19th Century Emigration to the North Americas
The promised land
Montreal, c.1884. This photograph was taken from the Custom House, looking east.
For those who survived the crossing more horrors lay in store. Quarantine restrictions imposed by the American and Canadian governments meant that everyone had to undergo a medical examination - albeit a cursory one at times.
Occasionally, a newly arrived immigrant would be sent back home again because he or she was too unfit to enter the country - a crushing blow to all their hopes and dreams. Those who had contracted an illness on board - and there were thousands who did so - were forced to spend time in one of the quarantine hospitals before they were allowed to move on.
A view of Toronto and Lake Ontario, c. 1884, believed to have been taken by General Andrew Nugent. (An ancestor of his had changed his name from Savage to Nugent, prompting another member of the family to complain that 'He would rather be an old Savage than a new gent'!)
Unlike earlier emigrants, the majority of those who emigrated after the Great Famine were unskilled, often without even a basic education, and some could only speak their native Irish tongue. Strangers in a strange land, they naturally sought the company of similar souls. Despite the advice normally given to emigrants to travel inland and take advantage of the cheap farming land, the newly arrived Irish, as a general rule, chose to stay in the cities and port towns, gathering comfort from their compatriots.
Being unskilled they took what work they could get, whenever they could get it. In the United States in particular, there was fierce competition for jobs. As well as newly arrived emigrants from other parts of the world, after 1865 the Irish were also in competition with the recently freed slaves.
