Irish+Immigration+and+Nativism

Irish Immigration and nativism- due to a massive famine in Ireland brought upon by a potato blight, over a million Irish people died. In order to escape the crippling starvation, nearly 2 million left Ireland to settle in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. They left their homeland in order to find opportunity and food in these foreign lands. In America the situation for Irish immigrants was not much better than back in the home country. The Irish faced immense prejudice and discrmination. Anti-Irish political cartoons were published in newspapers and hung up of street corners. Finding work was incredibly difficult. Even shop owners who need workers who adverstise "Help Wanted: Irish Need Not Apply". For even going out of business wasn't as bad as hiring someone of Irish heritage. The Irish found work mostly in factories, which subjected them to harsh, dangerous conditions for next to no pay. The treatment of the Irish is compairable to that of the slaves. Nearly 200,000 Irish died in the factories, risking their lives for a little as 2 cents a day. The Irish stuck together inhabititng cities such as New York, Boston, and Philadelpia. With their mass numbers came Irish tradition and culture. The Irish brought with them the formation of Catholic churches in a country dominated by protestants. Inorder to escape these discriminations the catholics formed lodges, societies of catholics where they could escape persecution form the protestants. By the end of the 1850's the number of Roman Catholics in America had gone from 25,000 to 1.75 million. They faced such intense discrimination that anit-catholic/irish protest formed and mobs would burn catholic curches. Many lived right out on the street in makeshift homes because the couldn't afford to live in houses. The Irish faced potentially worse conditions in America then they did in Ireland.