The Myth of the Irish -- Just Where Are Those Signs Warning "No Irish Need Apply"?

History News Network via Chicago Sun-Times ^ | July 17, 2005 / March 18, 2005 | Richard Jensen

[Chi-townChief]

Irish Catholics in America have a vibrant memory of humiliating job discrimination against their menfolk, which featured omnipresent signs proclaiming "Help Wanted--No Irish Need Apply!” These ads were supposedly aimed at non-Irish men: we have a job and if you are English or German or anything but Irish come in and apply. Today anyone can buy fake NINA signs on Ebay (the fakes are all dated Sept 11, 1915, by the way.) No historian, archivist or museum curator has ever been able to find a genuine NINA signs, nor a newspaper report or court case, nor even a recollection of a particular sign in a particular store. That’s because the signs did not exist. They are as real as leprechauns. Thanks to computerized data bases historians can now search through million of pages of newspapers, including the want ads. Since its start in 1851 the daily New York Times published exactly one NINA ad for males: a livery stable in Brooklyn in 1854 advertised for a teenage boy who could write, and NINA. No one can find NINA want ads for men in the other major newspapers that can be searched (such as the Brooklyn Eagle, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post, nor in the numerous small town papers). The market for female household workers occasionally specified religion or nationality. Newspaper ads for women sometimes did include NINA, because a small proportion of hiring women (less than 10%) were reluctant to have a Catholic inside their home. Irish women nevertheless dominated the market for domestics because they provided a reliable supply of an essential service.

So where did the myth come from and why has it endured? The slogan was commonplace in upper class London by 1820—referring to English disdain for Irish Protestants (not Catholics). In 1862 in London there was a song, "No Irish Need Apply," purportedly by a maid looking for work who found such a sign in a window. 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. The history was aural, not visual, based on imagination not actual discrimination.

Were the Irish Catholics actually discriminated against in the American job market? Statistical data from numerous census sources shows no measurable discrimination against them. It is of course possible that a particular firm here or there refused to hire Irish, but not a single example of that has actually been discovered. Railroads—the biggest employers in the 19th century-- insisted they did not discriminate and research into payroll records shows the Irish were promoted at the same rate as other ethnics. By contrast discrimination against Blacks, Chinese, and (in the early 20th century) Italians and Poles is readily apparent in the census data. We have direct evidence that major employers eagerly sought out Irish workers and borrowed millions to build factories and railroads that depended on Irish Catholic labor. In Northern Ireland and Britain job and housing discrimination against Irish Catholics was a reality, not a myth, to recent times. While the NINA song crossed the Atlantic, there is no evidence of any systematic or widespread job discrimination against Irish Catholic men in America. Historians can find political hostility that was based on religion (anti-Catholicism) and disgust with Irish political machines. That tension does not seem to have affected the job market. There was some hostile criticism of the Irish because of their “Papist” religion, their use of violence, and their supposed threat to democratic traditions. By the Civil War these fears had subsided. The Irish had proven their patriotism; their many churches, schools, colleges, hospitals and charitable agencies demonstrated an Irish Catholic commitment to civic betterment. The remarkable success of Irish politicians over the last 150 years affords proof that they were better than anyone else at winning the votes of non-Irish. Although there were anti-Catholic attacks on Al Smith in 1928 and John Kennedy in 1960, neither was criticized for being Irish. Indeed no major politician in America (outside a few in the deep South like Tom Watson) ever made anti-Catholicism or anti-Irish arguments part of his platform. There never were laws to exclude Irish immigrants because they were in fact needed and welcomed. The immigration restriction movement of the 1890-1930 period was led by Irish-controlled labor unions, and did not target the Irish in any way.

The Irish were not individualists. They 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--Senator Ted Kennedy "remembers" seeing the signs when he was growing up in a highly sheltered environment in the late 1930s.

[Lockbar]

And I mean it, too!!! ;-P

[Liberty Valance]

I want me reparations now and I want them in Guiness by the pint! And I'd like some curly fries with that :o)

[World'sGoneInsane]

It wasn't just the Irish that were discriminated against, all of the different nationalities were discriminated by each other. BTW, I have one of those replica signs. I am of three nationalities. That, too, was usually unheard of back then. People did not usually intermarry. It was unaccepted. They lived in separate neighborhoods. This was not just an Irish- Catholic thing. It was an American-immigrant thing. The Catholics had there own neighborhood churches. There would be the "Irish church", the Polish church, the Lithuanian church, the Italian church, etc.

This is still evident in many cities. In NYC you still have Chinatown, Little Italy, etc. While the makeup of the immigrants have changed, so have the neighborhoods. The NINA signs were not myths, however, they would hang no Germans need apply, as well. That was just the way it was. The writer of the article missed quite a bit of how it actually was. In general, the different nationalities did not like the others. We were a "melting pot" but it took many years for the cultures to melt together.

