Immigration remains crucial for American society and has always taken part in the nation’s history. It is a significant event because people keep moving from one country to another, and many technological innovations, companies, or industries could not exist without immigrants who left their homes searching for a better life. History includes multiple occasions of massive settlers’ appearance, such as the Irish coming to the United States in the nineteenth century in their attempts to escape poverty and disease experienced in their homeland.
Massive immigration and assimilation of the Irish through the nineteenth century is a subject of many studies because it affected all spheres from cultural to economic. The newcomers arrived during the period of the rapidly developing Market Revolution when the need for a workforce was especially strong. Most of the Irish settled in New York because they reached the city’s ports and had no money to move to other places (Wegge et al., 2017). These people agreed to get jobs with any conditions and low wages, therefore they quickly became the cheapest and preferred workforce (Wegge et al., 2017). They lacked skills necessary for manufacturers’ labor, but they knew English and thus were capable of being instructed.
In the 1840-1860s, New York profoundly increased the number of factories and other productions, moving the economy to steady development. The Irish immigrants’ workforce was applied in many manufacturers, which affected all citizens’ overall labor conditions standards. However, the absence of a cheaper force could prevent New York’s economy from progressing significantly. This essay aims to discuss that although economic scholars argued that Irish immigrants worsened labor conditions for citizens, further research shows that newcomers profoundly influenced the Market Revolution in New York in the 1840-1860s.
Multiple causes led the Irish to come to New York and turn into the important wheel in the manufacturers’ improvement. The immigrants left their homeland attempting to escape poverty and Famine disease that was the immediate reason to move, and New York’s ports were their arrival point (Hirota, 2020). The newcomers did not have enough money to move inside America to settle in other cities. Moreover, New York contained many significant manufacturers like cotton factories, and the workforce was in demand (Bodenhorn & Cuberes, 2018). Considering those factors, the Irish immigrants had enough reasons to stay in the city and contribute to its economic development by involving men, women, and even children to work. During the two decades between the 1840s and 1860, the percentage of newcomers significantly increased, leading the natives to lose job opportunities, raising labor conflicts, and enforcing racial discrimination in employment (Bulik, 2015). The Irish immigrants’ arrival to New York in the middle of the nineteenth century provided the city with a cheap workforce, and therefore influenced its economy.
One of the immediate consequences of the Irish immigrants’ influence on New York’s economy was their influence on the draft riots of 1863. The newcomers were a significant piece of the city’s poorest population, and the new Congress’s laws put them into even worse conditions (Bodenhorn & Cuberes, 2018). Moreover, the fact that New York was overcrowded with a workforce mostly containing the Irish or German immigrants was the cause of these riots. The long-term consequence of the migrants’ contribution to New York’s economic development was the change in labor conditions established on local and legislative levels. American society was forced to revise the importance of education and experience for better employment, and the example of working Irish women led to changes in gender roles. Consequently, the rise of civil and female rights equity movements appeared and changed the course of the United States’ history in the next century.
Although the Irish immigrants enforced the New York manufacturers and helped the city become a significant contributor to the American Market Revolution, labor discrimination appeared among the employers. The 1850s newspapers’ work-offering advertisements where the natives search for a girl to get a job and require their candidates to be non-Irish is the historical evidence of the immigrants’ impact (Bulk, 2015). Besides, it is critical to mention the reasons for lowering the costs of the Irish people’s labor. The immigrants lacked the urban skills to work in manufacturing, however, they were beneficial for New York’s factories that required many people to perform monotonous tasks for low wages (Hirota, 2020). The native inhabitants got an opportunity to improve their lives by receiving a better education and striving to employ at a better workplace, however, they felt uncomfortable in a society full of settlers.
Today American society respects equity and diversity in all institutions, and the Irish immigrants’ assimilation experience significantly influenced the current conditions. International students get various degrees in the United States’ universities, and the migrants get citizenship to work with the natives to improve people’s lives and solve the crucial problems of humanity. Immigrants’ labor conditions are better than those of the Irish immigrants, and the opportunity to get proper education makes career-building easier for the newcomers.
Moreover, industries like agriculture provide specific benefits for the foreigners to help them live healthily and feel needed in their new homes. The immigrants’ conditions in the nineteenth century were extremely poor, therefore modern companies take responsibility for the housing and food providence for their international employees (Richards, 2018). The impact of the Irish immigrants’ workforce cannot be underestimated as it made New York one of the biggest movers of the market revolution, and society should treat the people who were forced to leave their motherlands for a better life respectfully.
References
Bodenhorn, H., & Cuberes, D. (2018). Finance and urbanization in early nineteenth-century New York. Journal of Urban Economics, 104, 47-58.
Bulik, Mark (2015). 1854: No Irish need apply. The New York Times.
Hirota, H. (2020). Limits of intolerance: nativism and immigration control in nineteenth-century New York. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1-17.
Richards, T. J. (2018). Immigration reform and farm labor markets. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 100(4), 1050-1071. Web.
Wegge, S. A., Anbinder, T., & Ó Gráda, C. (2017). Immigrants and savers: A rich new database on the Irish in 1850s New York. Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, 50(3), 144-155. Web.