rates of school attendance, at least to age 14. (50) Special family needs, especially sending funds to Ireland for subsistence and bringing over more relatives, might have drained the capital needed for upward mobility through small business. This indeed was a major factor among the Irish down to the 1880s.

Perhaps the Irish ethic placed more stress on equality and communal sharing of wealth. Different customs can have this effect--for example extensive charity (tithing), or heavy gambling that redistributes earned income in random fashion. Irish levels of charity were moderately high (especially donations to the church); observers did not comment on heavy gambling. In some cultures, when a man gets money he must share it widely with relatives, thus diffusing it and slowing accumulation in entrepreneurial hands. Observers did not report this trait as especially characteristic of the Irish community. In the context of social mobility, "clannishness" can refer to a collective ethic whereby the goal is for the group as a whole moves ahead, with individual initiative discouraged. (51) Bad historical luck could lock a group into the wrong skills or geography, causing retarded growth and structural unemployment. A group could cling too long to old-fashioned skills that were dead-end or slow growth, or be attached to b usinesses or geographical areas that grew very slowly. This may have happened to the Germans, and certainly did happen in the 20th century to coal miners. The Irish however, were noted for their willingness to change jobs, move to new neighborhoods or cities, and abandon trades. However, the quest for political patronage probably locked Irish men into overpaid but dead-end blue-collar jobs, and channeled talent into public administration rather than private entrepreneurship. (52)

Perhaps businessmen figured Irish were unacceptable and decided not to hire any? There is little evidence for, and vast evidence against, this hypothesis. Beginning with Samuel Slater, New England entrepreneurs built hundreds of textile mills in the ante-bellum period. Although the Yankee owners were at first eager to use Yankee workers like themselves (the famous "Lowell Girls") they soon switched to Irish and French Canadian Catholics. Pleased with this new labor supply, they built more mills, often in small towns that had previously been entirely Yankee. They counted on a steady inflow of Catholic workers, borrowing millions of dollars to create these jobs. Once the Irish did have mill jobs they were four times more likely to put their children to work in the same mill than Yankees--rather odd behavior if they were mistreated so badly. (53) Perhaps foremen and superintendents hired Irish for low level jobs but deliberately held them back or promote them very slowly? Major research projects by Tamara Hareve n (dealing with Amoskeag, the largest textile mill in the world), and Walter Licht, dealing with internal promotion system in railroads, finds no evidence of this. Business historians and biographers have turned up no instances of systematic anti-Irish discrimination by any employer in the US, at any time. (54)

NINA originated with women domestic servants, and we need to rethink their position. No one has suggested the Irish women used violence, boycotts or threats to achieve dominance in this industry. "Bridget" had a reputation for mediocre quality work, but this liability was offset by communal assets that made them attractive employees. They spoke English. Along with African Americans and Swedes, they had a strong commitment to service jobs and were available in large numbers. Because of late marriages and spinsterhood, they spent years in service, accumulating experience and maturity that made them more attractive than inexperienced teenagers. Off the job the Irish had a well-developed support network that provided friendship, entertainment, advice, and connections to find new employers. These support networks established informal job standards regarding working hours, housing, food, perquisites and pay scales. The standards were enforced by the maid immediately quitting if the employer violated the standards, with knowledge her friends would be supportive and would help her find a new position. Despite scare stories in the anti-Catholic pamphlets, the Irish servants did not proselytize or interfere with household religious activity. Given the dominance of Irish women among maids in the large cities, and the constant turnover of servants, we can estimate that the large majority (perhaps 80 or 90 percent) of middle class families, regardless of their own ethnic or religious affiliations, routinely hired Irish women. (55)

