Lace curtain Irish and shanty Irish are terms that were commonly used in the 19th and 20th centuries to categorize Irish Americans, by social class. The "lace curtain Irish" were those who were well-o
Interior of a prosperous American household in 1905, with a lace curtain
"The Patch", an Irish shanty town in Holyoke, Massachusetts, 1850
James Michael Curley
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James Michael Curley was an American Democratic politician from Boston, Massachusetts. He served four terms as mayor of Boston between 1914 and 1950. Curley ran for mayor in every election for which h
Lace curtain and shanty Irish
…commonplace in Irish-American working-class homes, "lace curtain" was still used in a metaphorical, and often pejorative, sense. In the early 20th century, James Michael Curley, a famously populist Boston politician who was called "mayor of the poor", used the term "cut glass Irish" to mock the Irish-American middle class, but…
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Curley circa 1908
Portrait photograph of Curley, circa 1921
Mayor Curley (second from left) leads a delegation visiting the White House on April 6, 1925, to lobby President Calvin Coolidge for the establishment of a veterans hospital at Fort Strong