pecially Boston mayor James Michael Curley, who once won office while in jail. Irish-American politicians had huge power in cities, but they did badly when running for national office. In 1928, Al Smith, who rose through New York City politics to the governorship of the state, ran for President of the United States. The voters rejected Smith, in part because of his Catholicism, and a Catholic was not voted into the nation's top office until the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960. Once the Irish were in power, the Irish politicians used their powers to hire all Irish as they could, such as policemen, firemen, and civil servants. City halls, operating under the rule of Irishmen, were often giving construction contracts to Irish men. The political system thus became an important way for the American Irish better themselves in their cities (Reimers 53). LIVING CONDITIONS IN AMERICA -- WHERE AND WHY Many of the Irish were so poor that when they got to a port city, which is where they stayed. That is why Boston, New York, and Montreal became the homes of many of the Irish. For the first time, there were more Irish than there were English at American ports. By 1860, the Irish made up seventy percent of America's immigrants (Sandler 14-16). Since the Irish found many jobs along the transportation routes, Irish towns started to appear, near railroads, throughout the United States. In the late 1800's, many Irish communities were well-established in areas such as San Francisco and New Orleans. The largest numbers of Irish, however, were in New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. These states contained more than half the total Irish-American population (Anderson 57). In many families, the women and the children worked, but the amount of money they made was only enough for housing and food. In Boston, one historian tells us; the Irish lived in "crammed hovels without furniture and with patches of dirty straw for bedding." In New York...
