The Forgotten Entrepreneurs: New York City’s Irish Immigrant Peddlers in the Nineteenth Century

KEYWORDS: Immigration history, Irish American history, entrepreneurship DOI: https://doi.org/10.4079/2578-9201.1(2022).08

KAIFENG DENG

ECONOMICS & HISTORY, CCAS ‘22, kfdeng28@gwu.edu

ABSTRACT

How should we view the Irish who emigrated to America in the nineteenth century, and what can they tell us about immigrant entrepreneurship? Historians have traditionally viewed the transplants from Ireland as beggarly and desperate, but recent scholarships challenge this claim by looking at these immigrants’ deposit records. Although new studies reveal the surprisingly large savings of Irish-born manual laborers, they largely overlook the experience of immigrant peddlers. This paper traces the business activities of New York City’s Irish hawkers by examining banking data, census records, and newspaper accounts from the 1840s to the 1870s. It finds that the peddlers from Ireland were savvy entrepreneurs who enjoyed financial success and upward mobility. They developed creative ways to build inventories and sell goods across the city and the US. Some of them also accumulated handsome sums in the bank and moved on to more rewarding and respectable careers. The forgotten saga of the hawkers affirms that America was a land of opportunities for many Irish, but it also highlights how the country’s immigration policy, as well as the possibilities for immigrants, has changed since the nineteenth century.

For Hugh Torpey, the year 1845 was full of misery and uncertainty. Famine, sickness, and death ravaged Mitchelstown, the small town in County Cork, Ireland he called home. After two years of hunger and hardship, he decided to emigrate to America, hoping to find relief and embrace new possibilities. A young man with no trade, Torpey became a peddler in New York City, hawking “port-monnaie” (small pocketbooks and wallets) and perfume for a living in the 1850s. By no means was it a glamorous job, but it was better than digging foundations and hauling bricks, which were common occupations for Irish immigrants. Keeping track of inventories and managing expenses might not have been easy for a street salesman, let alone becoming successful. Yet Torpey accomplished exactly that. In 1864, he held $2,216, the equivalent of $36,500 today, in his bank account (Account 10919).1 In fact, Irish immigrant peddlers, who only made up 1% of the Irish-born population in New York in the 1850s, generally did quite well. Male peddlers who emigrated during the Great Famine secured a median savings of $251. Though a modest sum compared to Torpey’s, it was twice as much as what Irish skilled artisans and clerks in New York saved. With a median savings of $100, female Irish peddlers also accumulated more wealth than their peers who engaged in needle trades and nursing.

How did some Irish immigrants become successful entrepreneurs after coming to America? The Irish immigrants of New York City, especially those who emigrated during the Great Famine, have traditionally been seen as beggarly and desperate. The pioneering study on Irish immigration by Oscar Handlin concludes that the famine-era immigrants were “unemployed, resourceless proletariat” (1991), while the influential work by Kerby Miller paints “a gloomy picture of Irish-American deprivation” (1985). Recent studies on the subject, though, have challenged these pessimistic narratives. Tyler Anbinder, along with Cormac Ó Gráda and Simone Wegge, has used the deposit records from

1 The account number for each bank user comes from the Depositor Database curated by Anbinder, O Gráda, and Wegge. The Depositor Database is available at http://beyondragstoriches.org/the-depositor-database.

the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank in New York City between 1850 and 1858 and the census data in the late 1800s to demonstrate that not all Irish were impoverished day laborers, and that a majority of them managed to accumulate sizable savings. These studies tend to focus on the top Irish-born savers, such as business owners and physicians, and on unskilled workers (laborers, porters, waiters, etc.), whose median savings actually exceeded those of tailors, carpenters, and other skilled tradesmen (Anbinder, O Gráda, & Wegge, 2019; Wegge, Anbinder, & O Gráda, 2017; Anbinder, 2012). Despite their relative success, Irish peddlers have received insufficient attention.

