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In 1845, a mold caused a plant disease that quickly spread throughout Ireland. This infection destroyed nearly one-half of Ireland's crops that year. And because the farmers and poorer people in Ireland relied heavily on potatoes, it had a catastrophic impact on the people. In total, the blight was responsible for the death of nearly one million people. The blight also caused millions to seek refuge in America as they had no food and were severely poor from the blight. From this, generations for years to come would start to immigrate to America. Meeting their ancestors that immigrated because of the famine in the past.
People immigrating during the gilded age were able to ride on new steamships. Compared to the old sailing ships, steamships provided a much faster and more efficient ride to America. Along with this, the time the voyage would take was more confined, as the old ship's travel times would vary on the wind and conditions. But the new steamships weren't affected by wind conditions. The new era of ships was also a lot nicer in terms of conditions for the passengers. As compared to the "coffin ships" before them. People on these ships had their own rooms, giving them privacy. The passengers were also less likely to contract diseases from other passengers during the ride.
At Ellis Island, the refugees were faced with long waits on the ship. Once off the ship, the immigrants had to go through hours of various health checks, questions, and hearings. This was to ensure that the refugee wasn't carrying any diseases along with doing legal checks. This was a stressful time as refugees that didn't pass a check would have to be sent back home to Ireland. Potentially leaving their family in America. This was one difficulty with immigrating during this time. As stated earlier, The process at Ellis would take hours and at any moment a person could be sent back.
Once living in America, Irish people faced harsh discrimination from Americans. This is because, in the employment market, companies would fire locals to employ immigrants. After all, companies could pay them less as they were not a part of any unions. Companies also used the willingness to work with immigrants to maintain low wages for the existing employees. Also, the Americans were descendants of anti-Irish immigration groups, which lead to violent outbreaks between the immigrants and Americans.
Ellis Island: Records, Passengers & Immigration - HISTORY - HISTORY
The journey to Ellis Island was made by thousands of Irish immigrants (irish-genealogy-toolkit.com)
Search Immigration, Passenger, and Naturalization Records, More! - MyHeritage
https://19thcenturyimmigrants.weebly.com/irish.html