In the winter of 1910, The Irish Homestead shared an account of what immigration may have looked like to those back in Ireland. 

The Irish girl who has gone to America sends home photographs of herself. It is these photographs that do all the mischief with her remaining sisters. Is this fashionably attired lady the Bridget they knew? 

(Bridget—cultural shorthand for an Irish lass.) 

Fashionable attire? Mostly, she looked like this. 

Had said Irish girl been portrayed at work—as she is here, standing in the kitchen—she might well have pulled her apron off, hiding it behind her. 

And she most certainly would have concealed her hands. First-person accounts from many in service spoke often of the shame of their rough, red hands. 

Head held high, pots and pans pushed to one side, countertop clean—perhaps just a small rag in sight—she was not fashionable, but she retained her dignity, in spite of it all. 

There was no mischief. There was only work.