Internet Archive's in-browser video player requires JavaScript to be enabled. It appears your browser does not have it turned on. Please see your browser settings for this feature.

Destination America 2 -- on a Clear Day You Could See Boston

by: Steel, Tom; Thames Television, ltd

Publication date: 1976

Topics: Emigration and immigration, Irish Americans, Emigration and immigration, Irish Americans

Publisher: Toronto : Heritage Visual Sales

Language: English

Director, Tom Steel

Traces the history of Irish immigration to the U.S. from the famines of the 1850's. Documents the rise of Irish Americans from a much discriminated minority to their formation of a political base culminating in the presidency of John F. Kennedy

Addeddate: 2015-07-08 23:37:40

Boxid: IA1130104

Identifier: destinationamerica2onacleardayyoucouldseebostonreel1

Ocr: Thank. You. For the horses he talked low paid jobs with no security. The Yankees get a bit of a city job. Whatever to get those jobs. People vote for the Irish a very go to that and the organizing of political pot has no all that sort of thing still fell into the habit of the Irish politicians not to the chagrin of the Yankees. The Irish took to the streets at election time when unemployment was high in Boston there were even more determined to wheel city patronage themselves. With the first one to get. My father to me to gain an education. Get into politics. Become an attorney. So on and so forth and that way you could help people out. His people. This is the only way they could have a power to go into politics from a ditch this way they could get control. They got the vote. Has a vote is a very valuable thing especially when you organize a vote and so naturally enough before the original settlers knew what was happening the Irish having the vote. Took over the survey the extract to prevent this in many different ways so you know break was this film school in a pair criteria for to become a doctor so new so for to keep the field so it to them. In one thousand nine hundred eighty the Boston police tried to improve their pay and conditions by going on strike. State governor called in the National Guard to do their jobs the Irish saw it as another example of yank you. Do it all commissioner is Amos Curtis it were so old I'm sure bigoted they wouldn't even give that the areas where there are the police for a chance to state their case said they were forced to strike an artery to get an Iraqi nation at all and that he was just typical of the aristocracy are stuck in an even older belonged to the working class quite a few in the still wore their hair I had I thought it was a little bit better than anybody else. Undertook the Irish a long time to cut it down to size and then finally they did the. Yankees had the well but the Irish. By the turn of the century there was many Irish is the way Yankees in Boston. Calling family having become successful lawyers now to politics. My father Joseph F.L. Connell went to Congress to chance of nine hundred seventy nine hundred eleven night father that it's a date in the Democratic circles throughout his lifetime is like a fire horse every time there was a hollow like Chin I think leads to more than to get on the speaking circuit. Yet a very fine voice and tremendous command of the language. And he was a he guessed instinctively like the campaign. The Boston live close together in their own neighborhoods. Priests and union officials made sure they voted. New immigrants from all over encouraged to trust their own kind in America. Jobs and better housing were promised by aspiring Irish politicians who fought among themselves for the vote. When Joe O'Connell campaigned in one hundred ten he was callous by James Michael Curley in South Boston. Curly played on the regional loyalties of island you had to carry cell Boston that was the heaviest concentration the voters of Democratic Party. So Curly used a very simple method he went in the said The date was so Boston I'll joke on was mother and father gave in Cork it gave him a canister go the timeless if they're on their two terms. Now said Mark most of you people go off and go away. And then my mother and father come from of Dragon go away and why not give me a chance my father thought that that was one of those things of another catch on the gods. You didn't have to campaign against that of all but when the votes are counted. So we encounter so Boston missiles defeated by. Voters and often for grooming. He's blown me go places but. He's going to be merriment chances I'm fairly to sit in the street post one by Curley went to the United States Congress four times but preferred local politics. Usenet of Boston for sixteen years and governor of the state of Massachusetts but in particular gave audition good city jobs and give the poor neighborhoods playgrounds Bach I was assuming stole my heart goes out to sort through. Your columns won't cure. On same Patrick's Day politicians meet and remember the name of James Michael Cutler. The eat corn beef and cabbage. Once the luxury meal of the artist working man. The local senator does his political party piece an impersonation of curly addressing these are the spokes. People. Play should be. On the seventeenth of March I would say to some a candidate for governor in the coming winter or in the next year by Mike apparently I'm elected governor of the Commonwealth coming when a Tory election and I might be purely will take useless goal don't from the top of the state house turn it upside. The middle of. Boston with water not a little