The economic theory of discrimination focuses on the tastes of the employers, coworkers and customers, and the costs to each (in terms of profits, wages and prices) of having a distaste for a category of workers. If there is underemployment of a target group in a competitive market, then some entrepreneur can make a bigger profit by seeking out and hiring that group. Coworkers who have a strong distaste for working alongside the target can react by boycotting that employer, forcing up his other costs. By looking at wage rates in workplaces with different mixes of groups, economists hope to estimate the "distaste" factor: that is, workers will have to be paid more to work alongside a target group (and will accept lower pay if there are no coworkers from that group.) Estimates of the distaste factor come from a historical study dealing with Michigan furniture workers in the 1890s. It found that in general all groups have a preference for their own kind as coworkers (and were willing to take a 5-10% wage cut for the privilege of working alongside their own kind.) People who were willing to work with outsiders were paid more. "Distaste" for Irish measured out about the same as for other groups. Overall discrimination was small--combined with language skills and the myriad of other unmeasured factors it was less than 5% of the average wage. Doubtless there was a tendency for owners of small shops to hire only their own ethnicity. While this would have the effect of excluding Irish from certain jobs, it cannot be called "anti-Irish" in motivation. Probably the Irish practiced closed hiring as much as or more than any group. (56)

We know from the experience of African Americans and Chinese that the most powerful form of job discrimination came from workers who vowed to boycott or shut down any employer who hired the excluded class. Employers who were personally willing to hire Chinese or blacks were forced to submit to the threats. (57) There were no reports of mobs attacking Irish employment, even during sporadic episodes of attacks on Catholic church facilities in 1830s and 1840s. No one has reported claims that co-workers refused to work alongside Irish; this powerful form of discrimination probably did not affect the Irish in significant ways. On the other hand the Irish repeatedly attacked employers who hired African Americans or Chinese. If a group is systematically discriminated against in a major way by most employers, it will be segregated into a small niche. This segregation should be visible in the census statistics of occupation, when comparing it to other groups, especially to British Protestant immigrants who were not re putedly subject to discrimination. The most useful analysis of any large city for the 19th century is the "Philadelphia Social History Project" which computerized hundreds of thousands of census entries. The Irish comprised 15-30% of the labor force there. How segregated were they, and how did the segregation decline over time? Table 1 shows an index of how different the Irish and others were from native Americans. (Philadelphia was one of the few cities with a large native American working class.) The data show the Irish were about in the same position as German immigrants, and much less liable to being boxed into a job niche than blacks, Italians, Poles or Jews. The Irish had about the same score in 1930 as the British, which is consistent with very little discrimination by employers. The index is about the same for Irish of the first and second generation (1880) and later Irish (1930) indicating that the level of anti-Irish discrimination did not change much over time; it can be seen as equally low in both 1880 and 1930.

Assuming the Irish relied somewhat less on individual skills or market forces, and more on collective action and political prowess for their job security and pay rates, we must ask how successful were they? By the early twentieth century their pay scales were probably at least average. Peter Baskerville has discovered the Irish Catholics in urban Canada in 1901 were about average in terms of both family incomes and standards of living.

My analysis of Iowa data in 1915 in Table 2 shows the Irish Catholics had slightly above average incomes, but that additional years of schooling helped them less than other groups. This suggests that group solidarity was a powerful force for uplift, but it improved the status of the group as a unit rather than as an average of separate individuals. Autobiographies of overly ambitious youth relate how they were harassed by their classmates and warned against the sin of pride by the priest and nuns. (60) Pete Hamill explained how the collective spirit affected him, growing up in Brooklyn in 1940s: (61)

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. You were to accept your place and stay in it for the rest of your life; the true rewards would be given to you in heaven, after you were dead. There was ferocious pressure to conform, to avoid breaking out of the pack; self-denial was the supreme virtue ... it was arrogant, a sin of pride, to conceive of a life beyond the certainties, rhythms, and traditions of the Neighborhood. Sometimes the attitude was expressed directly.... More often, it was implied. But the Neighborhood view of the world had fierce power. Who did I think I was?

