Irish Immigrants Earning a Living

How did the Irish immigrants in the South earn a living? They did work similar to what their compatriots in the North were doing. Many Irish males performed unskilled labor. One review of the1850 census records shows the following numbers:

	% Unskilled	Semi- Skilled	Skilled	Low White Collar	High White Collar	Planter/ Farmer
Mobile	43.6	16.6	23.7	12.1	5.3	.3
Natchez	18.1	4.3	36.2	20.2	12.8	1.1
New Orleans	51.3	17.1	17.1	10.1	1.7	0
Richmond	43.2	5.2	26.4	12.1	8.5	o

Richmond was one of the few Southern cities with any manufacturing. That city had a larger percentage of skilled labor. Most of the Irish workers were machinists and blacksmiths. New Orleans had a very large canal digging project through the 1840’s, so that city has a large unskilled labor population in 1850. Mobile and New Orleans had large ports, so they had larger numbers of semi-skilled Irish labor. Some Irish managed to get into low wage white collar positions, such as clerks or small proprietors. Some Irish immigrants became successful merchants. In New Orleans, J.C. Prendergast owned and ran the Orleanian newspaper in New Orleans. Maunsel White and John Burnside were successful commission merchants in New Orleans. They both owned homes in the wealthiest section of New Orleans. They would later purchase plantations and become planters.

Thomas Ruddy of Natchez, John McGonagle of Mobile and Timothy Burns of Richmond all operated substantial merchant businesses. There were also many Irish druggists, doctors and lawyers who fell into the high white collar category. In the 1855 City Directory of New Orleans, about 20% of the lawyers listed were Irish. Most of them received their training before they arrived in the U.S. The commission merchant business was a lucrative one. The commission merchant would accept a crop from a planter and then re-sell it- for a commission. The commission merchant was paid with a percentage of the profits. Somewhat less than ten percent of the commission merchants in New Orleans were Irish in the 1850’s.

By the 1860 census, the numbers changed a bit:

	% Unskilled	Semi- Skilled	Skilled	Low White Collar	High White Collar	Planter/ Farmer
Mobile	45.8	13.7	21.6	8.4	5.9	1
Natchez	45.8	6.6	30.7	5.0	8.2	0
New Orleans	41.7	17.5	17.8	9.0	5.2	0
Richmond	44.8	9.1	22.9	9.7	5.7	0

The large increase in unskilled labor in Natchez reflects the fact that in 1850, Natchez did not yet have that famine influx. By 1860, they had received many famine immigrants. Looking at the birth places of their children, one can see that the Irish who arrived in Natchez generally came from other parts of the U.S.

Earl Niehaus, The Irish in New Orleans (Baton Rouge: LSU Press 1965), pp. 26, 30

David T. Gleeson, The Irish in the South, 1815-1877 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Univ. of North Carolina Press 1995), p. 38-40

Irish Immigrants Becoming White Collar

The numbers in the 1860 census do reflect remarkable advancement by Irish immigrants in the white collar category.

	Skilled	% Change Since 1850	Low White Collar	Change Since 1850	High White Collar	Change Since 1850
Mobile	333	+48	128	+12	80	+176
Natchez	98	+188	16	+16	26	+117
New Orleans	180	+68	97	+54	62	+373
Richmond	263	+157	112	+139	65	+97

There was significant upward mobility among the Irish in those years between 1850 and 1860. These Irish men prospered in business and in retail. John Roach operated a bank and sat on the board of the very successful Vicksburg and Jackson Railroad. John Moore of Augusta, Georgia organized the bank of Augusta. In Richmond, Alex Worrell served as superintendent of the Richmond and Danville railroad. James Elder in Mobile served the same position of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad.

William Agar, a native of County Carlow, came to the U.S. in 1847. He started as a clerk for a sugar broker, P. A. Giraud, in New Orleans as early as 1850. William would later name one of his sons after his early boss. By the time of William’s death in 1915, he was known as one of the most prominent brokers in New Orleans. His brother-in-law, Edward M. Rice preceded him in the sugar business. The commission merchant and sugar broker business was one avenue for advancement for the Irish immigrants.

Edward Rice was one of those rare Irish who entered the sugar broker trade early in the 1850’s. His wife, Catherine Price, ran a boarding home before they married. She continued with the boarding house during the marriage. Edward did young and Catherine continued with the boarding house after his passing.

Other Irish in the professions included Hugh Lyle who practiced medicine in Natchez. Patrick Wallace and Robert Langfield taught at a private academy in Mobile. James Kernan taught, among others, William C. Faulkner of Ripley, Mississippi, grandfather of the famous 20^th century author, William Faulkner. Samuel O’Callaghan was a successful lawyer in New Orleans.

