
High School Student Proves “No Irish Need Apply” Signs Existed - apsec112
http://www.longislandwins.com/columns/detail/high_school_student_proves_professor_wrong_when_he_denied_no_irish_need_app
======
kevingadd
_Jensen attracted a lot of attention because he did not just write that the
NINA signs did not exist, he said the Irish were and are delusional, that in
order to sustain a sense of victimhood they had manufactured a group-wide lie
of discriminatory anti-Irish ads and signs. He said that believing that No
Irish Need Apply Signs existed was the Irish equivalent of believing in
leprechauns. Here is what Jensen wrote more than a decade ago:_

If this is a remotely accurate characterization, it baffles me that Jensen's
work would have found a home in a journal or that he would have felt
comfortable expressing those views in public. How profoundly emotional and
unscientific (not to mention vile and insulting)

Such a claim is extremely complicated (defying occam's razor) and implies some
sort of conspiracy that is at the very least questionable without sound proof.
The idea that such claims would have not been aggressively debunked in the
past is pretty questionable, as well. The seemingly trivial task of finding
evidence to support the existence of these ads makes me wonder if Jensen did
any research at all. Was he just grinding his racist axe, and did the
scientific community give him a pass on it because they didn't care?

~~~
DanBC
It's especially baffling because he accepts that newspaper ads saying "no
irish need apply" were common, but that the signs on the buildings did not
exist. Even if that's true it's weird to then say that Irish people were
delusionally perpetuating their victimhood.

~~~
task_queue
It isn't so weird if he delusionally accepted his hypothesis from the get go.

------
Turing_Machine
It's really interesting that, at least at that time and in that place, there
appeared to be more employment discrimination against Irish than African-
Americans. I noticed that several of the job ads would accept "colored"
applicants, but not Irish.

Edit: "that" -> "than".

~~~
djur
At the time, black people were stereotyped as servile and easily pressed to
work, while the Irish were stereotyped as pugilistic, unreliable layabouts
(and, to some, sinister Papists).

~~~
Turing_Machine
I had noticed that several of the ads also specified Protestants.

------
packetized
I cannot recall such an elegant and well researched response to such a load of
whale shit.

------
aaronbrethorst
It's not exactly hard to prove that this used to appear in newspapers all the
time. A 10 second search on the LOC website shows a ton of examples of this
phrase appearing in papers across America:
[http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/pages/results/?stat...](http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/pages/results/?state=&date1=1836&date2=1922&proxtext=%22no+irish+need+apply%22&x=0&y=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&rows=20&searchType=basic)

Professor Jensen should be ashamed of himself for failing to conduct even the
most trivial searches for this information.

~~~
unstabilo
You didn't read the search results. Those are not ads, but articles mentioning
the phrase, at least on the first page (20 articles).

~~~
azernik
News articles mentioning the phrase were exactly what Jensen claimed would
have appeared if the signs existed, and whose absence he claimed proved the
non-existence of these signs.

Fried just took the additional initiative of going directly to the newspaper
ads, which are primary sources indicating discrimination, rather than the
secondary sources of newspaper articles talking about the discrimination.

------
LoSboccacc
Well one had to say the whole premise of 'couldn't find evidence thus fact
didn't exist' was fishy even before the article started digging out the
evidence that reseaecher somehow missed.

~~~
lotharbot
> _" the whole premise of 'couldn't find evidence thus fact didn't exist' was
> fishy"_

Not really. The one thing he's correct about is that, if NINA was a real and
widespread phenomenon, it would show up in certain pieces of documentation of
the era -- newspaper want ads, for example (we actually have fairly large
archives from the relevant era; it's not like something from thousands of
years ago where it's plausible that no documentation would have survived.) His
problem was that he didn't look deeply enough, and once he drew the initial
wrong conclusion, he invented a totally wrong theory to explain it.

~~~
raverbashing
> it would show up in certain pieces of documentation of the era

True. I think what he assumed was that it would show in other types of
documents (like discrimination lawsuits, news showing revolt of the Irish
against this policy, etc)

But I suspect this was very common and accepted, unfortunately.

~~~
azernik
Except that, as Fried, showed, it _did_. Not quite anti-discrimination
lawsuits, since those laws didn't exist at the time, but there's an example of
some Irish filing a libel lawsuit against a newspaper for printing a NINA
advertisement, and of an Irish protest against the posting of a NINA sign at a
mill.