children of your district used to. Go to an often for Curly Robinho to learn about time you take an exam from another jam anyone who was corrupt but he never lost the support of the Boston people in one hundred forty five Lee welcome to Money is returned from Washington you didn't just. Two years later. Curly was sent to prison before. He was allowed to continue in office when he said the symptoms but never seen him make any difference to him politically and he has alleged killer said that any published it got published and he added a over the second time we were No question about it his style Monday but he made it perfectly clear to his constituents that Shellie his style money but he stole it for their benefit. He didn't mention what he put in his own back and count. The Irish political others have always been experience. In our news crew cuteness may occur Lee I suppose the best example their generosity manifests itself in corruption and I would like to say the same is not true of New York City but of course it is. What happened was I suppose that they got into politics and it was a way of making the law that when they didn't have was used against him of bending that long and then they got so used to bending to and again they had absolutely zero of contempt for the law. In one thousand nine hundred six Curly was persuaded to give up his seat in Congress and make way for a twenty eight year old war hero John Fitzgerald Kennedy Kennedy was rich and educated a new breed of Irish politics the next generation with quite different from John Canada a was quite typical of the Irish evil notion he was a third generation His father was a graduate of Harvard College and he was a graduate of Harvard College he had completely calm assimilated into that. Kind of intellectual and social girl as you know when he came to chose his cabinet and advisors and self last he land heavily on his college background shell that he who was if you wish to fold it this way that way. Assimilating completely. You know great January nineteenth. And I think. That your favourite execute the office of the United States is the arm of the president of the United States. I welcome the fact that he and rail progressed from I've got ready for a plan for the fact that the family so if another had not at stake. And the Constitution of United States so help them so help me God. Became president I think. He's one of the studio up today but the presence of United States and we had again been achieved especially an Irish Catholic. Before if you're Catholic. Might as well forget ever became a person but he broke that barrier. You know if you refuse to use of force to speak and Street house and it was a rather large dinner party and sent in a group of people and there was. A little Yankee man and a formidable Yankee lady minute to the still wet. And she turned to the man and she said I didn't I don't I never saw it. And I would live to see the day when the president of United States we crossed himself for this inauguration and the other man says I've seen them cross US I've never seen them cross themselves meaning double cross this and and I was that lasted as long as the sixty's you can imagine what it was like to have been Irish are in. And the first years of the immigration so that it would go on to anybody. Good Irish music information since Kennedy Irish Americans take and you try to express every weekend a Boston radio station transmits Irish music to one of the city's largest audiences. Thanks very much Ken has an old Irish favorite for all my friends down child stone Johnny McEvoy from Dublin sings the Boston battle of. Ideas when. Facing him Don't just a bang team from Chicago challenges. Only as an skill is revived by audition many couples with the time and money. Most come from families that have lived in America two or three generations yet the pattern and some brown fans of taught them to hold on to that audition us. It was very important to retain your name whether it was both Saladin the calling the prof A or whatever it was very important that you do not drop the next audio from the named. Island was very important to them it was very important to them and to teach that because this is what we did all of our life we have to always try and work hard to have fun united island. That island was thirty two counties and it was and. Should always be. My father and my uncle said to the mother and father told them about the way that England had and misrule that one and the thing was not moving in a direction to correct the only way that they could be handled was to have England not a lie along. At dinners dances and bingo sessions they meet to show their hatred of the country that room bought them for eight hundred years. Son of the Holy Spirit I mean that's some large and these I guess which from the bounty we are about to receive. Surprised on are to me and I'm not the only go. By additional than aid has raised over a million dollars in America. They say the money is sent back to protect audition for what they call the violence of British imperial. I do have Irish but me just say Macedo The only difference between them and maybe they did they were born and island and I was born here but we are both Shaman the one people. It's a natural thing for a second generation Irish American to be interested in Island his country the people the history. Psychologically important to me to look into my name of the said to the black and tan to it in the con. Did terrible things to the nanny in pre. For example pulling out the thing in