Irish immigrants were visually distinguishable by dress like free blacks

Evidence

The Liberator estimated that no fewer than four thousand people attended the meeting, including a large number of Irish from Boston and vicinity (whom one observer remarked could be distinguished by their dress as easily as the Negroes). “A more united and enthusiastic meeting was never held in the Old Cradle of Liberty. Its influence will be felt throughout the country,” concluded the report. — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 56

Categorization

• XREF: Direct evidence for the reader’s core comparison: Irish were visually classed much as Black Americans were — relevant to the mechanism of category reclassification from a despised group upward. — connects to: Antebellum Irish and blacks shared social, criminal, and religious life — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 149; Irish immigrants initially lived intimately alongside Black Americans in shared districts — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 146; Irish and free Blacks shared a common lowly culture before the Irish became white — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 34
• SEED: Angle: what happens to a group’s ‘visual legibility’ markers when it ascends into the protected racial category — how the dress/other cues that once singled them out are shed.