Women on the Move: a review of the historiography of Irish emigration to the USA, 1750–1900

Abstract

Emigration was an integral part of Irish life in the nineteenth century and much of that experience was characterised by banishment, exile and loneliness. This article reviews the historiography of Irish emigration to America and focuses on Irish women's unique experience of emigration, specifically looking at their reasons for leaving, the mechanics of departure and the kind of life that awaited them in the USA. This interpretation places gender at the centre of the narrative and argues that Irish emigrant women were agents of their own lives and not secondary agents and also that, by the end of the nineteenth century, personal ambition and a desire to improve and progress their own lives was as influential with them as the financial imperative to assist family and friends in the USA and Ireland.