City, Irish families lived in the city's worst, overcrowded slums. Under such conditions it is no wonder that Irish neighborhoods were troubled with diseases like typhoid, typhus, and cholera. It wasn't until after the Civil War that public health programs gained wide acceptance and improved the living conditions of the immigrants (Griffen 19). MAKING A LIVING IN AMERICA In port cities such as New York and Chicago, the Irish easily found jobs. Not much skill or education was needed to work unloading and loading ships on the docks or digging up bad streets and building new ones. Nor did the Irishmen have trouble finding unskilled jobs in the nation's rapidly growing transportation system. Three thousand miles of canals were built before the Civil War, along with 30,000 miles of railroad track. All that was needed to do these jobs was a strong body and a willingness to work for only one dollar a day. The Irish were able to do both of these. The Irish were the ones that built the Illinois Central Railroad connecting Chicago and New Orleans, and later they helped lay the tracks for the Union Pacific Railroad (Purcell 40). Irishmen held railway and construction jobs, but it was the Irish women who served as the main power within their community. Unlike the other culture groups in America among the Irish there were more women than men. In Ireland women had often postponed marriage in order to work, because of the need for money for families. Because of this, many young Irish women had the freedom and money to make the journey to America. Once in America, Irish women did the same things as if they had never left Ireland. They were the group that stayed single the longest. These young women could always find jobs as domestics, an occupation rejected by many other ethnic groups. In fact, the figure of the obstinate Irish maid "Bridget" became an ethnic stereotype that lingered well into the twentieth Century (Anderson 59). Historian Hasia Dine...
