page_title: History of Irish Americans in Boston
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: History of Irish Americans in Boston / History / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: Photograph of Margaret Foley (right?) and an unidentified woman (left), both carrying pocketbooks and wearing fur-trimmed hats and fur stoles, standing outside and distributing copies of the November 29, 1913, issue of the Woman's Journal and Suffrage News. The woman on the left has a cloth satchel strapped across her body, labeled VOTES.
context_page_description: People of Irish descent form the largest single ethnic group in Boston, Massachusetts. Once a Puritan stronghold, Boston changed dramatically in the 19th century with the arrival of European immigrants. The Irish dominated the first wave of newcomers during this period, especially following the Great Irish Famine. Their arrival transformed Boston from an Anglo-Saxon, Protestant city into one that has become progressively more diverse. The Yankees hired Irish as workers and servants, but there was little social interaction. In the 1840s and 50s, the anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant Know Nothing movement targeted Irish Catholics in Boston. In the 1860s, many Irish immigrants fought for the Union in the American Civil War, and that display of patriotism helped to dispel much of the prejudice against them.
  With an expanding population, group loyalty, and block-by-block political organization, the Irish took political control of the city, leaving the Yankees in charge of finance, business, and higher education.
context_section_description: In the early 20th century, Boston's Irish Americans were successful in Democratic Party politics and the labor movement, yet were relatively slow to break into business and the professions. This was only partly due to discrimination against them, although that was certainly a factor. For cultural reasons, they gravitated to modest positions offering job security and pensions rather than high-risk business ventures. Many became schoolteachers, police officers, firefighters, nurses, librarians, custodians, and clerks. Historian Dennis P. Ryan calls them "occupationally nearsighted".
  Few Irish women in Boston were active in the suffrage movement, which was dominated by upper-class women. Margaret Foley of Dorchester was a rare exception. Known for confronting anti-suffrage candidates at political rallies, she was nicknamed the "Grand Heckler". Most working-class women were more interested in labor issues: Mary Kenney O'Sullivan helped found the Women's Trade Union League in 1903, and was a leader of the Lawrence textile strike in 1912; Julia O'Connor led a successful telephone operators' strike in 1919 that paralyzed telephone service across New England for six days. That same year, the Boston Police went on strike for better wages and working conditions. Most of the officers who subsequently lost their jobs were Irish Catholics, while most of those who condemned the strikers were "old-line Protestant Yankees". Many of the strikebreakers were students at Harvard University.
  During this period the Irish often clashed with Italians, despite the fact that the vast majority of both groups shared a common religion and political party. Thousands of Irish immigrants who had settled in Boston's North End in the 19th century, displacing the Yankee residents, were crowded out by Italians in the early 20th century. The two groups were in competition for jobs as well as housing, and there were cultural differences, including different styles of Catholic worship, that caused additional friction. For a time, in some Irish parishes, Italians were forced to attend Mass in the basement.
caption: Margaret Foley (right) and another suffragist distribute the Woman's Journal, 1913
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