Who were the earlier immigrants.....and what did they experience?
1. "In just the first two months of 1856 three ships, each crammed with excited emigrants, had perished in the pitiless Atlantic. The largest of the three, a clipper ship called the 'Driver,' had sailed from Liverpool bound for New York on February 12 with 370 passengers and crew. Somewhere en route it sand to the bottom of the ocean.
2. ...in Chicago there was tantalizing evidence of what was possible, the reward on offer for those immigrants who embraced their new home with both hands. [Between 1840 and 1860] the population of Chicago had ballooned form 4,450 to 109,260.
3. Irish, Scottish, Welsh, English, ...Scandinavians, ...German. They were young and old, male an female, mainly poor.....farmers and masons, carpenters and clerks, makers of dresses and makers of shoes, a confectioner, a milliner, ....laborers. Different trades buth the same dream: a new life in America."
"Double Death: The True Story of Pryce Lewis, the Civil War's Most Daring Spy,"byGavin Mortimer
4. '“There are usually a large number of spectators at the dock-gates to witness the final departure of the noble ship, with its large freight of human beings. . . As the ship is towed out, hats are raised, handkerchiefs are waved, and a loud and long-continued shout of farewell is raised from the shore, and cordially responded to from the ship. It is then, if at any time, that the eyes of the emigrants begin to moisten with regret at the thought that they are looking for the last time at the old country– that country which, although, in all probability, associated principally with the remembrance of sorrow and suffering, of semi-starvation, and a constant battle for the merest crust necessary to support existence is, nevertheless, the country of their fathers, the country of their childhood, and consecrated to their hearts by many a token.”
THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.[July 6, 1850.]
5. "The last link to be severed between the emigrants and their previous life was the tow boat's rope. Once that was gone, it was out into the open sea and a voyage of discomfort and, more often than not, rank terror....a thirty-year-old Charles Dickens had undergone a similar journey. Dickens was then at the height of his powers, but when he found himself in a mid-Atlantic storm he would have willingly traded all his fame and wealth for the security of dry land."
Mortimer, Op.Cit.
a. Dickens: 'The laboring of the ship in the troubled sea on this night I shall never forget. Thunder, lightening, halil and rain, and wind, are all in fierce contention for the mastery....every plank has its groan, every nail its shriek, and every doop of water in the great ocean its howling voice...Words cannot express it, thoughts cannot convey it. Only a dream can call it up again, in all its fury, rage and passion.'"
That was a part of the price for the journey.
6. And, then, this: "There before them was the United States of America, a young and dynamic country with so much more to offer than the jaded, bitter, played -out [Old World]....one needed money and influence to succeed, but in America all men were created equal."
Mortimer, Op.Cit.
America.
Worth the efforts.
1. "In just the first two months of 1856 three ships, each crammed with excited emigrants, had perished in the pitiless Atlantic. The largest of the three, a clipper ship called the 'Driver,' had sailed from Liverpool bound for New York on February 12 with 370 passengers and crew. Somewhere en route it sand to the bottom of the ocean.
2. ...in Chicago there was tantalizing evidence of what was possible, the reward on offer for those immigrants who embraced their new home with both hands. [Between 1840 and 1860] the population of Chicago had ballooned form 4,450 to 109,260.
3. Irish, Scottish, Welsh, English, ...Scandinavians, ...German. They were young and old, male an female, mainly poor.....farmers and masons, carpenters and clerks, makers of dresses and makers of shoes, a confectioner, a milliner, ....laborers. Different trades buth the same dream: a new life in America."
"Double Death: The True Story of Pryce Lewis, the Civil War's Most Daring Spy,"byGavin Mortimer
4. '“There are usually a large number of spectators at the dock-gates to witness the final departure of the noble ship, with its large freight of human beings. . . As the ship is towed out, hats are raised, handkerchiefs are waved, and a loud and long-continued shout of farewell is raised from the shore, and cordially responded to from the ship. It is then, if at any time, that the eyes of the emigrants begin to moisten with regret at the thought that they are looking for the last time at the old country– that country which, although, in all probability, associated principally with the remembrance of sorrow and suffering, of semi-starvation, and a constant battle for the merest crust necessary to support existence is, nevertheless, the country of their fathers, the country of their childhood, and consecrated to their hearts by many a token.”
THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.[July 6, 1850.]
5. "The last link to be severed between the emigrants and their previous life was the tow boat's rope. Once that was gone, it was out into the open sea and a voyage of discomfort and, more often than not, rank terror....a thirty-year-old Charles Dickens had undergone a similar journey. Dickens was then at the height of his powers, but when he found himself in a mid-Atlantic storm he would have willingly traded all his fame and wealth for the security of dry land."
Mortimer, Op.Cit.
a. Dickens: 'The laboring of the ship in the troubled sea on this night I shall never forget. Thunder, lightening, halil and rain, and wind, are all in fierce contention for the mastery....every plank has its groan, every nail its shriek, and every doop of water in the great ocean its howling voice...Words cannot express it, thoughts cannot convey it. Only a dream can call it up again, in all its fury, rage and passion.'"
That was a part of the price for the journey.
6. And, then, this: "There before them was the United States of America, a young and dynamic country with so much more to offer than the jaded, bitter, played -out [Old World]....one needed money and influence to succeed, but in America all men were created equal."
Mortimer, Op.Cit.
America.
Worth the efforts.