This neglect stands in contrast to Jewish and Greek street merchants, whose entrepreneurships are well documented. Historian Andrew Heinze has offered an in-depth analysis on the lives of New York City’s Jewish immigrant peddlers in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He points out that Jewish transplants “constituted a majority of the peddlers” in the city and “practically monopolized” the sale of merchandise other than food. These curbside businessmen dotted the streets of Manhattan and the Lower East Side with their pushcarts and hawked items that ranged from clothing and fabrics to crockery and glassware. The historian also argues that peddling served as an expression of Jewish commercial talent and a means of upward mobility. As hawkers, immigrant Jews tapped into New York’s substantial market and diverse consumer base and enriched themselves along the way (Heinze, 1989). Likewise, Lane Demas has written about the Greek street vendors in Chicago at the turn of the twentieth century. Before the transplants from Greece became business owners, he points out, they often worked as peddlers for several years to sharpen their business skills and accumulate seed money. The most prominent group of Greek peddlers in Chicago were the hucksters, who sold fruits and other produce from their carts in Chicago’s ethnic enclaves. They were known for their ability to move from selling from a wagon to selling from a shop (Demas, 2004). Just like Jewish and Greek immigrant peddlers, the Irish street merchants deserve scholarly attention. This paper thus focuses on the forgotten Irish immigrant peddlers in New York City from the 1840s to the 1870s. It argues that the peddlers were surprisingly entrepreneurial and successful by examining their bank records and other contemporary accounts. Furthermore, it contextualizes the group’s accomplishments in the broader context of changing immigration policy and growing inequality between immigrants in the late nineteenth century.

Peddling was a popular occupation for New York City’s immigrants in the 1800s, though it was an uncommon pursuit among Irish transplants. According to historian Robert Ernst’s estimate, 98% of the city’s peddlers in 1855 were born outside of the United States. Those who emigrated from Germany, many of whom were likely Jewish, accounted for almost half of the immigrant peddlers in the city. The second largest contingent was Irish immigrants, who made up 39% of the foreign-born hawkers. Although Irish street vendors had a reasonably large presence in the peddling profession, they only represented a small portion of the overall immigrant population from Ireland. The Irish-born were more ubiquitous in manual occupations, with more than 25,000 of them working as servants and laborers in the city. There were also about 7,000 Irish in the needle trades, which was 10 times higher than the number of Irish street sellers in 1855 (Ernst, 1994).

Perhaps because of the group’s diminutive size, the specifics about individual Irish-born peddlers in nineteenth-century New York City are difficult to come by. While newspapers and periodicals in the 1800s occasionally released stories on Irish hawkers and their businesses, these publications provided little information on the peddlers’ personal lives. Contemporaneous census reports conducted by New York State is a treasure trove, but tracing all Irish salesmen is a challenging task. However, the dataset curated by historian Tyler Anbinder and his team of research assistants is particularly valuable. It draws upon the “test books” of the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank (EISB) between 1850 and 1858 and includes a wealth of information on individual users. Established by the Irish Emigrant Society in 1850, the EISB offered banking services to Irish immigrants in New York City. When people opened accounts at the bank, the clerk would record in the test books the depositors’ names, addresses, occupations, exact places of birth, the names and whereabouts of their parents, spouses, siblings, and children, and the dates and ports of their arrival in America and the names of the ships that carried them. The test books were then used to verify the identities of the customers who wished to withdraw money from the bank. In addition to granular biographical information, Anbinder’s dataset contains the year when an account was opened and closed, the highest balance that it achieved, and the number of transactions during its existence. It also consists of the corresponding census information across multiple years for many Irish-born depositors at the bank. Of the more than 15,000 EISB users in the dataset, 290 were peddlers who emigrated from Ireland. Albeit not a large sample, it can still offer unprecedented insights into the Irish-born hawkers in the 1800s.

The dataset includes rich details on the Irish peddlers’ personal lives. Those street vendors who opened accounts at the EISB were in the prime of their working years, with an average age of 38 years old. For example, Matthew Cuoniham was 34 when he made his first deposits in 1849 by selling fruits in the street. After a decade of hard work, he managed to save a handsome sum of $526, or about $18,000 today (Account 15081). Similarly, Daniel Kane, a peddler from County Tyrone, was in his late

FIGURE 1.

A page from the EISB test book from 1851. Test books contain valuable biographical information about Irish immigrant savers.

30s when he opened his account at the EISB in 1851 and accumulated more than $600 within 5 years (Account 487). While the peddlers were predominantly men, a number of female peddlers were also customers of the bank. Teresa Mooney, a County Cork native, peddled glass for a living and maintained a modest balance of $150 in her account (Account 2921). Susan McShane, another immigrant peddler from County Armagh, dealt poultry in the city and made regular deposits and withdrawals at the bank (Account 5575). The majority of the peddlers were married, but many were single or widowed. The married peddlers usually had two or three children. However, Mary and Daniel Connolly were an exception, as they had to look after seven children when they were not toiling in the street(Account 4037).