a own. Drinking men and the street. They were really high tech. And another supplier and then she has a cloud. Good. The degree if it is an outcropping the deep seated and deep rooted business that was in a souls in the minds of the Irish that as they left island in the reasons they left it. And that they carry this with them and that they never forgot it and what they lived through as children and what they had this fathers and mothers. Recount to them I mean. I thought he. The children of America but dancing is I bet some of you are going to close so it's between the two of you were to widen it up we could shop in Let's Go away twenty years ago to make up home in America. OK she understands why are these well stony and send their children to a dance and toss. Up I think that if you don't spend your heritage has died. You are American all of these children are American citizens but I think a background is terribly important in the country's newest of the grandparents from the great grandmothers you know brought the story of the great times next to their colored by the years of over here and now all they told the stories of the dancing in the kitchen the denting at the cross-roads but times have changed in our an adult so it's not like that anymore there's no dancing in the kitchen the reason I think the console Smiths in the country home says there we were there was in those times and I think crept that's what they're trying to recall and and instill in their children. Not really making. Fun of people particularly if you spot the right one to take break now the other two beginners said now taking them yet they're not first generation most of whom are second and third generation Irish and they're now trying to give their children a sense of belonging to the homeland so they're relying on fuck me give them as a culture and to go to Irish concerts an Irish pub you know one day they recapture I think the R.N. that has gone. And prosecution made whole million auditions emigrate to America. My grandmother told us that the sky was during the grass is greener. Everything was better in Ireland than it was here in Boston the you. I was happy to be one of the first in the family to go to Ireland for I did have a wonderful feeling. Seeing all of the places I saw their faces said my grandmother came from and I had this great feeling that I wish that everyone in the family could be there to see. I met a man there that name was dossier the same as my grandmother he thought he was related to us and when he found he was and he got quite drunk. Was quite amusing but people were just so happy to meet our yank it seems strange to me when I'm in the Highlands and to be called a yank. Call I was but. Brought been brought up and that was for whatever we need to designate as Irish. And. So he'll hear the to yank because he has sort of breaks me. You can love two children. You can love both parents are both sets of grandparents so you can love your own country and love to come to that your parents tell you. Ancestors came from. In the eight hundred forty S. Patrick Kennedy lived on a small farm and come to expect. That my great grandfather left here for the Tommy Cooper in the forefront. He carried did nothing with him. Stepped on a thing a stone we let you stay in a strong up to the limited. In one hundred sixty three President Kennedy went back to his great grandfather's farm. Every kid in the district on up to the Tea Party. It was a celebration of the most successful immigrant family. There's nothing like success to make peace with Tara blow to everybody else. And I think the Irish have had great success. Welders Yeah because of that and a j and because of that extraordinary South Shore gaffes this I think is a great gift to America. I certainly social is and friendliness there is an impression in Washington that there. OK To the left and I learned that they're all in Washington. I wonder if there are any a Kennedy in this audience could you hold up your hand so I can say. The same if you. Didn't catch the boat. It's very. The nine hundred sixty Island greeted as one of its own man president of the United States. John it's just. My country. Welcome many found a note of the so many cuts Irish German and. Gave them a fan can pair opportunity. President Kennedy was born in Boston Massachusetts. Place for millions of those who spoke to him going west coast of. The day was clear enough. And if you went down to the bay. And you looked at weather. And your psych was good enough. You would see more Massachusetts at me. And if you did you see them working on the docks. Darby clarity is the right engine cousins of yours. Didn't make good I wonder if you could perhaps let me know how many of you here. Have a relative in America will you admit to it you know look at. Twenty five million Americans playing Irish descent. Newsday. Right message that I am thanking. Me. I am the way. The date. South Boston. I'm so proud tricks day every year there's a parade a long way. No. Thank you to the. Boston Irish and Patrick's Day is a common chance to support the kelly green wherever I went to Boston. Boston is where the American colonists first rebelled against British rule over two hundred years ago. The spirit of the nation is still strong. Even the sons of Irish immigrants have no doubt whether allegiance lines have a love for us it was time and I'm a member of the top my sons this is that country is their country and I have to mention something about my fire rather strict cows within one day. And one of the conductors my