[durasell]

It depends on how you define "famine." I agree that it was artificial -- man made -- but the results were the same as a natural disaster.

[jla]

However one of my books about the Irish, featuring many photos and drawings, shows cartoons from the late 1800's depicting the Irish as similar to apes.

I've seen these types of images and something tells me they were somewhat exaggerated -

[calex59]

He doesn't say any signs existed. You are quoting a passage that says ads were run in two different papers. These ads are not signs. The signs he is talking about supposedly hung in windows of shops needing help.

These signs may or nmay not have existed, he says there are none to be found today. Also, of all the papers to be searched at that time period only two ads were found with NINA specifications.

I am sure that discrimination against the Irish was there, but most probably just told them face to face that they wouldn't hire them and didn't bother with signs.

[kellynla]

wasn't a "natural disaster" it was genocide!
there was no "famine" because there was no shortage of food in Ireland.
again, since you obviously don't know the facts, I suggest you read up on them.

[durasell]

please re-read my previous post. carefully.

I am agreeing with what you are saying.

[11Bush]

Damn, I was just working on a reparations angle for my suffering.

[LongElegantLegs]

You know, there's a joke here somewhere, about hot-headed Irish people...Not that I'd be stupid enough to make it! ;-P

[jim_trent]

The first thing I thought of was "Blazing Saddles". Remember near the end, the Sheriff was negotiating with the townpeople in order to save the town. One of the townspeople said (from memory) "OK, we will let in the N*ggers and Ch*nks, BUT NO IRISH." That film could not be made today.

[Seeking the truth]

Great book...finished it a couple of months ago and gave it to my dad to read.

McDonald Clan

[Cogadh na Sith]

I dunno.... I recall hearing a Scotsman in Glasgow refer to them as 'Those Green N!&&er$' in 1997.

Of course he had served 3 tours in N. Ireland--you could count the 3 beer mugs tattooed on his forearm.

[Age of Reason]

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/S?ammem/amss:@field(TITLE+@od1(No+Irish+need+apply++J++H++Johnson,+Stationer+++Printer,+7+N++10th+Street,+Phila++[1862?]))


http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/S?ammem/amss:@field(TITLE+@od1(No+Irish+need+apply++Written+by+John+F++Poole++++++H++De+Marsan,+Publisher,+54+Chatham+Street,+New+York++[n++d+]))

[World'sGoneInsane]

He doesn't say any signs existed.

I bought one "Irish Need Not Apply" signs many years ago. It was a replica from the "Boston Sign Co." My parents were alive. My mother said that they did hang signs in windows. They were probably handwritten. She said that if the German butcher wanted help, he didn't want a Irishman. (BTW, my father was German-Irish). Having grown up in a city of many ethnicities, I can tell you that each ethnic group stuck to themselves. There was a good show on the History Channel a couple of years ago about this. The Irish were no more discriminated against than any other group was to each other. BTW, I bought the sign to tease my father, I did not realize the story behind it. I have been sure to relate this to my children. It was all a matter of cliques and who thought they were better than the others.

I don't know if the Boston Sign Co. existed, or produced such signs. I do know that this was common practice. Unfortunately, my own parents aren't alive to ask more about it. The program on tv confirmed what my parents told me.

[World'sGoneInsane]

That film could not be made today.

The last time that movies was on tv, there was only half a movie left by the time the censors got through with it. Mel Brooks was always so in your face with his movies. By censoring that movie, part of history has been censored. Maybe they burned the old INNA signs with that part of the movie.

[secret garden]

I like that band.

[Ax]

My grandfather came from Co. Limerick, Ireland, about 1910. He ended up in Detroit and had a fairly successful career with Revere Copper & Brass. He told me once that while he'd never experienced that NINA problem, he knew Irish that had arrived before he did, did experience that prejudice. He said that one guy saw one of those NINA signs and wrote under it: "whoever wrote this, wrote it well, for the same's inscribed oe'r the gates of hell."

[supercat]

Is that a Waltons tin whistle she's holding?

[It's me]

Railroads—the biggest employers in the 19th century-- insisted they did not discriminate and research into payroll records shows the Irish were promoted at the same rate as other ethnics. By contrast discrimination against Blacks, Chinese, and (in the early 20th century) Italians and Poles is readily apparent in the census data.

Really! The Irish weren't descriminated against? Then why were they working along side the "discriminated" Chinese while working on the railroad? Why did they have to work in the mines and on the railroad if jobs were given to the Irish in the cities? Why were the cooks and housekeepers Irish?

Hmmmm?