The dataset also sheds light on patterns of emigration and residence. Although the peddlers at the EISB hailed from 30 of the 32 counties in Ireland, close to half of them were natives of Cork, Kerry, Donegal, and Limerick. This is perhaps unsurprising, since these four counties were not only among the most populous in Ireland, but also saw a large volume of emigration between 1851 and 1854. County Cork sent approximately 45,000 residents to New York, the highest among all Irish counties during this period. Ellen Battersby, a 15-year-old Cork native, sailed across the Atlantic on board Mary Brigg in 1851. Three years later, she made her first deposit as a fruiterer at the EISB (Account 7755). County Limerick experienced the third largest exodus to New York, with about 27,000 Limerick natives arriving in the city’s port in the early 1850s. Among them was Cornelius Darcy, who emigrated in 1852 and enjoyed a decent career as a peddler. In 1854, he had more than $200 in his account, an above average savings among Irish-born peddlers during this period (Account 5142). A substantial number of immigrants also originated in Counties Kerry and Donegal, both of which had more than 10,000 residents crossing the Atlantic (Anbinder & McCaffrey, 2015). However, many peddlers did come from smaller Irish counties. Daniel McManus emigrated from County Longford (the third least populous county in Ireland) in 1840 and hawked crockery for a living (Account 6294). Patrick Wall, a peddler residing in the eleventh ward, was born and raised in County Carlow, which sent the smallest number of emigrants to New York in the early 1850s (Account 8053).

After disembarking in New York, immigrant hawkers scattered across 22 wards throughout the city. A majority of them resided in fourth, sixth, and fourteenth wards. John Murphy lived on Oak Street in the fourth ward and was a toy peddler. Living in a few houses down on the same street was Honora Hickey, who operated a fruit stand on the sidewalk (Accounts 10032 & 4912). Catherine O’Brien was also a fruit seller, though her address was 5 Mission Place in the Five Points neighborhood (Account 12528). Peddlers such as James Bresland and Edward McMenomy settled on Mulberry Street, which also passed through Five Points and extended north into the fourteenth ward. The fifth and seventh wards were popular destinations for the Irish peddlers as well. Reade Street in the fifth ward was home to Winifred Smith and Michael Keegan, both of whom sold produce in the city (Accounts 12649 & 15050). Dennis Callanan peddled stationary and was a resident of the seventh ward (Account 6937). Where the peddlers chose to reside reflected a broader pattern for Irish account holders at the EISB, close to 60% of whom settled in the aforementioned wards. The concentration of residence likely reflects the fact that customers chose the EISB because of its proximity. Located in the sixth ward, the bank was within walking distance for those living in the first, fourth, fifth, seventh, and fourteenth wards. Moreover, the wards with high proportions of peddlers and EISB depositors tended to be heavily Irish. Parts of the fourth, sixth, and fourteenth wards made up Five Points, which was a major Irish enclave in the mid1800s. About 46% of the first ward residents were born in Ireland, the highest among the 24 wards in Manhattan. The seventh ward also had a significant percentage of Irish-born population. In fact, many successful Irish immigrants moved there when they could afford to leave the fourth ward (Bayor & Meagher, 1996).

What exactly did the Irish street merchants sell in New York City? The newspapers from the 1800s suggest that the hawkers dealt food, clothes, linens, and other

FIGURE 2.

The number of Irish-born peddlers and the number of Irish immigrants from each county in New York City between 1846 and 1854.

consumer goods. One reporter from New-York Daily Tribune encountered a group of “Celtic priestess” set up “huckster-stands” outside of Castle Garden and sold lemonade made of molasses, vinegar, water, and lemon rinds. These vendors stored the beverage in wooden and tin pails and sold it for a low price to the tired and thirsty immigrants who had just landed in New York (“An hour in Castle Garden,” 1867). The Irish-born street merchants also peddled vegetables in New York City. Some simply picked up the spoils that farmers left behind in the market and in turn sold them to poor residents who might not be able to afford the freshest harvest. One writer estimated that these Irish hucksters could make about four dollars a week by selling wilted vegetables and stale eggs (“Labor in New York,” 1845).