father had retired so he said to my father he said one of the great Pat when you can go back to Atlanta. I live in the family get. Back to your old country by factors of this is my country. He's Alan never gave me any. Island in the eight hundred forty S. a country of nine million exploited beat. Landlords took their crops of wheat and oats as rent and ship them to English Irish peasants were left to live off the potato. In eight hundred forty five a disease brought from America reduced the potato crop in Ireland to black inedible pope. Within five years a million peasants died of cholera type you. Lose. You were buried in the coffins. Most What about to the left or right in the ditch. Retirement Village when it's mass graves. The scale of the disaster Scott the idea for my. Friends of mine in Ireland say that people don't talk bout of missing way that men who are in the trenches for didn't talk about trenches when they got home there was one story that I heard from my remark meal was the Irish or enter politics and she said she knew. A cousin who was in his ninety's when she was a girl in the early part of the century and he was walking in the forty's in the country and he noticed a kind of half starved dog with what looked like a rooster and it was the head of a very beautiful girl that had died. Of hunger. To feed the starving the British government imported course Indian meal from America. Charity get shoes were set up throughout the country. To one prominent London chefs created cheap watery soups to hand out to the hungry. The you were cousins were built for those made destitute. Food and shelter were given in exchange for a day's work well in a bowl a girl in a place in the workhouse. Men and women called roads out of a rugged countryside. But it cost land owners more people present in the poorhouse than pay for a passage to America. Tenants were encouraged to emigrate. Many who survived the famine found it difficult to make a living like the head of the diocese family. He had six children and my grandmother Margaret Duffy was the oldest girl. Iraq many were good people were dying of hunger and her family had decided that one of the marked to go to America. He was the first to come from her family during the hunger and she worked and saved and wanted to save until she could bring somebody else from her family back here. Which she did. He met him marry my grandfather and she sent for her sister. Immigrants walk to the port barefoot save the money and shoes that they would need in the New World. By eight hundred fifty thousand a week left cork and avoids to America. I know that my grandmother didn't want to go he cried in fact quite dramatic and take your never come home again and he knelt down and kissed the doorstep of the how he never said he loved so much. William Alfred's great grandmother was a girl of twenty eight when she left call for America with their mother. They took a sailing vessel which took eight weeks they were sick most of the time they were packed in Whole Foods and they slept two or three to a bend the men and the women were mixed all up together at least in the boat she came over and. They brought some supplies of their own but to they had and spoil meet that were served on the boat and content and the water she said and film of green of the world are simpler and that was one of the scenes and you know they're kept seasickness all the time that we have it was a very rough crossing. Most Irish immigrants landed in New York. The country people the big city was strange. She said it when they got here her mother was too proud to carry the things so she had to carry everything she complained and she carried a feather bed sure members and a big strong man for and they were terrified and the Irish settled in the cities New York Philadelphia and Chicago. But nowhere was the present small felt that in the New England town of. Boston was refined and rich through training the Yankees is the original English citizen cold we're proud of the town. Puritan full fathers at five sixteen that it was mostly built on Beacon Hill and the hero dog Chester. It had none of the aspects of a tsunami it was an overgrown village which is simply expanded an expanded back from the Boston Common. Those people who are arrived and were living on the top of the can handle and had driving try and doubted lay very smug. The Adams Family of Boston helped found the real America. Thomas Boston Adams can boast a belonging to a family that by eight hundred fifty. Provided the new nation with two presidents in those days the Yankees of Boston were indeed content most extraordinary characteristic of the Bostonian and New England tight the Unitarian model would have been that all questions have been solved is one of the few periods and history of the world history where any group of people rarely felt quite show that God was in his heaven and all was right with the world. It was a world class. In eight hundred forty seven thirty thousand Irish immigrants arrived in Boston nine to a room one hundred or more to a house they lived where they cook. So proud it was the housing that hundreds of sellers were rented out at a dollar a week to immigrant families. Unable to find work some scavenged amongst the refuse of the ritual food fuel. The first defeat a famine in Ireland brought within the color and typhus that a claim so many of their kids. And their new life in the slums of Boston was often thought. They lived a very sad it's and they died for most of my mother's people drank themselves to death in the by