ipl-logo

How Did The Potato Blight In The 1840s And 1850s Cause More Than Catastrophic Famine

1226 Words5 Pages

Why did the potato blight in the 1840s and 1850s cause little excess mortality in Scotland but catastrophic famine in Ireland?
The outbreak of potato blight, phytophthora infestans, originated in America and rapidly spread to countries in Northern Europe including Britain and Ireland. Different countries were affected by varying degrees but none to the devastating extent of that in Ireland. The famine in Ireland or An Gorta Mór, the great hunger, was a catastrophic disaster that lasted from 1845 to 1851 and beyond. A disaster that left over one million people in Ireland dead from disease and starvation with another one million people, in a population of just over eight million, escaping the starvation of the famine and disease through emigration. The aim of this essay is to look specifically at the excess mortality rates in Ireland as opposed to mortality in Scotland, which …show more content…

The eventual repeal of the Corn Law did push down prices, although not enough for the ordinary people to afford them. A knock on effect was this also lowered the value of the corn being grown resulting in those working the land having to use more of their corn crop to pay the landlords' rent. Peel authorised a government purchase of £100,000 worth of American maize to feed the starving. A relief commission was set up to raise money from landlords urging them to employ peasants on their estates in other forms of work. To take charge of the operation Peel appointed Charles Edward Trevelyan whose principles lay in the dogma of free market Liberalism, and who, it could be argued, became synonymous with the policy of the British and the starvation of Ireland. Peel’s measures were totally inadequate in tackling the crisis despite the fact the numbers dying was comparatively small in contrast to deaths in successive

Show More
Related
783 Words | 4 Pages

He promoted the police to keep farmers from bankrupt in years when the supply of crops exceeds demand. The government subsidized farmers to keep supply and demand in balance. The policy sometimes paid farmers to not grow food in order to keep agricultural prices high and allow small farms to survive. 10.How did Secretary Butz’ 1973 policy change agriculture?

Read More
564 Words | 3 Pages

Connectedly, due to the behavior of the Irish, the newspapers painted the Irish as caricatures which caused citizens to fear the Irish and react violently to their increasing numbers. Yet, due to the issue of slavery, as the author states, the Irish issue took a back seat to the Civil War, and when the Irish showed bravery in many important battles, they were accepted as equals. In addition, The History Place continues to talk of the Irish immigrants in “Gone to America: The Rise of the Irish” as a hardworking labor force that worked in several different fields which pushed America to greatness after the American Civil War. In a country with little to no government regulation, the author concedes that Irish workers were a real force in industrial reformation as they built unions and got basic

Read More
1274 Words | 6 Pages

Another objective of Roosevelt’s was to provide relief for the poorest Americans whom were primarily farmers whom lived in the Midwest and in the South. The Midwest and the South were the poorest regions of the country. Many lacked basic resources such as electricity and plumbing. The majority of farmers were also suffering from low income due to lack of demand for agricultural products. Roosevelt decided to provide relief to Americans from the Midwest and the South by influencing the market in a way that will cause demand for agricultural products to increase which will cause agricultural prices to increase as well.

Read More
1575 Words | 7 Pages

(White House, 2006). Considering farms and homes were lost to foreclosure during the Great Depression, could aid to farmers have been a preventative measure for that subgroup of the population? It should also be noted that President Coolidge had to clean up after an administration that was

Read More
1524 Words | 7 Pages

Among the Americans left out of the prosperity were the farmers who experienced difficult economic times especially in the southern and western regions. In those regions, farmers worked as tenants and were paid minimum wage because of the sharecropping system. Both white and black tenant farmers in poverty since the owner mostly got all the money from the

Read More
222 Words | 1 Pages

Many immigrants, such as the Irish, came to America for a better life. The potato famine, which started in the mid to late 1800’s, infected many Irish people. About 2,000,000 Irish men, women, and children perished during this terrible incident (document 1.) The majority of the Irish people were farmers and planted many potatoes. That meant during the potato famine, many potatoes were infected and rotten, so many farmers became poor and helpless.