In addition to food, some Irish peddlers sold clothing and fabric in the street. They acquired their supplies in a few ways. First, Irish peddlers could barter for used clothes and resell them after some cleaning and repairs. They traveled throughout New York with “a basket of cheap gilt chinaware,” which they exchanged for “castoff and non-fitting clothing as the honest housewives may have to spare.” After the bargaining came to an end during the day, the peddlers prepared the old garments for future sale by washing and mending them. One reporter commented that one could hardly recognize the coats and pantaloons that the peddlers were selling were second-hand items (“Life in the ‘Rag Lane’,” 1870). Furthermore, Irish peddlers could obtain “silks, laces, muslins, linens, &c.” from import merchants in the city (“Merchants look out,” 1852). These merchants often hired peddlers to hawk the fabric throughout the country, and Irish textile peddlers were spotted in train cars in Pennsylvania and small towns in North Carolina (“Merchants look out,” 1852; “Hanover affairs,” 1858).

Irish peddlers also furnished customers in New York and across the United States with an array of consumer goods. These street vendors could source merchandise from the city’s auctioneers and merchants, who regularly placed advertisements in newspapers. R. H. Timpson, an auctioneer at the Merchant’s Exchange in New York, posted in The Evening Post that he was selling a supply of pocket knives, scissors, and razors. He specifically mentioned that these items were “suitable for pedlar” (“Hardware auction and cutlery sale,” 1843). Also listed in The Evening Post was import dealer Charles H. Darling’s inventory of “fancy goods,” including hair brushes, German silver spoons, harmonicas, leather purses, and more. Located at the intersection of Maiden Lane and Liberty Street, the merchant was accepting cash offers from peddlers and willing to negotiate with them to reach mutually favorable deals (“Fancy goods,” 1843).

Auction houses and importers were not the sole locations where peddlers could source goods. A soap manufacturer on Trinity Place marketed its products in the New York Daily Herald. It informed the city’s peddlers that they could acquire “pale yellow soap” at “extremely low prices” (“Country storekeepers,” 1844). Similarly, a drug store on Chamber Street was willing to supply hawkers with various kinds of “prepared medicine,” and a bookseller on Nassau Street promised to sell cheap new publications to peddlers (“Wanted,” 1847; “Publications,” 1851).

The ample provision of merchandise throughout New York was likely to have kept the Irish peddlers well stocked and on the road. They routinely visited homes and offices in the city to sell “all sorts of things, from a patent yeastpowder to a camel’s hair shawl” (“Peddlers,” 1874). Some residents, though, viewed the “impudent importunity” of the street vendors as “an intolerable nuisance” (“Peddlers,” 1851). A number of Irish peddlers also conducted business in the southern United States. One newspaper in North Carolina observed that an “Irish pedlar” was filling the state with “articles of yankee production” and undercutting local merchants (“An evil,” 1857). Another writer from South Carolina estimated that the peddlers typically sold $50,000 worth of manufactured goods each year in the town of Chester alone and sometimes enjoyed a profit rate of up to 100% (“Pedlars and vagrants,” 1856). Other critics of Irish peddlers charged that the vendors from the North failed to pay local taxes or obtain appropriate licenses. They called on the state government to fine violators and discouraged Southerners from patronizing the peddlers (“Swindlers,” 1861; “Irish and Dutch peddlers,” 1864).

In addition to showing the items that the Irish peddlers sold, newspaper stories reflect the group’s entrepreneurship. The hawkers relied on a variety of practices to essentially maximize profits. For instance, some engaged in forestalling and assumed the role of a middle man. The peddlers would buy up all the produce from farmers outside the city and sell it back to urban dwellers at a higher price. Observers at the time were frustrated that Irish hucksters drove up food prices and hurt both honest growers and thrifty buyers (“Our markets,” 1848). They further warned that this business strategy had “ruin[ed] Ireland” and was “daily plundering, robbing and cheating” New York (“Price of food,” 1848). Stealing clothes was also not uncommon, and some crafty peddlers would alter the lining or size of the pilfered garments before putting them up for sale (“Life in the ‘Rag Lane’,” 1870). In doing so, not only could the dealers avoid getting caught, but they could also minimize the cost of procuring supplies. Misleading buyers was another tactic. One Irish hawker sold old garments along West Street in New York City by the Hudson River, where he targeted domestic travelers who disembarked “one of the Albany boats.” This peddler would stop potential customers and bemoan his hardships as a newly arrived transplant. He tried to persuade them to purchase a suit from him by exciting their sympathy. One compassionate buyer fell for the peddler’s ruse and paid eight dollars for a bundle of clothes with a “glossy appearance,” but he did not realize that the garments were filled with “darns and patches.” By the time the customer returned to where the transaction occurred, the Irish peddler was “some two or three blocks” away and “looking out for another customer” (“Scene around the dock,” 1848). While these strategies might not be scrupulous, they still illustrate the Irish peddlers’ business skills. After all, the street salesmen came up with “creative” ways to distribute their wares and make money.