When the Irish grumbled about "No Irish Need Apply," they perhaps were really warning each other against taking jobs which were controlled by the Other and immune from the political pressures that group solidarity could exert. There was method to the myth, which is why it persisted so long. Individual upward mobility was a priority for individualistic strivers imbued with the "Protestant Ethic." There is no reason to assume it motivated the Irish. Their individual upward mobility rates were modest. (62)

If the Irish turned both politics and the job market into a group struggle, then we might expect different outcomes when comparing the three situations where the Irish were too weak to make much difference, where they had the "right amount" of leverage, and where they were too numerous. Statistical studies of social mobility in the 1850-1920 era suggest that the Irish did best in the Midwest (where they had just the right amount of strength), and not nearly as well in the Northeast, where they were too numerous to be advantaged by zero-sum power maneuvering. (63) Why the difference? Both Midwest and Northeast regions were doing very well, industrializing rapidly at that time. Let's examine the model of collective solidarity of the Irish in the labor market. It was a technique to facilitate the group as a whole moving rather than individuals. It had zero-sum properties (what one group gained, other groups lost). Their technique would work much better when the Irish were 10-30% of the population, and not nearly as well when they were in a majority. (If their numbers went above 50%, then it was dysfunctional, for most gains would come at the expense of other Irish.) The Irish did have a numerical dominance in Boston and other northeastern cities, such as Troy. There were fewer rivals to elbow out of the way, and their technique was therefore much less successful there. The Irish approach discouraged entrepreneurship (which is positive-sum). It encouraged government work, and jobs (such as canal or railroad construction, longshoremen, transit) where government contacts or franchises were involved (thus allowing them to use their political muscle). In order to expand their preferred job base the Irish supported expansion of government spending and government regulation--what John Buenker has called "urban liberalism." Successors to the Al Smith tradition of urban liberalism, such as Speakers John McCormack and Tip O'Neill and Senator Ted Kennedy could well boast of their achievements in expanding government (or preven ting its contraction) during and after the New Deal era. (64)

After 1860 fears that the Irish were a threat to republicanism rapidly disappeared. The most decisive event came in spring 1861; when the War broke out the Irish rallied to the American flag, and joined the army. Although they strenuously opposed the draft and emancipation, they never supported the Confederacy (unlike some old-line Democratic leaders who took Confederate money.) Irish veterans were welcomed into the GAR, whose camaraderie validated their republicanism. The worst forms of poverty and destitution eventually disappeared, and a solid class of property owners and civil servants emerged to anchor the Irish in their communities. The Catholic Church, controlled by the Irish, vigorously supported law and order, and effectively suppressed the premodern urge to use violence for political goals. The Pope never dictated politics, and the bishops and priests never became active in domestic politics. They focused on building schools, colleges, hospitals, asylums and the stunningly beautiful churches. Many c ritics--throughout the 19th and 20th centuries--were alarmed that parochial schools threatened the public school system, which they insisted was the only guarantee of republican values. The Catholics vehemently rejected this allegation, and over the years gained surprising allies, as other denominations started their own parochial schools, including the German Lutherans, Dutch Calvinists, Orthodox Jews, and evangelicals. Lingering anti-Catholicism reappeared in debates over prohibition, and especially over the nomination of Catholics to the presidency, but it is notable that politicians were never attacked for their Irish. (65)

Irish collective solidarity seems to have broken down after World War Two, as New Deal work relief ended, the big city machines collapsed, unions entered an era of slow, steady decline, and the Catholic school system generated high school and college graduates well-equipped to make their way in the white collar world entirely as individuals, with minimal need for group support. By the 1960s the Irish had moved from the bottom to near the top of the ladder, with an economic status that surpassed their old Yankee antagonists. With the election of John Kennedy in 1960, Irish political solidarity climaxed. The Last Hurrah came in 1964, when Irish Catholics voted 78 percent for Lyndon Johnson. They abandoned Humphrey in 1968; since then they have split evenly between the parties and no longer comprise a bloc vote. (66)

