The "American Letter" -- In the 19th century Americans seemed to agree that they didn't really want the Irish, but also that they couldn't do without them. The role of Irish labor in propelling forward America's industrial revolution was enormous. Just prior to the U.S. Civil War, one newspaper commented: "America demands for her development an inexhaustible fund of physical energy, and Ireland supplies the most part of it. There are several sorts of power working at the fabric of this Republic -- water-power, steam-power, and Irish-power. The last works hardest of all." Despite their meager earnings, faithful Irish immigrants sent millions of dollars back to Ireland. It is estimated that remittances to Ireland averaged more than one million dollars per year in the 1840s and rose to ten million per year by the 1870s. The Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank in NY, founded in 1850 as an offshoot of the Irish Emigrant Society, opened with 2,300 accounts totaling $238.56. This one bank would send more the $30 million to Ireland between 1850 and 1880. In NY in 1855 Irish held skilled jobs such as bakers, blacksmiths, brewers and distillers, carpenters, dressmakers and seamstresses, ironworkers, machinists, masons and bricklayers, merchants, policemen, printers, retail shopkeepers, shoemakers, tailors and wine and liquor dealers. Unskilled labor included domestic servants, laundresses, laborers, and drivers, hackmen and coachmen. There were also a few doctors and lawyers holding professional jobs. All told, it is estimated that $234 million was sent by the Irish in America to their friends and families in Ireland between 1848 and 1900. Many families in Ireland depended for their survival on what they called "The American Letter." With so large a percentage of Irish immigrants occupying unskilled positions, few Irish held leadership positions in the early labor movement, but by the late 1840s and 1850s, there were clear signs that Irish workers were beginning to gain influence, in part because more and more Irish were acquiring skills and moving out of the ranks of common labor. In Philadelphia in 1856, for example, J. F. FINNEGAN (Lithographers Society), Frank MALLON (Hatters Union) and C. C. SCANLON (Journeymen House Carpenters Association) were officers in their respective unions. In New York in 1854 it was reported that Irishmen comprised nearly all the officers of the Tailor's Trade Association.