the time they were thirty. My grandfather died and when he was twenty seven and my grandmother died when she was twenty. That I think I might of course to do was to Ricky. Lucius from malnutrition. Back home but the excitement of America. Were something that they really gave themselves to do so. I am a decent boy just landed from the town the life I want the Q.A. when your son was that very bad I see in number one month for tires. Just the things are for the third and it was No Irish need apply Who knows but supplemental for all to get the place up from the way to see the plug what is no Irish made up a lot of them just don't get a misfortune to be Christian. But to me yet however on earth today are among buyers my auntie Irish feuding was strong on the East Coast like that all the fine the house like gone it's mighty fine. American working men saw Irish immigrants is a threat to their jobs and their way of life. Irishman's are depicted as a kiss old Sean no brain like it don't go rather than I'd like to collect they were considered inferior to Nicodemus. Needa. Get a misfortune to bicker is not part of the name yet had the honor and obey or an Irishman and. Many left for America with high hopes. Like Rich smoke Solow who had been a teacher in Dublin My grandfather wanted to teach is having He wanted to be a professor at Harvard he he. He could come here and with this credential he could and they said at Harvard No Irish need apply. I know it was a bugaboo twin. Oh is that phrase No Irish need apply. In the eight hundred fifty S. Boston was already the largest fishing port in the world. Like many immigrants which makes all of found the box off with the only available where. He can help and you're down on the waterfront and thought the king in there and he earned one silver dollar a day and it's beautiful hands my grandmother and were all cast and crew he would have picked. Over two million Iraqis came to America in the twenty years after The Great Hunger waiting forty five. Not all were poor peasants who were tradesmen craftsman better often on farmers and their families who saw no future in a desperate all of it but to Bostonians all Irishmen were saying most of these people came from Irish where the only crop was the potato and that was about all they knew how to do was to grow potatoes the reaction was merely that these people not be so betray and in our ways that they learn our ways and then when they learned our ways they would appreciate our ways and they will become just like us. Many young kids own larger states outside the city the Addams family had a home in Quincy. Large houses and gracious living needed many servants and the chance to employ cheap obviously but was appealing. It didn't mean that. Houses which had always been Schalke of help to run them. Probably for the first time began to have a sufficient number of hand and varied life more comfortable for them. These people were very eager for that to take jobs is. Seven working and how's it all culture and grooms who was not there were so much work to do. Who are such endless off the children to. Live with the console left country caulking island in eight hundred fifty five at the age of forty. He left eye on the car she saw absolutely no hope of getting an education. Of bettering yourself of all she came here in one of the last of the sailing boat shoes fifty two days in the high seas because of the weather conditions when she came here. Lynch akin to live than dog just as she was a milliner she worked. Making heads and you know in the West rate which is down but to downtown Boston. Tom of Boston expanded rapidly from the eight hundred fifty songs. Plan was reclaimed from the sea to develop. Old housing in the City Center was demolished. Yankee wealth was invested in new fashionable boulevards. Population of the town doubled and Bostonians spread out to me on by times like water stuff. Many immigrants like James O'Connell made good out of the building he had jobs as a fan hand and then they found of course and you make more money going to the trades and he left there and why it became a plaster. On those days of course you started as a hard Gary you had to carry the hug then you work and of these the mixing of these the plaster like em young chance for an opportunity to learn the trade and took to work lasted a little became a lasting contract. The O'Connell plastering business was a family while James is five sums it to carry the hard without pay. The O'Connell's lived a life of canny thrift. You did with all you did without. And he'll let you weigh to fall that was on the table and you didn't waste any of it. My grandmother type two daughters how to make clothes and they'd make clothes in that fashion and styles and I like so they live very very frugally and they counted every penny. Nothing was wasted and something that my father always feared was was poverty a and and the fact that you might be poor and he always remember the days when when the the latter wasn't full. Irishman in search of work continue to come to Boston. But at the turn of the century competition for jobs amongst immigrants was fierce. Unemployment was high wages. Newcomers like damn Dotty arrived in one thousand eight hundred nine with dissolution. You work nine hours a day six days a week and when we paid a lot of lady. We're exactly three dollars left after paying our cast there we had nothing to spare. Moshe was made out for nearly a year was across a broad river are under way. Because it transportation for which if we were able to survive on