Many Irish women taught school. They did not usually run their own schools. They would typically live and teach at a plantation as a private tutor. Nancy Wightman taught on the plantation of Mr. and Mrs. Collins near Florence, Alabama. She taught the four Collins girls and three other girls from a nearby family. These three girls were “not so smart, but very good children.” In Louisiana near New Orleans, Maunsel White started as a sugar broker, later owned a sugar plantation in Plaquemines Parish with hundreds of slaves.

Some Irish prospered in less respectable businesses. Mary Murphy, 28 years old, ran a coffee house and dancing room. Coffee houses in that time served everything but coffee. They were essentially saloons, where much business and other activities was conducted. Ms. Murphy’s establishment in what we today call the French Quarter employed Irish prostitutes, such as Mary Gallagher, Mary Meagher, and Abby Phillips. Margaret Haughery, from Ireland via Baltimore, operated a very successful bakery and dairy in New Orleans. She would become locally famous for her philanthropy. Today, there is a sweet monument to Margaret near St. Theresa de Avila Catholic Church in Uptown New Orleans.

The Irish were resourceful and enterprising. They were not the last, but they were one of the first immigrant groups to raise themselves by their boot straps.

David T. Gleeson, The Irish in the South, 1815-1877 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Univ. of North Carolina Press 1995), p. 41-42, 43.

Irish Immigrants in New Orleans

In the years leading up to the Civil War, the port of New Orleans was the second busiest port in the country. It was the fourth busiest port in the world. The influx of Irish immigrants into the Crescent City was second only to that of New York. 20,000 immigrants entered New Orleans in 1855 alone. A very large percentage of those immigrants were from Ireland. The two principal immigrants groups in the 1850’s was the Germans and the Irish.

The Germans would often pass through New Orleans onto greener pastures. But, the Irish tended to stay in New Orleans. One historian commented that by 1850, 20% of the New Orleans population was Irish. The next largest immigrant group was the Germans, who comprised 10% of the City.

In the 1840’s and 1850’s New Orleans was a booming city. It was said by one visitor that in 1842-1843, 2,000 rigged ships had called at the port that year. Another visitor noted that 1500 flat boats and keel boats would float down the Mississippi every year.

In a boomtown, the Irish found work digging canals. In a bayou and swamp area, there was always need for new canals. The Irish also came to dominate more lucrative areas. They became a large part of the screwmen work force. The screwmen were those workers who screwed down the cotton bales, making them tighter and tighter, so as to take up as little space as possible on the ships and boats. It was considered skilled labor in the 1850’s and it paid well. The screwmen formed the first labor union in 1847. Many officers of the Screwman’s Benevolent Organization had Irish names.

Another lucrative job was the drayman. The draymen hauled goods from the wharves to the city proper. It was a job formerly held by the Negroes. But, the Irish quickly came to dominate the drayman trade. In that time “Negroes” included freed men and hired out slaves. The Irish drayman with his flashing whip and cursing tongue soon became a mark of the City.

The Irish also supplanted the Negro hack driver. With the need for sharp dress and polite manners, one would think the Irish started with a disadvantage. But, again by the 1850’s, the Irish dominated the hack business, as well. Visitors to the city would comment on the reckless driving and the outrageous Irish rogues of the cabmen.

The Irish even replaced the native Negroes as waiters. The manager of the prestigious St. Charles Hotel told one English visitor that the Irish excelled partly because they were so gallant with ladies. The Irish displayed great imagination at in praising feminine visitors.

Laura D. Kelley, Erin’s Enterprise, Ph.d Dissertation 2004 (on file at Tulane Univ.), p. 50

Earl Niehaus, The Irish in New Orleans (Baton Rouge: LSU Press 1965), pp. 46, 48-50.

Irish Immigrants in New Orleans

How many Irish immigrants were there in the South before the war? Precise figures are elusive. But, there are hints. The Irish were generally referred in the immigration records as having come from Great Britain. Arrivals generally peaked in the Spring or Fall, so as to avoid the Summer heat.  In the last quarter of 1845, there were 813 arrivals from Great Britain in the port of New Orleans. In late 1846, there were 1,519 arrivals from Britain in New Orleans. In the last quarter of 1847, known as “Black ‘47” – the worst year of the famine in Ireland, there were 3,621 arrivals from Great Britain. During the normally slow summer time, there were 5,856 arrivals from Great Britain in New Orleans.

In 1849, there were 7,272 passengers disembarking at New Orleans. By 1850, New Orleans was second only to New York for Irish arrivals.

In the 1840’s, Liverpool was the center of the cotton trade in Europe. On the return trip to America, the cotton ships would bring immigrants. The cheapest fare to the US was to New Orleans. So, it is not surprising that by 1850, there were some 24,000 Irish immigrants in Louisiana and some 28,000 by 1860. New Orleans had some 116,000 people in 1850 and 168,000 in 1860.

David T. Gleeson, The Irish in the South, 1815-1877 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Univ. of North Carolina Press 1995), p. 26-27