Did the Irish come to America in the face of intense hostility, symbolized by the omnipresent sign, "Help Wanted: No Irish Need Apply"? The hard evidence suggests that on the whole Irish immigrants as employees were welcomed by employers; their entry was never restricted; and no one proposed they be excluded like the Chinese, let alone sent back. Instead of firing Catholics to make way for Protestant workers, most employers did exactly the opposite. That is, the dominant culture actively moved to create new jobs specifically for the unskilled Irish workers. As soon as the Irish acquired education and skills they moved up the social status ladder, reaching near the top by the 1960s. For a while political questions were raised about the devotion of the Irish to America's republican ideals, but these doubts largely faded away during the 1860s. The Irish rarely if ever had to confront an avowedly "anti-Irish" politician of national or statewide reputation--itself powerful evidence for the absence of deep-rooted a nti-Irish sentiment. By the late 19th century the Irish were fully accepted politically and economically. However, reality and perception diverged. After the song appeared in 1862 the Irish themselves "saw" the NINA signs everywhere, seeing in them ugly discrimination that was forcing them downward into the worst jobs. It was deliberate humiliation by arrogant Protestant Yankees. The myth was undeniable--anyone inside the group would be called a traitor for suggesting that internal weaknesses inside the Irish community caused its problems; anyone outside would be called a prejudiced bigot. (67) But what if there were no such signs? The NINA slogan was in the mind's eye, conjured by an enormously popular song from 1862. Job discrimination by the Other was too well known to the Irish to need evidence beyond NINA, or the "recent" burning of the Ursuline convent. Historians engaging in cultural studies must beware the trap that privileges evidence derived from the protests of self-proclaimed victims. Practically every ethnoreligious group in America cherishes its martyrs and warns its members that outsiders "discriminate" against them, or would if they had the opportunity. The NINA slogan had the effect of reinforcing political, social and religious solidarity. It had a major economic role as well, strengthening the politicized work-gang outlook of Irish workers who had to stick together at all times. It warned the Irish against looking for jobs outside their community, and it explained away their low individual rates of upward social mobility. The slogan identified an enemy to blame, and justified bully behavior on the city streets. NINA signs never faded away, even as the Irish prospered and discrimination vanished--they remained a myth about origins that could not be abandoned.

Table 1

1880 Index dissimilarity across occupations (100=max) (58)


 0  Old Stock
53  Blacks
35  Irish--1st generation
    (immigrants)
34  Irish--2nd generation
    (their children)
37  German--1st generation
31  German--2nd generation

1930 Index


 0  white, US born parents
62  Black
60  Italian
57  Jewish
55  Polish
33  German
29  Irsih
25  British

Table 2

Lifetime Earnings and return to additional schooling Iowa Non-Farm Men,
1915 (59)

Group                 N   $Lifetime  Rate Return

ALL                  909     100        10.6%

OLD STOCK            499      97         9.7%
 No Religion         243      93         9.1%
 Methodist           164      95         9.7%

ETHNICS              410     100        10.6%
 German-all          147     109        12.2%
 German Lutheran      34      95         9.5%
 German Catholic      46     106        13.9%
 Scandinavian         87     103        12.2%
 British Protestant   58     114        14.7%
 Irish Catholic       57     104         8.4%

The author revises this article as new evidence is found. This can be viewed at: http:lltigger.uic.edu/ rjensen/no-irish.htm This site also contains links to many other sources of information and documenatation regarding this subject.

ENDNOTES

This essay grew our of discussions on several email lists, including H-ETHNIC, H-HIGH-S, Irish-Diaspora, and Wild Geese. Special thanks to all the participants; I appreciate the advice from John Allswang, Tyler Anbinder, Peter Baskerville, Colin B. Burke, Leo Casey, Robert Cherny, Terry Clark, Heather Cronrath, Maura Doherty, Jay Dolan, Elizabeth Ellis and the staff at the Museum of the City of New York, Joe Gannon, Larry Giantomas, Victor Greene, Susan Ikenberry, Rob Kennedy, Kevin Kenny, Lawrence Kohl, Bill Leckie, Dale Light, Dennis J. McCann, Martha Mayo, Brad McKay, Lawrence J. McCaffrey, John McClymer, John Morello, Gerald A. Regan, Joel Schwartz, Patrick O'Sullivan, Gene Sessions, and Stephan Thernstrom.

