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An Irish Emigrant to New York Writes Home
This letter home from 23-year-old Irish emigrant Margaret McCarthy captures both the opportunity and adversity awaiting arrivals to a new land. McCarthy sailed from Liverpool on the Columbus on September 7, 1849, and arrived in New York on October [...]
A Nativist New Yorker Disparages Irish Arrivals
The following are excerpts from the diaries of George Templeton Strong (1820-1875), a prominent New York lawyer. Written between 1838 and 1857, the entries reveal Strong's undisguised contempt for the Irish immigrants who were then flooding the [...]
Table of Emigrant Savings Bank Account Records
This sample of account records from Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank provides evidence about the lives of immigrants living in New York City during the mid-nineteenth century. All account holders included in this sample lived in the Five Points [...]
Five Points: New York's Irish Working Class in the 1850s Viewer's Guide
This booklet is curriculum support for the American Social History Project's 30-minute documentary Five Points: New York's Irish Working Class in the 1850s. The viewer's guide contains background information on issues raised by the documentary as [...]
Telling the Whole Story: Irish Americans in Five Points
In this activity students gather and analyze data from the 1855 census of the Five Points neighborhood. Students compare stereotypes of Irish immigrants with evidence from the census. Then students compare their census research with other primary [...]
Reformers versus Residents in Five Points: A Role Play
In this activity students learn about the religious, class, and ethnic tensions between reformers and residents in the working-class Irish immigrant neighborhood of Five Points. Students research roles of a Protestant reformer and two Irish women [...]
Statistics about Life in Five Points
Five Pointers were destitute when they arrived and settled in New York’s poorest and most run-down neighborhood. On top of this, Irish Five Pointers worked for some of the lowest wages in the most dangerous and unstable jobs in the city. [...]
Understanding the 1855 Census Database
This activity helps students navigate and make sense of the information available in the Five Points census database. In the activity, students use the database to test hypotheses about life and residents in the Five Points. For this activity, [...]
Map of Block 160, 1902
This is a map of Block 160 in New York City's Five Points neighborhood 1902. Public opinion of the Five Points neighborhood was highly negative and filled with bias. The population of New York had ballooned by the mid-nineteenth century causing a [...]
Background Essay on Life in Mid-19th Century Five Points
This essay introduces Manhattan's Five Points neighborhood and the people who lived there.