Happy March! Happy Spring! As we speak, I'm in the middle of writing my upcoming release, Olivia's Odyssey (July 2024). This is my first mail-order bride book, and admittedly, it's been a bit of a challenge to plot. Since I've never written one before, so the research on who, why, where, and when these women chose to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to marry a man sight unseen was a bit daunting.
When I finally decided on the heroine's 4w's (who, why, where, when) Olivia Glennon, an Irish American shoe factory worker from South Boston, Massachusetts emerged. With the loss of her mother, she was raised by her father, spending most of her formative years sleeping in saloons while her father lost money playing cards. The plot is still in the formative stages, so I'll stop there!
The Irish, like many, many ethnicities, had a tremendous impact on American history and culture. It is estimated that 36.9 million Americans claim Irish roots. The Irish are the second-largest heritage group after the Germans. However, the Irish were unique among all immigrant groups...
...they sent more daughters than sons to America!
Between 1820 and 1860, the Irish constituted over one-third of all immigrants to the U.S., and by the 1840s--at the height of the Potato Famine--they comprised nearly half. Even after the crisis, Irish women continued to migrate in increasing numbers. By the end of the 19th century, single women accounted for 53% of Irish immigrants.
These girls and women moved to America for the same reason as men: opportunity and freedom. They left behind hard scrabble farms where they worked as long and as hard as men to bring in a crop while maintaining homes and taking care of children. Poor as church mice, the women--many of them widows or orphans--had few employment opportunities and diminished marriage prospects as the Famine had driven many men to leave the Emerald Isle...so they, too, left for America. Determined not to work in the fields, they settled in cities where many took jobs as servants, domestic workers, or seamstresses.
More than 60% worked as maids, cooks, nannies, or housekeepers. Living with wealthy or middle-class American families came with advantages. They exposed the Irish women to American culture speeding up their assimilation to their environment. However, the greatest advantage was financial. Not only were the wages higher than those for factory workers, but as live-in help domestics, they had no housing expenses, enabling them to save money.
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