the on the wages they were good but even at that it was just existing as well it was. Everybody was actually president doesn't have the power to organize and they're sent to evaluate their own potential and to do something about her. Everybody. In eight hundred ninety five Boston was the first city in America to build a subway for its new electric street cars. Irish Labour as did the digging. John died his father worked on the subway all these life starting at the bottom. Here to join us with a pick and shovel. Probably worked his way up the foreman and from there he worked his way up the soup and the construction he was considered one of the best concrete man city of Boston he can run through his hands and materials of a batch of concrete and side of the mix. When the Kenmore extension of the Boston subway was under construction it was feared the nearby Kenmore Mattel my collapse into the workings. Of the contract is called John died his father to the scene even though he was in hospital following a heart attack so they took my father from the hospital. Run him over the weekend more. Than a lot of down into the hall in a structure with occurring you know why I looked around there the men carry them around on the stretcher and they took some of the above and put him on the sidewalk so he could line up with his eye the camera will tell. And this is in spite of the fact that on the job of quite a few Khloponin engineers who decided that they were in your head with a job and so he made a decision the Kenmore hotel was saved but John Doherty was later to become a victim of these work underground and. He died at the time of the East Boston Harbor Tunnel was being built here. Come home one day from work asked with as they have in the bed and the next morning. The dimes and dollars of Irish labourers and seven goals build churches two hundred honest Catholics have come to live in Dorchester by eight hundred seventy. Raised the money to bills and Peter's. They built a church to hold two thousand. Judge to give them comfort and status in the city of Protestants. Winston Peters was built there was only one Catholic Church in Dorchester by the ton of the century there were twelve was the population of the town increased tenfold. Ronnie prime priests left Ireland with the flock in America they helped Irish immigrants find homes and jobs and encourage them to assert their rights. All you parishes which mall existence was applauded mainly by the air Boston is built all its churches but that was the only thing they had a grove in Ireland that was the thing that held them together when everything else went wrong. The used to snickering colonists here last and things like that. I think this part of it. Held over and to this country it was important to say morning prayers and grace before meals and of course evening prayers appraised before we went to bed at night and in our family. Either my father or mother would come in here to praise the phone went to sleep which went something like this thick up the Hail Mary's and the Our Father and then with trade for all those that had gone before us and the people in the family paid for your grandmother and uncle Michael had polio and had to leave the seminary and President Kim fell down the stairs and broke is leg. Boston the first and finest free schools in America but the Irish paid to build the room. Money collected from the parishioners and Peter's been to school to hold a thousand children to be taught by Seven Sisters of Mercy. The church wanted a college with Catholics that would rival the Protestant universities of New England. Boston College funded by the just the woods and eight hundred sixty three was built on Chestnut Hill. Ambitious immigrants like Elizabeth O'Connell helped to indicate. She was determined that it was a possibility the establishment of the Catholic college that she would talk to some data that I think basically she probably thought that some member of the family also to become a priest it was always considered an on the in the average family is to have someone is a member of the priesthood. Elizabeth O'Connell used the profits of the family business to educate her American born son and husband James worked with his hands. The children were to be professional man was my father Joseph F. O. Caml graduation Boston College and have lost those men. Then the slack of change he'll Colonel graduating nineteen two From have a college and then he went to Boston versus law school he became a lawyer and I was Daniel T.L. can he want to have it in nineteen hundred and five wells but we passed and enjoying my father and brother James in offices know the J.F. Jamie detail cow practicing. Lenahan O'Connell runs the prosperous family law firm in downtown Boston. And eight hundred fifty eight his grandfather dreams left Arlen was a farm labourer forty years later James his sons were lawyers in America the O'Connell family had gone from farm laborers to lawyers in a generation. Thing is that you had a chance here. Mean the opportunity was here to work if you want to work you could find work and you want to work you could make your way and it was a it was a land that gave them an opportunity to express himself. Back in Ireland there was still poverty and hunger. By one thousand nine hundred three million IRA should abandon their homeland. Ireland had lost a third of the people to the new world. Now.

Rights: Destination America 2 -- on a Clear Day You Could See Boston Search Educational Film Journals at Media History Project for references to this film