Tyler Anbinder describes the perilous Atlantic crossing and the arrival of immigrants in Manhattan, detailing the horrific conditions on "coffin ships," where diseases like typhus and cholera spread rapidly in cramped steerage quarters. Upon arrival, fami

Tyler Anbinder describes the perilous Atlantic crossing and the arrival of immigrants in Manhattan, detailing the horrific conditions on "coffin ships," where diseases like typhus and cholera spread rapidly in cramped steerage quarters. Upon arrival, families like the O'Donnells often settled in the Five Points, New York's most impoverished neighborhood, living in subdivided industrial buildings like the "Old Brewery." Most Irish men found backbreaking work as day laborers in construction. Despite these hardships, many were entrepreneurial; some, like Dennis O'Keefe, leveraged wartime tobacco shortages to build fortunes, while others utilized regional networks to dominate specific trades. (3)
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