~~~
tankenmate
Actually the mill was a different situation; the mill owner adverstised the
jobs and large numbers came to apply, Irish and non Irish. The non Irish came
armed (guns and knives) and forced the mill owner to put up a sign saying "No
Irish Need Apply". The Irish being unarmed decided to leave the scene.

------
ectoplasm
> I’m the PhD who wrote the original article. I’m delighted a high school
> student worked so hard and wrote so well.

He's certainly not doing himself any favors with this condescending appeal to
authority. In general, the exchange between Jensen and Fried is a perfect
example of how to handle a nasty person with grace.

~~~
raverbashing
Why am I not surprised?

I wouldn't put it past the fact that the high schooler probably knows how to
google better than the "phd"

"Jensen attracted a lot of attention because he did not just write that the
NINA signs did not exist, he said the Irish were and are delusional, that in
order to sustain a sense of victimhood they had manufactured a group-wide lie
of discriminatory anti-Irish ads and signs"

Oh wow, lovely lad

Another edit: "Wanted - A Middle Aged protestant woman... no Irish need apply"
I think it would be hard to find an Irish Protestant at that time, no?

~~~
zumtar
> I think it would be hard to find an Irish Protestant at that time, no?

Belfast (and the whole of Ulster) was full of them.

~~~
raverbashing
I know that, I'm more wondering what was the amount that immigrated to the US
(in relation to Catholic Irish)

~~~
azernik
Many (including at least two Presidents). They just tended not to identify
themselves as plain "Irish".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch-
Irish_American](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch-Irish_American)

------
PhasmaFelis
Jensen: _" No other ethnic group complained about being singled out by
comparable signs."_

How on Earth did anyone take this man seriously? Is he a visitor from an
alternate universe where segregation never happened?

~~~
dspeyer
It is weird that this exact phrase kept getting used against the Irish and not
other discriminated-against groups. Nothing for Poles, Slavs, Italians,
Russians... Or at least that's what I'm finding on the LoC search. A few "No
Jews Need Apply", but only a few, and those aren't job listings.

Probably not a particularly important mystery, but weird.

~~~
skeolawn
There are likely some historical reasons. Here's a quote from The Times from
1860:

If this [exodus] goes on, as it is likely to go on…the United States will
become very Irish….So an Ireland there will still be, but on a colossal scale,
and in a new world. We must gird our loins to encounter the Nemesis of seven
centuries’ misgovernment. To the end of time a hundred million spread over the
largest havitable area in the world, and, confronting us everywhere by sea and
land, will remember that their forefathers paid tithe to the Protestant
clergy, rent to absentee landlords, and a forced obedience to the laws which
these had made. (The Times, quoted in The Nation, May 1860)

------
rmason
It's called researchers bias where someone so fervently believes something is
true that it influences their research. NINA is a good example of an
uncomfortable truth.

~~~
briandear
Same could be said for human caused global warming..

~~~
DanBC
Yes. Even though the overwhelming majority of scientists agree that climate
change is real and probably has human causes you do still find people in the
pay of large fossil fuel companies who will deny the reality, and then a
number of otherwise smart people who believe the shills.

It's a fascinating (also frustrating) phenomenom.

~~~
njloof
Well documented in the film "Merchants of Doubt." Many cut their teeth in the
tobacco industry and went on to ply their trade in environmental denialism.

------
dalke
I read about the "NINA" paper when it came out. This summary of the new
historical research amply shows that the original thesis indeed needs
"substantial modification".

While it says nothing of the historical accuracy, the exchange between the two
historians, quoted in the text, makes me lean much more in favor of the
researcher behind the new work.

------
mcphage
> Let me make one last point and then I promise I will shut up and give you
> the last word if you want it. You began this conversation by stating that
> the article “did not claim to find a single window sign anywhere in the
> USA.” I think we now agree at least that this is not correct. Many are
> specifically listed.

Ouch. That's a serious burn.

------
Lorento
It's funny how blind people are to the same thing happening today. Most
employers openly refuse people based on their nationality and we are perfectly
accepting of that, even enforcing it with the law!

I wonder if people in another 100 years will think it's wrong to discriminate
against people because of who their parents were.