The deposit data from the EISB further affirm the street vendors’ entrepreneurial talent. Indeed, many Irish engaged in peddling were quite successful financially. In their study of Irish who left for New York during the Great Famine, Anbinder and his collaborators found that male immigrant peddlers often saved a lot more than their peers in both skilled and unskilled occupations. The average highest savings that Irish peddlers managed to achieve was almost double that of tailors and carpenters. The street sellers also accumulated more money in their accounts than office clerks and other lower-status whitecollar workers. In fact, only physicians and business owners had a higher mean balance than the peddlers. The figures for median savings tell a similar story. At $251, the median high balance for peddlers was significantly more than that for skilled and unskilled laborers. The savings that the famine-era immigrant peddlers achieved was remarkable, considering the circumstances that led to their emigration to America.

These savings did not occur overnight, however. The highest amount that Cornelius O’Loughlan had in the bank was $319.69, and it took him eight years to get to that point. A peddler originally from County Clare, O’Loughlan opened an account at the EISB with $160 in 1853. By making multiple deposits every year, he almost doubled the initial sum in 1861. While most of O’Loughlan’s transactions involved no more than $10, his consistency allowed him to build a solid saving in under a decade (Account 2981). Similarly, the highest balance that William Dugan attained was a respectable $246.30. A native of County Armagh, he took up peddling after arriving in New York in 1848. Dugan had been a regular saver at the EISB since opening his account in 1856 and amassed more than $200 in 1859 after dozens of transactions (Account 11934). James Churchill was another peddler who did relatively well. Although his first deposit in 1852 was $90, he more than tripled that amount through frequent savings and interest by the end of the 1850s (Account 1828). The bank accounts of O’Loughlan, Dugan, Churchill, and others reflect that the peddlers had good business acumen. This acumen paid off, as it helped a number of Irish make a decent living by hawking items in the city.

Female Irish peddlers who emigrated to New York had substantial savings in their accounts as well. Women in

Occupational Category Median High Balance Average High Balance Most Common Jobs in Category

Professionals $630 $1273 Physician

Business Owners $389 $649 Saloonkeeper, grocer

Lower-status whitecollar workers $207 $351 Clerk

Petty entrepreneurs $251 $543 Peddler

Skilled tradesmen

Unskilled workers $139

$163 $287 Tailor, carpenter, shoemaker

$294 Day laborer, waiter, porter

TABLE 1.

Highest Bank Balances Achieved by Male Irish Famine Immigrants in New York City, by Occupational Category at the Time First Bank Account was Opened

Occupational Category Median High Balance Average High Balance Most Common Jobs in Category

Business owners

Nurses $230

$99 $422 Boardinghouse keeper, grocer $170 Hospital nurse, private nurse

Petty entrepreneurs $100 $239 Fruit peddler

Servants $96 $194 Domestic, cook

Laundresses

Needle trades $116

$94 $177

$218 Washer, ironer

Seamstress, dressmaker

TABLE 2.

Highest Bank Balances Achieved by Female Irish Famine Immigrants in New York City, by Occupational Category at the Time First Bank Account was Opened

FIGURE 4.

EISB account ledger of James Churchill. FIGURE 5.

One of the six account ledgers of Alice Ringrose at the EISB.

the peddling profession on average had a high balance of $239. Even though this amount was lower than that of male peddlers, it was still higher than what female nurses, servants, laundresses, and seamstresses had attained. The median high savings for female peddlers was $100, which was again lower than that of their male counterpart but still higher than women in most other occupations. Laundresses and business owners were the two groups who achieved higher median balances. Like male peddlers, many female peddlers were routine users at the EISB. Emigrating from County Cork in 1849, Catherine Connell became a fruit hawker in New York City. She was a customer with the EISB for eight years, during which she made dozens of deposits and withdrawals and reached a peak balance of $130 (Account 16377). Likewise, Bridget Newell was a peddler who left Ireland during the Potato Famine. By selling silk and jewelry in the city, she amassed more than $110 in two years (Account 10454). Alice Ringrose was another famine-era immigrant who hawked fruits in New York during the 1850s and 1860s. What set her apart from other peddlers was the fact that she opened six accounts at the EISB. Her most active and successful one had $130 in savings, which was achieved through incremental deposits and interest payments between 1858 and 1861 (Account 17836). The bank records suggest that the female Irish peddlers were accomplished merchants. Through vending various items in city streets, they did better financially, at least in terms of savings, than other Irish-born women.

