Essay On The Boston Irish Mob
Socioeconomic explanation of the Boston Irish Mob Among a number of Boston films, the figure of Boston Irish mobs appears so frequently that it almost become a symbol of the city. The impression gets even stronger due to the sorties of the infamous “Whitey” Bulger and the related corruption of the Boston law-enforcement. What makes Boston Irish so connected to organized crimes? As described in many movies and literatures, how does loyalty become a key element of Boston Irish culture? The low socioeconomic status throughout the history of Boston Irish immigrants explains the formation of the Boston Irish mobs. Irish immigrants started to move into Boston as a result of the Potato Famine and their number rapidly grew from “3936 in 1840” to
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“…as Oscar Handlin observed, “In a society that favored whites over blacks, the Boston Irish found themselves found themselves in a community that preferred Negroes to Catholic Immigrants.”showing that Catholics fell below all others on the Boston social ladder”(P25, View). In a community that has been under Protestants dominance almost since the establishment, these poor immigrants found themselves very much unwelcome. During their early times in Boston, most of these pre-farmers that fled from famine were “funneled into, unskilled day labor as a mere means of scraping by” , which “did not provide enough to even maintain a family of four”(P18, View). In order to survive, Irish women and children also had to work and “mainly taking jobs as servant in Boston’s middle-class homes”(P18, View). Such miserable situation did not really get better in the later years of the nineteenth century, that the Irish were still at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. In comparison to “the British middle class which rose from 26 percent to 53 percent and the number of manual workers fell from 31 percent to 23 percent” and “the East European middle class (principally Jewish) grew from 25 percent to 50 percent while the number of manual workers decreased from 25 percent to 23 precent,” the Irish middle class expended “from 10 percent to 38 percent” and “ the number
“…as Oscar Handlin observed, “In a society that favored whites over blacks, the Boston Irish found themselves found themselves in a community that preferred Negroes to Catholic Immigrants.”showing that Catholics fell below all others on the Boston social ladder”(P25, View). In a community that has been under Protestants dominance almost since the establishment, these poor immigrants found themselves very much unwelcome. During their early times in Boston, most of these pre-farmers that fled from famine were “funneled into, unskilled day labor as a mere means of scraping by” , which “did not provide enough to even maintain a family of four”(P18, View). In order to survive, Irish women and children also had to work and “mainly taking jobs as servant in Boston’s middle-class homes”(P18, View). Such miserable situation did not really get better in the later years of the nineteenth century, that the Irish were still at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. In comparison to “the British middle class which rose from 26 percent to 53 percent and the number of manual workers fell from 31 percent to 23 percent” and “the East European middle class (principally Jewish) grew from 25 percent to 50 percent while the number of manual workers decreased from 25 percent to 23 precent,” the Irish middle class expended “from 10 percent to 38 percent” and “ the number