The Irish Rise to Power in the US

Paper Summary:

The paper describes how the Irish came to the United States as poor and starving immigrants. The paper shows how within decades, they had translated their mutual poverty into serious political power, particularly in the Five Points neighborhood of New York City. The paper relates that although the Five Points no longer exists, the Irish have established themselves in America as being some of the major leaders in economic prowess and political influence.

From the Paper:

"Although the buildings themselves have long been cleared, the New York City neighborhood of Five Points could be considered to be the most infamous neighborhood in the history of America. One of the first American slums and situated in the heart of New York City, the Five Points population consisted of an impressive Irish contingent whose presence would come to constitute one of the first major driving political and cultural forces in this massive but still fledgling city. As it turned out, the Irish population constructed a new home for themselves in Five Points, through an intricate interplay of common poverty, cultural cohesion, and scrappy street smarts."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Arbinder, Tyler. Five Points: The 19th-Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum. New York, 2001.
• Boyce, D. George and Alan O'Day, ed. The Making of Modern Irish History: Revisionism and the Revisionist Controversy. New York, 1996.
• Five points: New York's Irish working class in the 1850s. Prod. Stephen Brier. American Social History Productions, 1987.
• Walton, Stuart. Out of It: A Cultural History of Intoxication. London, 2001.
• Ward, David. Poverty, Ethnicity, and the American City, 1840-1925: Changing Conceptions of the Slum and the Ghetto. New York, 1989.

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