A small group of Irish peddlers accumulated amounts that rivaled the savings of physicians and saloon keepers. The largest savings that Murty Kelleher had at one point was $2,512.06, about double that of the average high balance of immigrant professionals. He was a highly consistent saver, with 115 transactions in total across his four accounts. Most of Kelleher’s transactions ranged between $5 and $10, and the peddler always made deposits in June, July, and August (Accounts 4947, 8525, 21920, & 21921). Similarly, William Doherty’s peak balance was more than $2,700. Starting out with merely $18 in his first account in 1851, he made multiple deposits each month for seven years. Doherty became a relatively wealthy man by 1858, with thousands of dollars in savings across two accounts (Accounts 3049 & 9200). Some female peddlers were also quite well-off. Mary Dawson worked as a huckster in New York for almost two decades. An active customer at the EISB, Dawson logged 119 transactions in her account and accumulated $1,300 by 1860 (Account 6183). Catherine Murphy had a rewarding career as a fruit peddler as well. After emigrating from County Cork, she opened an account at the bank with $65 in 1851. A decade of hard work and regular deposits raised this figure to $1,024 (Accounts 554, 6620, & 11982). The substantial sums and frequent deposits in these peddlers bank accounts once more indicates that some Irish were highly competent entrepreneurs, who were able to turn selling in the street into a lucrative business.

Another marker of the Irish street merchants’ entrepreneurship was their occupational mobility, as

peddling served as the launching point for many to pursue better careers. Indeed, about 33% of the peddlers with accounts at the EISB moved on to other jobs in five years. More than 45% spent less than 10 years as a hawker. Some decided to join the white-collar ranks when they stopped selling in the street. Richard Swanton became a life insurance agent after peddling for five years (Account 8732). Likewise, Joseph Haggerty found employment as a clerk at the custom house in his post-peddling days in the 1850s and 1860s (Accounts 2201 & 11257). In addition to office jobs, several ex-peddlers turned into skilled tradesmen. Patrick Cuff emigrated to America in 1849 and made a living as a peddler. He ended up becoming a machinist ten years later (Account 10805). A select few did start their own businesses. Records from the census and EISB test books show that Peter Devlin began selling charcoal when he settled in New York City’s seventh ward in 1852. He remained as a charcoal peddler for more than two decades before opening a saloon in 1880. Even though the account ledgers for when Devlin was running his saloon could not be found, such documents were available for when he was hawking charcoal. The banking data suggests that Devlin was earning a steady stream of income through peddling. Between 1854 and 1857, he made a dozen deposits that totaled $340. He also had $550 in his second account at the EISB in 1858. Devlin’s savings probably helped his bid to start a saloon (Accounts 8341 & 17377). While it is difficult to gauge conclusively if former peddlers made more money or gained greater satisfaction at work when they engaged in other occupations, peddling does not seem to have been a long-term career. Perhaps once the street merchants accumulated enough money in the bank and felt confident with their skills, they transitioned to jobs that were more respectable and stable. This mobility also suggests that many peddlers leveraged their experience to pursue better occupations. Yet peddling did not guarantee success for every Irish immigrant. Some had a downward career trajectory, since they switched to unskilled labor jobs after hawking goods for a few years. Maurice Ward quitted peddling after two years. He might have found that he was not a good salesman, or that obtaining inventories was challenging. Regardless of the reasons that prompted him to stop, he could only find menial jobs. In the 1860s and 1870s, he worked as a porter, hauling cargos and deliveries in New York (Account 5046). Michael Griffin did not have good luck with selling goods either. He became a porter and then a laborer when his one-year stint as a peddler did not work out (Account 9176). Research has demonstrated that Irish menial laborers amassed impressive savings in their bank accounts, so it might not have been financially ruinous for former peddlers to enter the unskilled sector (Anbinder, 2012). Griffin, for example, had about $180 in his account, enough to keep his family of three fed during a short period of tough time. Nevertheless, some former peddlers did not manage to start their own businesses or move up into more respectable professions.