(1.) Even historians have believed the myth; for example, the leading scholar of the Irish migration claims, "Unskilled workers and servants, especially, encountered the ubiquitous 'No Irish Need Apply' notices when they searched for jobs in Boston, New York, and other major cities." Kerby Miller, Emigrants and Exiles (1985), 323. Kevin Kenny, The American Irish: A History (2000) demonstrates how central the sense of discrimination was.

(2.) Stephan Thernstrom (email of March 27, 2001 to author) notes he saw no discriminatory ads, or complaints of job discrimination, in the four decades of issues of Newburyport Daily Herald that he examined. Martha Mayo (email of June 24, 2001 to author) likewise has found no references in her exhaustive search of Lowell newspapers. Oscar Handlin did not report seeing a NINA, but he did reference a handful of editorials in Irish Catholic newspapers that vigorously condemned NINA in want ads for household workers. Handlin, Boston's Immigrants, 1790-1880 (1959), p. 62.

(3.) A major museum exhibit, Gaelic Gotham, about New York City (see http://www.mcny.org/irish.htm) did not have any NINA signs, but did reprint the text of a newspaper ad for maids.

(4.) Of course Ebay.com sells these signs. But they are all modern fakes, made by novelty sign makers for the Irish market. See for example http://www.bookguy.com/Irish/Books/irishem.htm Scholars can get fooled too, as shown by http://www.therblig.com/GLCSSRA/archive/901.htm

(5.) Kennedy said, "I remember 'Help Wanted' signs in stores when I was growing up saying 'No Irish Need Apply.'" Congressional Record Senate Sept 9, 1996 page S10054. He was born to a rich family in 1932, about the same time as the Lindbergh baby, and grew up in very well protected upper class circumstances that seldom brought him to the factory districts.

(6.) Immigration restriction movements originated in the 1890s, at a time when Irish immigration had declined to a trickle, and did not target the Irish. Indeed, the most powerful force behind restriction was the American Federation of Labor--half of whose leaders were Irish Catholic.

(7.) On motivation see Randall M. Miller, "Catholic Religion, Irish Ethnicity, and the Civil War," in Randall M. Miller, Harry S. Stout, and Charles Reagan Wilson, eds. Religion and the American Civil War (1998), 261-96. Edward K. Spann, "Union Green: The Irish Community and the Civil War," in Ron Bayor and Timothy Meagher, eds. The New York Irish (1996), 193-209. There were no allegations of Irishmen going South to join the Confederacy. In the war with Mexico, however, a hundred Irish Americans deserted from the US army, organized two San Patricio battalions, and fought alongside the Mexicans. Many were captured and hung by General Winfield Scott. Pam Nordstrom, "San Patricio Battalion," Handbook of Texas (1996) http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/SS/qis1.html

(8.) Steven P. Erie, Rainbow's End: Irish-Americans and the Dilemmas of Urban Machine Politics, 1840-1985 (1988), ch 2. After the war the leading veteran's organization, the Grand Army of the Republic, welcomed Irish Catholic members. Since it was the mainstay of the Republican party in many small towns, the GAR provided an opportunity for Democratic Irishmen to mingle on friendly and equal terms with Protestants of the same age, and softened the tensions created by the temperance movement. See Michel J. Martin, "'A Class of Persons Whose Presence is a Constant Danger': Progress, Prohibition, and 'Public Disorderliness' in Burlington, 1860-1880," Vermont History (1994) 62: 148-165; and Gene Sessions, "'Years of Struggle': The Irish in the Village of Northfield, 1845-1900," Vermont History (1987) 55: 69-95.

(9.) John Belchem "Nationalism, Republicanism and Exile: Irish Emigrants and the Revolutions of 1848," Past & Present (Feb 1995) 146: 103-35. They also considered themselves superior Christians in vivid contrast to the heretical Protestants, who were most likely damned to hell.

