Book review: Fleeing Famine and oppression for the land of opportunity

In 1851, Hubert D Glynn, a former clerical student from Galway, left Ireland for New York. At the time of his arrival at New York there was no designated landing spot for transatlantic ships. Instead, the ships chose one of the many piers at the tip of Manhattan, and released their cargo of vulnerable, often half-starved, humans into a city full of conmen and thieves.

The New York harbour commissioners decided in 1855 to create one designated arrival point for all immigrants. The landing point chosen was known as Castle Garden. (The service was later transferred to Ellis Island.) Here the commissioners could provide information on travel, accommodation and a meal for newcomers. In return, immigrants provided them with detailed personal information of their place of their age, origin and skills, if any.

Archives wiped out

Hubert D Glynn had moved up the socioeconomic ladder since his arrival four years earlier, and he was placed in charge of gathering this information. It was a job he held until he died in 1894. 

Unfortunately, all this incredibly valuable information about the Irish, and other nationalities, who arrived in New York was destroyed in two fires. (The second of which occurred after Glynn’s death.) 

Add to this the destruction of the records held in Dublin’s Four Courts in 1922 and the result is that the personal stories of millions of 19th century Irish emigrants vanished.

US census and bank records

Fortunately, two recent developments have helped the rediscovery of many of these tales of survival, hard work and socioeconomic advancement of those who left Ireland in the 1840 to 1860 era. 

The first of these is the digitalisation of the American census records of that time allowing thousands of family history buffs to piece together the stories of their ancestors. The second is the discovery of the records of the Emigrant Savings Bank in recent years. An eagle-eyed administrator spotted these ledgers, realised their value, and donated them to the New York Library.

Tyler Andbinder, an emeritus professor of history at George Washington University DC, has drawn heavily on the records of the Emigrant Savings Bank, and supplemented his finding with the work of family history buffs, to produce his book, which examines the lives of hundreds of Irish who got out of Ireland during, or immediately, after the famine.

These emigrants were generally not on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder in Ireland. Nevertheless, arriving in a strange country, often only Irish speaking and hoping to achieve a better life was a daunting proposition for those who took the ship to New York.

Andbinder divides these emigrants into different socioeconomic groups according to their qualifications and resources. Not surprisingly, 60% were originally classified as unskilled.

What he discovers is an amazing amount of movement up, and sometimes down, the ladder of those who can be traced for 10 years or more. 

The Irish saved hard, and as they saved, they opened accounts in the Emigrant Savings Bank where they were required to report their original Irish address, their date of arrival in New York, who was with them, what boat they arrived on as well as their current personal details. If a saver got a new job, or purchased a business or a house, they were expected to inform the bank; hence the detailed amount and quality of accurate detail.

Andbinder discovered just how enterprising the Irish were once they were free from the oppression they had experienced in Ireland. Obviously not everyone fared well, and these hard luck stories, or self-inflicted wounds, are outlined in great detail too.

America, as Andbinder shows, really was the land of opportunity. As one emigrant, Peter McLoughlin, said when he wrote back to his family in Ireland: “This is the best country in the world, there is no want; there is room in the living for all, but you may depend, they must work for it.”