The heretofore untold story of the street vendors from Ireland reveals a great deal about Irish immigration to the United States during the nineteenth century. First, the peddlers’ accomplishments supply further evidence that many Irish who fled the Great Famine were surprisingly successful. As Anbinder argues, savings are an accurate indication of achievement for transplants, most of whom cared deeply about financial security. Having enough cash to pay bills and weather life’s emergencies was a more pressing concern than the lofty leap from rags to riches. Maintaining a nest egg was also crucial to those who wanted to start a business, move into a better neighborhood, or provide better opportunities to their children (Anbinder, 2012). If one uses savings as the yardstick for success, the Irish-born street merchants who held accounts at the EISB did quite well. They were far from being wealthy, but they were no “unemployed, resourceless proletariat” either. Moreover, what the peddlers attained did not result purely from serendipity. They worked exceptionally hard to build inventories, traveled throughout New York City and the country to dispense their wares, and came up with creative and sometimes unscrupulous strategies to make money. In addition to worrying about their finances, the Irish peddlers had to overcome significant social obstacles to establish themselves in New York City. Historian Hasia Diner points out that the immigrants from Ireland found themselves in “a metropolis full of hostile ‘neighbors’” (Diner, 1996). Anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiments were prevalent when famine refugees arrived in the late 1840s. Politicians in the city and state of New York warned that the transplants from Ireland threatened American liberty and called to exclude them from public service employment. In the 1850s, the militant Order of the Star Spangled Banner would pick fights with the city’s Irish residents, while the Know Nothings’ nativist agenda was gaining popularity and propelled candidates associated with the party to electoral victories. Despite the enmity, many Irish peddlers still managed to run profitable businesses. In the end, the United States turned out to be the land of opportunities for the Irish-born hawkers. They might have found that their dedication and skills were far better rewarded in America than they would have been in Ireland. The vendors’ merchandising techniques, substantial savings, and long-term mobility demonstrate that they were excellent entrepreneurs and salesmen. They have been largely overlooked by scholars of Irish immigration, but they should not be.

Why is the history of some obscure peddlers relevant or important at all? What value does it have in this day and age? The utility of history extends beyond simply cataloging what transpired. Historical accounts highlight the complexities–unexpected twists, uneasy decisions, unmet expectations–that may be missing in popular discourse. Published in 1883, Emma Lazarus’ “The New

Colossus” exalts America as a symbol of hope for the poor and the downtrodden. Its sestet personifies the Statue of Liberty as the “mother of exiles” who welcomed the “huddled masses” with open arms. John F. Kennedy later quoted this sonnet in his 1958 book A Nation of Immigrants, which proclaims that all Americans are immigrants and offers inspiring ideas to liberalize immigration. However, the reality was and is harsher than these sweeping romanticization. The Irish who made the trans-Atlantic voyage endured tremendous hardships in New York, and they had to and did find ways to get by through astonishing ingenuity and an enterprising spirit. The nitty-gritty details of the Irish street merchants’ business endeavors will add to the narrative about both the promises and challenges of immigrant America. Another layer of complexity that the peddlers’ experience brings up is the ever-changing possibilities for transplants. Beginning with Chinese immigrants in the late 1800s, federal legislations barred individuals from legal entry and citizenship on the basis of racial identities and national origins. Immigrants today have to navigate the bureaucratic labyrinth of passports, “green cards,” and other enforcement mechanisms. As people celebrate the overlooked entrepreneurship of the Irish-born peddlers, they should also think more deeply about how the opportunities for immigrants have changed over time. If the United States is truly a “nation of immigrants,” the changes should always expand opportunities for people to come and remake themselves. The Irish peddlers seized the chance to lead better lives in the nineteenth century. Many are trying to do the same.

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About the Author

Kaifeng Deng is a senior who majors in economics and history at the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. He enjoys using data to tell a story, and his research interests center around immigration policy and immigrant experience in America. He is currently working on his economics thesis, which studies the effect of COVID-19 school closures on English learners’ academic performance in the US. Marshall is a member of the University Honors Program.

Tyler Anbinder is professor emeritus of history at The George Washington University. A specialist in nineteenth-century American politics and the history of immigration and ethnicity, he is the author of three award-winning books: Nativism and Slavery, Five Points, and City of Dreams. His latest book, This Plentiful Country, is forthcoming in 2023. Dr. Anbinder received his PhD in History from Columbia University.