(10.) One might add the Fenian invasion of Canada in 1866, which failed totally; the Pope excommunicated the Fenians.

(11.) Generally see Michael Glazier, ed. The Encyclopedia of the Irish in America (1999); for details, Iver Bernstein, The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War (1990); Michael A. Gordon, The Orange Riots: Irish Political Violence in New York City, 1870 and 1871 (1993); Edward B. Freeland, "The Great Riot," Continental Monthly (Sept 1863) v4#2 pp. 302-312 online at http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi~bin/moa/moa<gi?notisid=ABR1802-000 4-62. On the Molly Maguires, see Wayne G. Broehl, Jr., The Molly Maguires (1964) and Kevin Kenny, Making Sense of the Molly Maguires (1998); see also online sources at http://tigger.uic.edu/rjensen/molly.htm and Joel Tyler, Headley, The Great Riots of New York, 1712 to 1873, inc1uding a full and complete account of the Four Days' Draft Riot of 1863 (1873), online at http://www.hti.umich.edu/m/moa.new/

(12.) Lawrence J. McCaffrey, The Irish Diaspora in America (1976), p.66, suggests ghetto life exaggerated stereotypes and nurtured Irish failure "by cultivating the paranoia, defeatism, and feelings of inferiority planted by the past." See also Thomas H. O'Connor, The Boston Irish: A Political History (1995), 94.

(13.) The Irish tended to equate themselves with Catholicism, interpreting anti-Catholicism as anti-Irish prejudice. Other Catholics groups, especially the Germans, French Canadians, and Poles, resented this proprietary attitude.

(14.) Brian C. Mitchell, The Paddy Camps: The Irish of Lowell, 1821-61 (1988), shows how the mill owners replaced the Yankee "Lowell Girls" with Irish and French Catholics. Wealthy Protestants who summered in Maine brought their servants along and asked the bishop to help arrange for Catholic services for them. James O'Toole, Militant and Triumphant: William Henry O'Connell and the Catholic Church in Boston, 1859-1944 (1992), 42. On the decline of anti-Catholicism at the local level, see Luisa Spencer Finberg, "The Press and the Pulpit: Nativist Voices in Burlington and Middlebury, 1853-1860," Vermont History (1993) 61: 156-175.

(15.) The history of Pendennis. His fortunes and misfortunes, his friends and his greatest enemy (1848) p. 102. The character was referring to Protestant Irish.

(16.) On relations between the two Irish groups, see David Montgomery, "The Shuttle and the Cross: Weavers and Artisans in the Kensington Riots of 1844." Journal of Social History (1972) 5: 411-446. In addition to religion, Irish regionalism led to internecine fighting over jobs, which further gave the Irish community a "fighting" reputation.

(17.) It is now easy to search through hundreds of thousands of pages of 19th century magazines and books, using the Making of America online software at Cornell (http://cdl.library.cornell,edu/) or Michigan. (see http://moe.umdl.umich.edu). For the Times, see http://newspaperarchive.com/ and for The Nation, http://www.archive.thenation.com/

(18.) See the ads in The New York Times of March 25, 1854 and Sept. 21, 1859. The Times of Jan 9, 1854, had an ad for servants from a "Protestant Employment Society." A house-worker ad on February 10, 1858 specified, "Only Scotch need apply." For comparison, the search engine turned up 25 instances of the phrase "respectable young girl" in 1861 alone, plus 34 entreaties for a "first rate cook" that year. It turned up a solitary ad that specified "only Americans need apply"--for a governess position in Kentucky. New York Times July 18, 1855. The New York Irish-American (May 28, 1853) vowed that "we shall kill this anti-Irish-servant-maid crusade." It claimed to have hired a lawyer to sue the advertisers and the papers involved. On May 16, 1857, it proudly noted that there had not been a "no Irish need apply" ad in a while. On maids see David M. Katzman, Seven Days a Week: Women and Domestic Service in Industrializing America (1978).

