George Phillips Research Paper

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George Phillips was a man who live in the 19th century in the United States. He was an educated man and a farmer in Lawrence New Jersey. He was married and a father of 5 children who varied in age and one died young. Some of his children were grown and helped him run his farm which was his livelihood and main source of income. Mr. Phillips kept a diary from 1850 until 1864 of his life in which he would write out his life essentially day by day. Some days he might just describe the weather often he would discuss what he was doing on his farm and most importantly he would even explain some significant historical subjects that without primary source documentation like his diary historians would only be able to speculate about. However in analyzing …show more content…
When immigrants arrived at the states they would need to find work in order to earn money to be able to hopefully start a new life. During the 19th century America was very well versed in terms of agriculture. Farms were plentiful, they could be a very easy way for these immigrants to pick up work to earn money to survive in their new country. Given the fact that George Phillips owns a farm he would be looking for help to run it as manage a farm is too much for one man be able to do alone, especially as his children grew old and moved out. These two similar but different circumstances would drive something so small like the life of George Phillips and something this major like Irish immigration close enough to have a direct relation to each other. Irish immigrant unskilled labor was one of the most prominent factors in the success of George Phillips …show more content…
In the 1840’s the number of Irish immigrants that came into America reached 781,000. That number would only continue togrow through the 1850’s, almost reaching 1 million at 914,000 (Powell 1). This large group of foreign people’s impact on the nation would be made apparent. As all of these immigrants would seek work upon arrival to the country. In the 1840’s during the Irish immigration spike it is worth noting that these people had a mainly agricultural background (Bergquist 1). After being driven to migrate by such a significant factor such as the great famine, these people used agriculture as a tool of theirs in a country dominated by unskilled labor in industry along with crop and agriculture to find

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