Flowers For Socrates

The potato may seem like an ordinary, even humble, root vegetable, making regular appearances on the tables of the poor. But the potato famine in Ireland, which began in 1845, showed its power – the blight on potatoes in Ireland forced over 1.5 million Irish people to immigrate to the United States. They were the first great wave of refugees to arrive on America’s shores, and they faced a hard life here. Most of them arrived with very little, and many were in poor health. Few in the new country were willing to offer them any jobs but the most menial and lowest-paying. Irish adults lived an average of just six years after stepping off the boat, and 60% of the children born to Irish families in Boston didn’t live to see their 6^th birthday.

Competition for unskilled jobs quickly became intense between the new arrivals and the poor who had been born in American cities. In Ireland, a working man might earn eight cents a day. In America, he could earn up to a dollar a day, so American-born workers feared being undercut by hungry Irish willing to work for less than the going rate. Their resentment, combined with growing anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment among all classes led to ‘No Irish Need Apply’ signs being posted in many shop windows, and on factory gates and workshop doors.

By 1850, the Irish made up 43 percent of the foreign-born population in the U.S.

That’s a lot of change brought about by an attack of blight on a root vegetable.

Joseph Stroud (1943 – ) is an American poet who was born in California. He is the author of five books of poetry, including Of This World: New and Selected Poems, recipient of the Poetry Center Book Award; Country of Light; and Below Cold Mountain. His work earned a Pushcart Prize in 2000 and has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac.

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To read Joseph Stroud’s poem, The Potato, click here:

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