(19.) Aunt Abbie, The O'Brian Family, or The Fruits of Bible Reading (Philadelphia, 1855). They hired an Irish servant anyway, to keep the story moving.

(20.) The privacy zone around household employment still operates in federal civil rights law. Stephen J. Pollak, "1968 and the Beginnings of Federal Enforcement of Fair Housing," (2000), online at http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/housing/documenrs/pollak.htm has explained the exemption from the 1968 Civil Rights law for "Mrs. Murphy's boarding house." That is, for houses with no more than four units, one of them occupied by the owner. The choice of an Irish boarding house was doubtless a humorous touch by Senator Everett Dirksen, who loved witty wordplay.

(21.) Online at http://memory.loc.gov/rbc/amss/cwl/cw104040/001q.gif Library of Congress. See William H. A. Williams, "Irish Song in America," in Glazier, ed. The Encyclopedia of the Irish, 475-6.

(22.) Online at http://memory.loc.gov/ Library of Congress, digital ID 09730 http://memory.loc.gov/rbc/amss/as1/as109730/001q.gif

(23.) Meagher's men (see http://ameba.lpt.fi/~zaphod/lyrics/splintered_shillelagh) and Corcoran's brigade were Irish Catholic combat units raised in New York City in 1861-62. (see http://ameba.lpt.fi/~zaphod/lyrics/paddys_lamentation) After Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on Sept 22, 1862, support from Irish Catholics fell off drastically, suggesting that the lyrics were written before then. At the battle of Fredericksburg in December, 1862, Meagher's brigade, comprising six all-Irish regiments from New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, suffered 45% casualties and the Irish enthusiasm for fighting drastically declined. Craig A. Warren, "'Oh, God, What a Pity!': The Irish Brigade at Fredericksburg and the Creation of Myth," Civil War History (2001) 47:193-221. For the Irish mood see Bernstein, The New York City Draft Riots; Frank L. Klement, "Catholics as Copperheads during the Civil War," The Catholic Historical Review (1994) 80:36-57. For songs celebrating their patriotism, see D avid Kincaid, "The Irish Volunteer: Songs of the Irish Union Soldier, 1861-1865," online at http://www.hauntedfieldmusic.com/Lyrics.html

(24.) The narrator is male but he selects an ad for a maid, which gives the house address. The annual Donnybrook fair had a long reputation for brawling. "Spalpeen" meant rascal and was current only in Ireland; "Millia murther" ("million murders") was the standard oath when one was getting beaten up. On more typical job searches by new arrivals, see Joseph Dinneen, Ward Eight (1936), 1-3. For Tony Pastor, see http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/research/fa/pastor.html and Susan Kattwinkel, Tony Pastor Presents: Afterpieces from the Vaudeville Stage (1998). The modern version by Brendan Nolan (see http://brendannolan.com/) is a variant of the Poole version. For its text see http://ameba.lpt.fi/~zaphod/lyrics/no_irish_need_apply For music listen to http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/song.htm

(25.) The unsigned editorial was probably authored by John Mitchel, the famous "Young Ireland" leader who was on staff at the time. William Dillon, The Life of John Mitchel (1883). For text see http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/noirish3htm

(26.) John Aloysius Farrell, Tip O' Neill and the Democratic Century: A Biography (2001) p 55; Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 324. The convent was run by Catholic nuns from French Quebec and primarily served rich Unitarian girls. See Nancy Lusignan Schultz, Fire and Roses : The Burning of the Charlestown Convent, 1834 (2000), in part online at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/books/0684856859/e xcerpt/ref=pfm_dp_ln_b_3/002-5081602-0566433

