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| Irish-Americans actually grew to outnumber their German immigrant counterparts when they arrived in the United States. The Potato Famine that struck Ireland in the 1830s forced the country's poor to find new lives in America, and many sought Ann Arbor at this time because of the call for skilled workers and the need for cooks and cleaning ladies (Marwil, 7) Others, like the younger men, came to work on the Erie Canal's construction. Some Irish immigrants had more substantial personal holdings, and they must have been the individuals who funded the first Irish Catholic religious meetings (Stephenson, 72 ff.) The story of the Irish Americans does not pan-out until the late 1860s, and this lack of strong political and economic participation in the community may well be attributed to their initial lack of prestige and financial resources. |
| [Anti-Catholic Sentiment] |
| Oppressed by slavery, misused and often silenced by the white man, African-Americans were not a strong social presence in the United States in the years preceding the Civil War. The need to escape the evils of the South and the injustices of Northern states drove the slave onward to Canada. In Ann Arbor, however, the Black community was indeed alive, and a recognized presence. From 1830 to 1860, their numbers grew to over eighty. There was enough peace in the town to sustain a church, said to have existed on Fuller Road (Marwil, 27-28.) A majority of Ann ArborUs white townspeople must have been rather tolerant, if not progressive, compared to other viewpoints in that day: Ann Arbor was the birthplace of the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society in 1836, the home of the abolitionist newspaper Signal of Liberty, a popular stop for anti-slavery lectures and a way station for "fugitive" slaves. |
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