More wailing followed as Erin and her mother parted. After being physically separated Erin cautiously stepped onto the train, quickly grabbing a window seat so she could get a last glimpse of everyone as she left. As the train surged forward, so did the crowd on the ground. Erin's mother was one of hundreds who ran alongside the train until they were out of breath, vying for just that last glimpse of their departing (E p. 86-92).
What was it that made Erin want to go to America? The answer was really quite simple -- she went for the high wages everyone wrote home about, the promise of rising to a higher class than would have been allowed in Ireland, even the taste of adventure was attractive. The Irish who arrived in America during its colonization had forged paths for other emigrants to follow, and follow they did, especially during the famine years of the late 1840's. The famine refuges fled Ireland for survival rather than the higher wages new immigrants, like Erin, sought. "Although the Great Famine (1845 - 1849) did not initiate this mass exodus from Ireland, it did a great deal to institutionalize emigration as a permanent feature of Irish life" ( B p.61). Young people like Erin had grown up with families who had sent at least one child to America and it was common place to hear all about the letters and adventure their friends and family had had in America. The envelopes that had arrived contained dollars and passage tickets, both of which were used to pay the rent or send another son or daughter to the States. .
By the 1860's it seemed everyone was aware that America represented enormous opportunity and freedom from the oppressive history the Irish had come to bear. Between 1845 and 1854 nearly 1.5 million Irish arrived in America; this number swelled even more by 1870, when over 1 million more arrived; by 1900 this number grew to nearly 5 million. This mass emigration was both good and bad for Ireland.