~~~
njloof
If this is a veiled reference to affirmative action, at least show the courage
to say what you really mean.

~~~
Lorento
I mean not allowing foreigners to work, even when they live in the country.
Ironically, the public's distrust of the Irish and other foreigners has led to
the law disallowing them at the border rather than individual employers at the
job application. We don't allow Irish to freely enter the US and work today.

~~~
Houshalter
Right but that's not because they hate immigrants or think they are inferior
or whatever. It's because they don't want them to compete for jobs with
Americans. It's an attempt at protectionism of labor and preventing a race to
the bottom. Your accusations that it's racist or discrimination is just not
correct.

~~~
Lorento
Not entirely racism, but still discrimination.

------
metasean
Reminds me of a sign I saw in the Pueblo, Co train depot -
[http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/mix97-3.com/files/201...](http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/mix97-3.com/files/2015/03/Pueblo-
Depot-Immigrant-sign-e1426613606220.jpg?w=600&h=0&zc=1&s=0&a=t&q=89)

For attribution purposes, the image is associated with an enlightening write-
up, but that particular image isn't in the actual article -
[http://mix97-3.com/youre-never-too-old-for-a-spring-break-
le...](http://mix97-3.com/youre-never-too-old-for-a-spring-break-learning-
experience/)

------
aaron695
Australian bricklayer employment ad says “No Irish” need apply (2012)

[http://www.irishcentral.com/news/australian-bricklayer-
emplo...](http://www.irishcentral.com/news/australian-bricklayer-employment-
ad-says-no-irish-need-apply-142442405-237434871.html)

Totally irrelevant to the conversation other than perhaps the
myths/realities/realities that become myths/myths that become realities
perhaps traverse time.

[http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/result?q=irish+need+not+ap...](http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/result?q=irish+need+not+apply)

~~~
nailer
Australia's pretty backward about this stuff. E.g. example: someone on HN
yesterday was saying Jeremy Clarkson (from the UK) wasn't old enough to
remember the racist version of 'eeny meeny miny mo'. I remember it and I was
born in Australia in the 80s.

------
goodcanadian
I didn't think the existence of such signs was a contested bit of history. I
guess you can find apparently qualified people espousing all sorts of
nonsense.

~~~
epochwolf
There are people denying the holocaust. An event for which plenty of
historical evidence exists. People will believe what they want to believe.

~~~
goodcanadian
Indeed. That is exactly the example that popped into my head as well. It would
not surprise me at all if there were even a few holocaust deniers with PhDs in
history.

------
gilgoomesh
Website has slowed to a crawl. Here's Google's text cache:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:23zU9KH...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:23zU9KHvzmkJ:www.longislandwins.com/columns/detail/high_school_student_proves_professor_wrong_when_he_denied_no_irish_need_app&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

------
nl
_historians have not discovered reports of any in the United States, Canada or
Australia._

Oh really? Australia, 1862:

[http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/115763711?searchTerm...](http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/115763711?searchTerm=No%20irish&searchLimits=l-australian=y)

------
bane
Here's what the signs look like for those interested, most appear to be from
London.

[https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=%22no+irish%22+window+...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=%22no+irish%22+window+sign&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAWoVChMIlO-
ynJeIxwIVQRo-Ch11AAx4&biw=1680&bih=965)

Here's a reddit thread on the issue

[https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/3erkxv/nina_no_i...](https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/3erkxv/nina_no_irish_need_apply_emeritus_professor/?sort=confidence)

------
kjs3
I've met a certain subculture of racists who like to point to articles like
this and say things like "well since there were never NINA signs,
discrimination against blacks couldn't have been as bad as it was". Reading
Jensen you can see how he's a kindred spirit of such people. It's apparent he
started out with "I think the Irish were lazy, violent and anti-American who
need victim-hood to maintain their identity" and set to work to prove it.

------
bruceb
The myth of bad treatment of returning Vietnam vets is something you see in
the movies but apparently didn't really happen much:
[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/20...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2007/01/newsweek_throws_the_spitter.html)

