Slums to Suburbs: The History of Irish New York (Part IV)

By the turn of the 20th century, the New York Irish still formed a clear underclass, but they started to have a few things going for them: their power in Tammany Hall, their dominance of the skilled building trades, and their social advantage over the Italian, Jewish, and especially African-American migrants who had began pouring into the city. In the final episode of this four-part series, I talk about how they used these advantages to climb out of poverty and escape the slums. I'll also talk about the underappreciated later waves of Irish immigration and the cultural life of working-class Irish New York during its mid-20th-century heyday.