Powell
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Joined: 27 Nov 2004
{Posts: 2462 }
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 Posted: Thu 24 Mar 2005 15:28 Post subject: False historical memories |
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I would also place the "paper bag test" in this category. All the "history" I've read about it involves rumor and gossip. No one says "I was a member of the club ____________ during the years _____in the city of ________ at the address of ________. Our criteria for membership included measuring the skin color of prospective members against a paper bag." Why are they unable to find any members of these alleged clubs? What's so special about a paper bag, anyway. "Mulatto" clubs probably acted a lot like Latin Americans - money whitens a darker skin and a very light skin makes up for not having much money.
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http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/no-irish.htm
| Quote: | "No Irish Need Apply":
A Myth of Victimization
Richard Jensen
Professor of History Emeritus, University of Illinois, Chicago
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write the author at RJensen@uic.edu
slightly revised version 12-22-2004
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Abstract
Irish Catholics in America have a vibrant memory of humiliating job discrimination, which featured omnipresent signs proclaiming "Help Wanted--No Irish Need Apply!" No one has ever seen one of these NINA signs because they were extremely rare or nonexistent. The market for female household workers occasionally specified religion or nationality. Newspaper ads for women sometimes did include NINA, but Irish women nevertheless dominated the market for domestics because they provided a reliable supply of an essential service. Newspaper ads for men with NINA were exceedingly rare. The slogan was commonplace in upper class London by 1820; in 1862 in London there was a song, "No Irish Need Apply," purportedly by a maid looking for work. The song reached America and was modified to depict a man recently arrived in America who sees a NINA ad and confronts and beats up the culprit. The song was an immediate hit, and is the source of the myth. Evidence from the job market shows no significant discrimination against the Irish--on the contrary, employers eagerly sought them out. Some Americans feared the Irish because of their religion, their use of violence, and their threat to democratic elections. By the Civil War these fears had subsided and there were no efforts to exclude Irish immigrants. The Irish worked in gangs in job sites they could control by force. The NINA slogan told them they had to stick together against the Protestant Enemy, in terms of jobs and politics. The NINA myth justified physical assaults, and persisted because it aided ethnic solidarity. After 1940 the solidarity faded away, yet NINA remained as a powerful memory. |
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