(27.) There are a few other references to NINA in the periodical literature: The Nation Jan 14, 1869, p. 27; March 23, 1871, p. 192; 1873 short story used to show prejudice of a crooked politician p 447; (see http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ABK2934-00 32-78); an amusing 1876 usage by novelist Henry James, Jr. in The American, showing tolerance p669 (see http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ABK2934-00 37-136); 1876 account on why Chinese make better house-workers in San Francisco p 736 (see http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ABP7664-00 12-116); There is an explicit reference by an Irish priest in a Catholic magazine of 1881, referring to an era 40 years before: Rev. F. P. Ryan, "Ireland and the Irish," Catholic World (Sept 1881) 33: 849, online at http://www.hti.umich.edu/

(28.) Ray Allen Billington, The Protestant Crusade, 1800-1860(1938), 407, and geographical maps 405-6. Tyler Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of the 1850's (1992).

(29.) Critics said Irish bosses made a mockery of republicanism; for an example (with no anti-Catholic component), see "Irish Power" a cartoon in Puck, April 3, 1889, online at http://historyproject.ucdavis.edu/imageapplication/MarchandSlides/PCD 3652/images/IMG0089.jpg

(30.) Jenny Franchor, Roads to Rome: The Antebellum Protestant Encounter with Catholicism (1993); Billington, Protestant Crusade; Ward M. McAfee, Religion, Race, and Reconstruction: The Public School in the Politics of the 1870s (1998). American scholars are laggard compared to the excellent work done in Britain and Canada: D.G. Paz, Popular Anti-Catholicism in Mid-Victorian England (1992); John D. Brewer and Gareth I. Higgins, "Understanding Anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland," Sociology, (1999) 33:235-261; J. R. Miller, "Anti-Catholic Thought in Victorian Canada," Canadian Historical Review, (1985), 66:474-494; Mark McGowan, The Waning of the Green: Catholics, the Irish and Identity in Toronto, 1887-1922 (1999); Terence Punch, "Anti-Irish Prejudice in Nineteenth century Nova Scotia: The Literary and Statistical Evidence," in Thomas P. Power, ed., The Irish in Atlantic Canada, 1780-1900 (1991). For an anti-Catholic compendium see Samuel W. Barnum, Romanism as It Is (1872), online at http://www.hti.umich.ed u/

(31.) The bishops strongly opposed the Fenians and the Molly Maguires; the Pope condemned the boycotts in the Irish Land War. Violence simply was an unacceptable technique. The one American exception that proves the rule was Rev. Edward McGlynn, who was repeatedly warned and finally excommunicated. Many priests and nuns were arrested in Missouri during Reconstruction; the Irish were known to have supported the Confederacy and the Radicals wanted to exclude them from politics. The indictments were thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court. See Harold C. Bradley, "In Defense of John Cummings," Missouri Historical Review (1962) 57: 1-15; William T. Johnson, "Missouri Test Oath" The Catholic Encyclopedia (1912) v 14, online at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14538a.htm

(32.) In Ireland the political role of priests was well established; John Newsinger, "The Catholic Church In Nineteenth-Century Ireland," European History Quarterly (1995) 25: 247-267. Rev. L. W. Bacon, "The Literature of the Coming Controversy," Putnam's Monthly Magazine (Jan 1869) p. 72, praises rapid maturation of RC church; online at http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ABK9283-00 13-10

(33.) Miller, Emigrants and Exiles 268-70, 273-4; 314-23; Stephan Thernstrom, The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis, 1880-1970 (1973); Joseph P. Ferrie, "The Entry into The U.S. Labor Market of Antebellum European Immigrants, 1840-1860," Explorations in Economic History (1997) 34:295-330; Ferrie, "Up and out or Down and Out? Immigrant Mobility in the Antebellum United States," The Journal of Interdisciplinary History (1995) 27:33-55.

(34.) The Irish image in the popular media has been a topic of interest for historians. As Lewis P. Curtis showed in Apes and Angels: The Irishman in Victorian Caricature (1997) Punch magazine in London commissioned many cartoons and jokes denigrating the Irish in every way possible, and making them look like monkeys. For example see the crude humor of its Dec 21, 1861 issue, pp 250-51, online at http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgibin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ABR0102-007 2-6 American writers