In the 19th-century United States, racism was rampant. Chinese immigrants were openly mocked, often in unfavorable newspaper caricatures. Germans were stereotyped as loitering in beer halls. African-Americans were portrayed in demeaning advertisements. And Irish people — who were not considered "white" by the existing majority at the time — were mistreated, too.
More than 1.5 million people left Ireland for the United States between 1845 and 1855, the survivors of a potato famine that had wiped out more than 1 million people in their homeland. They arrived poor, hungry and sick, and then crowded into cramped tenements in Boston, New York and other Northeastern cities to start anew under difficult conditions.
The struggles of Irish immigrants were compounded by the poor treatment they received from the white, primarily Anglo-Saxon and Protestant establishment. America's existing unskilled workers worried they would be replaced by immigrants willing to work for less than the going rate. And business owners worried that Irish immigrants and African-Americans would band together to demand increased wages.
In the 19th-century United States, racism was rampant. Chinese immigrants were openly mocked, often in unfavorable newspaper caricatures. Germans were stereotyped as loitering in beer halls. African-Americans were portrayed in demeaning advertisements. And Irish people — who were not considered "white" by the existing majority at the time — were mistreated, too.
More than 1.5 million people left Ireland for the United States between 1845 and 1855, the survivors of a potato famine that had wiped out more than 1 million people in their homeland. They arrived poor, hungry and sick, and then crowded into cramped tenements in Boston, New York and other Northeastern cities to start anew under difficult conditions.
The struggles of Irish immigrants were compounded by the poor treatment they received from the white, primarily Anglo-Saxon and Protestant establishment. America's existing unskilled workers worried they would be replaced by immigrants willing to work for less than the going rate. And business owners worried that Irish immigrants and African-Americans would band together to demand increased wages.
When Texas wanted to join the Union right after becoming independent in 1836, one of the reasons why the annexation was blocked was because Texas would have been a slave state. ... The people in Texas wanted slavery to continue, which would assist with the growing of cotton.