Read More
496 Words | 2 Pages

This established a modern, more unified banking system under a mixture of private and government control. The Federal Reserve System would allow members of banks to demand their reserves to draw in greater security, and made the currency and bank credit more adjustable. This made farmers furious because it was more difficult to get loans and then made the shipping and selling of crops more expensive. They wanted the seed to be lower so the could buy more and spend the same and have a silver based currency instead of the gold based. The Populists called for government ownership of railroads, arguing that they were too critical to be left in private hands.

Read More
1903 Words | 8 Pages

When Catholic emancipation failed, the dam broke. Revolution became the only option for the repressed in Ireland to achieve the equality that they now believed was an inalienable right. The decades of enlightenment ideas that had been flooding in from America and France finally came to a head in 1798 when the Irish attempted their own rebellion. However, it was not just American and French ideas that lead Ireland to war, the history is much more conjoined that that. Without the historical event of the American Revolution, Ireland would never have developed the national pride that was needed to attempt a

Read More
857 Words | 4 Pages

Most of history is seen through the eyes of those of privilege, education, and wealth: royalty, nobility, and merchants. There were those of less fortune or lower class that were educated enough to be able to record their experiences and points-of-view, but they were far and few between. Especially in early America, from immigrants, slaves, free blacks, natives, and indentured servants. “In Defense of the Indians” by Bartolome de La Casa, “An Indentured Servant’s Letter Home” by Richard Frethorne, “Ads for Runaway Servants and Slaves”, “The Irish in America” by John Francis Maguire, and “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” by Frederick Douglass are by or about the natives, slaves, indentured servants, and immigrants in the early

Read More
508 Words | 3 Pages

This didn’t work due to the fact that farm or land owners demanded so much of the crops that the sharecroppers didn’t have

Read More
483 Words | 2 Pages

Furthermore, Potatoes provide more calories, vitamins, and nutrients per area of land sown than other staple crops. Because of this as well as how well the potato was able to grow in Europe, many researchers believe that the potato ended the Famine in Northern Europe. However historians such as historian William H. McNeill argue, that the potato did more than just end a famine, it led to empire: “By feeding rapidly growing populations, [it] permitted a handful of European nations to assert dominion over most of the world between 1750 and 1950.” In other words, the potato fueled the rise of the

Read More
656 Words | 3 Pages

Although, the goal was to get rid of homelessness, begging, and theft, new laws of taxations were implemented. The British poor laws gave a foundation to the welfare assistance in colonial America. Later, during the Great Depression,

Read More
461 Words | 2 Pages

“By 1840 the potato had become the sole food of one third of the of the people and an essential element in the diet of many more” (Williams 1996, p. 17). When the blight struck, hundreds of thousands died of starvation between 1845 and 1848. The Irish were in a state of panic and hopelessness. During 1845 and 1851, it is estimated that around 1.6 million people left Ireland for America. As Williams eloquently states, arriving in America, the Irish immigrants had to adjust to their new country and Americans had to adjust to their new fellow citizens.

Read More
1476 Words | 6 Pages

In 1845, Ireland was hit with a devastating blight that destroyed all of its potatoes and caused more than a million people to die of starvation and disease. The Irish Potato Famine, also known as The Great Famine, was a tragic time in Irish history, lasting from 1845 - 1849. Ireland’s poor was very dependant on potatoes, so the sudden death of the potatoes devastated Ireland’s population. Ireland got almost no help from Great Britain, so it had to help itself, but it did not have the resources to do so.

Read More
991 Words | 4 Pages

The planners of the rebellion were Irish landowners that included Gaelic Irish and Old English. In examining the depositions taken at the time, the issues surrounding land is an integral determinant for the outbreak of

Read More

More about How Did The Potato Blight In The 1840s And 1850s Cause More Than Catastrophic Famine

Related Topics

Open Document