Servants of the Poor

In the late nineteenth century an era in which social mobility was measured almost exclusively by the success of men Irish-American women were leading their ethnic group into the lower-middle-class occupations of civil service teaching and health care. Unlike their immigrant mothers who often became servants of the rich Irish-American daughters became servants of the poor by teaching in public school classrooms. Janet Nolan argues that the remarkable success of Irish-American women was tied to their educational achievements and to the encouragement of their mothers who had been educated in the Irish national schools. By the first decade of the twentieth century Irish-American women were the largest single ethnic group among public elementary school teachers in cities such as Boston Chicago and San Francisco. <i>Servants of the Poor</i> is a pioneering work which looks at the teaching profession at the turn of the century from the perspective of these women.