Mary Elizabeth - In a piece on Irish domestics by Maureen MURPHY in "The Irish In America," M. Coffey and T. Golway (1997) -- "Nearly seven hundred thousand Irishwomen immigrated to America between 1885 and 1920. The Aran poet Mairtin O'Direain, born in 1910, recalled that in his boyhood there wasn't a mother who hadn't spent time in America and that places like Boston, Dorchester, and Woburn were more familiar to him than even Galway. What accounted for this phenomenon of young Irishwomen going to America? The pattern of young Irishwomen outnumbering Irishmen as emigrants in the quarter century between 1884 and 1910 was an exception to male-dominated western European emigration that resulted in family re-formation in America. Irish parents stayed on the land and Irish daughters and sons emigrated, alone or with siblings. These siblings could no longer expect to inherit family land. After the Famine, the inheritance pattern changed from one that divided land among sons to one that privileged a single inheriting son and set aside a dowry for one daughter who was married in an arranged match. For nondowered daughters who did not want to stay on as unpaid workers in the households of their fathers or brothers, there was the Church or there was emigration. In many ways, leaving home was the most attractive alternative for these 'surplus daughters.' Personal histories and immigration records indicate that those coming to America often shepherded younger siblings, cousins, and neighbors later on, which gave courage to girls who yearned to try their luck in cities such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, or San Francisco. Letters home, cash remittances, prepaid tickets, and parcels reinforced the image of America as the place of opportunity. Photographs from America were especially inticing (women in pretty clothing, etc.) .... For all the attractions of America and for the support of family and friends to ease the journey and the settling in, emigration took courage, independence, and spunk. Many girls traveled as part of a group: siblings, cousins, neighbors, and friends forming a cohort of young people from a village or townland. And the numbers are wrenching. In a single month, April 1898, Cunard and White Star liners calling at Queenstown (Cobh), Cork, carried 342 young women from small towns in east Mayo to New York. Passenger records indicate that the emigrating girls described themselves as servants and that they joined family members or friends employed in households or they went to homes of family or friends and looked for employment. Irish girls arrived in America knowing that there was a demand for domestic servants. The "Longford Independent" for August 17, 1912, carried the story of the servant problem in NY, promising that girls could expect to earn five pounds a month (about 20 dollars) for general housekeeping and ten pounds a month for cooking. The article further encouraged emigration, saying that the scarcity of servants made it necessary for employers to tolerate shortcomings. Mona HEARN's study of domestic service in Ireland surveys the "help wanted" advertisements in the "Freeman's Journal" between 1910 and 1920; they offered wage of between 9 and 20 pounds a year for ordinary servants and 30 to 40 pounds per year for a cook. While most Irish girls went to some sort of sponsor, there were some who arrived without family or friends and who had no job prospects. Of the 307,823 Irish females between the ages of 14 and 44 who arrived in NY between 1883 and 1908, some 100,000 were assisted in some way by the Mission of Our Lady of the Rosary for the Protection of Irish Immigrants Girls. They found positions in households for 12,000 domestic servants. Some Irish girls went through the labor exchange at Castle Garden or used employment agencies such as the New York Labor Exchange located at 10 Washington Street, which issued a receipt to Mr. T. F. GREEN on November 28, 1891, for two-dollar fee for hiring Annie O'BRIEN at the rate of eight dollars per month. Annie O'BRIEN paid the agency one dollar from her first month's wages. Others placed 'work wanted' ads like the ones that appeared in the "New York Herald Tribune" on September 24, 1908: (IRISH GIRL, 18, lately landed, as chambermaid or waitress in private family, no cards. MALONE, 70 Bedford St. YOUNG IRISH GIRL, as chambermaid or chambermaid and waitress in small private family, wages $18-20, ANDREWS, 250 E. 50th. A YOUNG GIRL, lately landed, in small apartment, willing to learn, SMITH, 1077 First Ave. corner of 59th). Finding employment could be complicated by anti-Irish or anti-Catholic prejudice. The idea that Catholic domestics had been dispatched to spy for the pope had to be promulgated in tracts such as "The Female Jesuit" or "The Spy in the Family.' Signs reading NO IRISH NEED APPLY or ONLY PROTESTANTS NEED APPLY reflected the suspicion that Irish girls would report family behavior to their priests or that they would secretly baptize the children of the household. Oral tradition collected from former Irish servants girls suggests that such fears were not unfounded. When the mistress of the house died in childbirth, Nora and Josie ENRIGHT rushed the infant off to church to be baptized; other devout servant girls concerned about the souls of their charges report baptizing unbaptized children also. Despite prejudice, Irish girls found a ready market for their services. According to the immigration historian Oscar HANDLIN, it was the Irish girls' reputation for loyalty and cheerfulness and their willingness to work for low wages that made them welcome in Boston households. HANDLIN estimated that there were more than two thousand Irish domestic servants in Boston by the 1850s. The girls who went to households where they were the only help were expected to be maids of all work. Bridget CURRAN, who came to America in 1911, worked from six in the morning till midnight cleaning, doing the laundry, stoking the furnace, and shoveling snow on winter mornings. She drew the line at walking her employers' three dachshunds. "I wouldn't have people laughing at me dragging them up the street." While Irish girls did not want people laughing at them, they could laugh at themselves. Householders may have called their servant girls 'simple,' but it was more innocence abroad than ignorance. Former servant girls recalled trying to boil melons and dealing with other unfamiliar fruits and vegetables. One woman recalled spending a Sunday making little woolen coats after her employer asked her to prepare potatoes baked in their jackets for a dinner party. Irish girls who found work in the smaller households were often treated as members of the family, albeit as children. They report they had a ten o'clock curfew or had to present their young men to their employers ... In large households, the mistress of the house often did not bother to learn the names of the Irish girls, adopting instead the generic name of Maggie or Bridget for any female Irish servant. Servant girls, like most domestic servants of any age, were addressed by their first names. Religion was often a test of independence for Irish servant girls. Women who worked as servants report that time off for mass, for some, was only reluctantly given or given at great hardship to the girls. Even Annie O'DONNELL, who always praised the Pittsburg W. L. MELLON family for their kindness and consideration, wrote in 1901 that she hoped she would be let of to go to mass on Christmas morning, but it was not certain." Excerpts, several-page article. (My comment - I recall hearing that single females at home were often encouraged (if not expected) to marry men - even those many years their senior - considered appropriate primarily because they owned more land. Some forward-thinking women would not accept this and hoped to improve their lot by emigrating.) Jean ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mary Elizabeth Wagner" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 11:44 AM Subject: [IRELAND] Immigrant Movement of Families > > > Could someone please tell me if it was unusual > for a daughter to be the first to leave Ireland? > > I'm trying to determine who came first, my > maternal grandfather, or his sister. I know when he > came, but I can't seem to trace his sister nor do I > know her age. I suspect she was older as my > grandfather is the only sibling listed in the Civil > Registration listings. Since he received his > citizenship papers in Baltimore and his sister, Mary, > lived in Philadelphia, I am now wondering why she > would have come to Philadelphia unless another > relative was already there. > > I have been unable to find much information on > this McKERNAN/McKIERNAN family from Co. Leitrim. > > Any ideas? > > Thanks. > > Mary Elizabeth > > > RESEARCHING: McKERNAN/McKIERNAN in Co. Antrim > and Co. Leitrim; McALLISTER in > Co. Antrim; MULDOWNEY in Co.Kilkenny; > and KEARNEY in Co. Louth