Family In nineteenth century Irish society people married late and arranged marriages with dowries were common. If the eldest son inherited the family farm the daughter, if she was unwed or not working in service, had little option but to travel. The main attraction of America was therefore work. A ninety-nine year old Mayo woman interviewed by the Irish Folklore Commission clearly remembered that her sister had emigrated in 1865 because “there was no work for her at home”. For those without dowries America also beckoned. There they had more chance of finding a husband who would not be so interested in money as was the case in Ireland. One girl, who had broken off her courtship and left for Philadelphia, later wrote to her former lover, “Over in Ireland people marry for riches, but here in America we marry for love and work for riches”. Unmarried women worked mainly in domestic service and in factories. In 1900 Irish women were employed in the following ratios in the USA: Occupation Percentage of Irish-born women employed Service 70.4 Manufacturing 20.1 Professional 3.3 Agriculture 2.8 …… 96.6 (Source: The Dillingham Commission, 1907-1910) Group of household servants in the early twentieth century. Service was the largest single category of Irish female employment in the United States at that time. While Irish immigrant women generally married less and later than other Americans, their birth rate was high. Upon marrying an Irish woman ended her life as worker, as an earner of income. Although married Irish women worked for wages under situations of duress – when their husbands were incapacitated or when they deserted – Irish wives generally had the lowest rate of employment. Families were often split if the male breadwinner had to move to another state for work. Married women had to try to raise large families on poor American wages. They seldom worked outside the home for cultural and religious reasons as well as the more practical need to mind their children. Yet if they did not work they and their children faced eviction and possibly starvation. Taking in lodgers or laundry were two common means of generating an income. Often children as young as twelve were sent out to work in dangerous conditions in factories to make ends meet. Charities such as St Vincent de Paul provided help in such circumstances. Sometimes mothers took the risk of leaving their children at home while going out to work. Wages for married women working outside the home averaged only seven or eight dollars a week. The noted Irish historian Tim Pat Coogan describes the situation of Irish women admirably: “Generally, at the start of the century single women were domestic servants and waitresses; widows and deserted wives were in industry, although in Chicago, as elsewhere, the bulk of jobs available in teaching, textiles, clerking, and shop sales were held by women of all nationalities. By 1900, although the Irish only comprised an eight of the total foreign-born population of Chicago, they had the greatest number employed as servants and waitresses. The domestics were required to live in and not to have children. ‘Gentlemen callers’ were firmly discouraged. “Brigid” (as Irish domestic servants were called) generally did not have the culinary skills or domestic sciences sought by the better-off American employers, but generally she was hard working, intelligent, willing to learn and to save her money. Living in meant that she could save for a dowry or to bring a younger member of the family over from Ireland.” One energetic woman wrote to her uncle from Denver in 1846 that in addition to raising a family of ten children she was also busy helping her husband with her children. “This is a regular driving country” she wrote. “ A person with only small means has to keep on all the time”. Elizabeth Dolan, a domestic servant, complained of “hard mistresses” who “want girls on tap from six in the morning to 10 or 11 at night” and “boss… you everlastingly” “Whatever you do don’t go into service she advised..you’ll always be prisoners and always be looked down upon”. Education was the route to a better way of life for poor immigrant women. This was provided by the church. But rather than help immigrants cling to their Irish culture it was a catholic culture that the nuns transmitted. As Deirdre Mageean notes “Irish religious were not transmitters of ethnic identity, indeed, (they) accelerated the assimilation of Irish emigrants into American life”. Mageean also points out hat Irish girls received more education than either their brothers or the children of immigrants of other nationalities. The national school attendance figures for 1900 show that attendance for girls with Irish fathers far exceeded that of the daughters of all foreign-born fathers. Many of these girls would later join the convents and become teachers themselves. Some also became nuns catering for the sick and the destitute and visiting the poor and those in prison. Despite the provision of education a study conducted in 1920 estimated that 43% of the domestic female servants in the USA were women born in Ireland. Carpenter, Niles Immigrants and their Children, Washington Dc, Government Printing Office, 1927 The most famous woman in American trade union history was born-born Mary Harris better know as “Mother Jones”. Another prominent trade unionists was Elizabeth Gourley Flynn, born of Irish emigrants in Concord, Massachusetts who became a women’s rights advocate and took part in some of the most dangerous mining and logging confrontations in American labour history. A letter from a poor railroad worker in Peekskill, New York, to his family in Ireland holds its simple power more than a century later and sums up in unlettered articulateness the heart of Catholic Irish emigration: Beekskell march 8th 48 My dear and loving wife and children I Received yours of January 20th 1848 which gave me to understand that yous were attacked by a Severe Fever but thanks be God that yous are Recovered and well as I am at Preaset thanks be to his kind merceys to us all be on the watch at the Post Office day after day I wont delay in Relieveing yous as it is a duty encumbered on me by the laws of Church and I hope God will Relieve me. I work on a Railway at 8 shillings per day and pays 18 Shillings per week for my Boarding this is a good Country for them that is able to work and nother person. So I will be able to pay yours passage withe the help of God on the First of August next the sending of this sum of money to yous Compells me to let it be Back tel than and i long to see that long wished for hour that I will Embrace yous in my arms there is nothing in this world gives me trouble but yow and my dear Children whoom I loved as my life. Be Pleased to let me know how my two sons is Patrick and Franciss and not Fergetting my dear Father and mother Friend and neighbours not Forgetting your sister Bridget thank God she was to mind yous in your sickness and sorrows which i will never forget to her i expect to go to newyork on the 17th of march to send you this Bill of Six Pounds which you will Get Cash for in the Provensil Bank of Ireland I will send it in the Revd Patrick ogara is care For you I feel very sorry for sorry for my Brother Francis that lived at St. John i Fear he is dead. dont answer this letter tull you Receive the next in which the money will Be for you. Keep your heart as God spareed you, so long you will be shortly in the lands of Promise and live happy with me and our children. No more at Pressent From your Faithful husband till death Thos Garry   Links The historian Ruth-Ann M. Harris has published an excellent paper on Irish women's' lives in America as gleaned from their letters