Irish Potato Famine Refugees Coming to Boston
The Irish Potato Famine of the late 1840s drastically increased immigration to Boston. The relatively cheap cost of travel from Great Britain to Boston led to some 20,000 immigrants each year between 1847 and 1854 making Boston their port of arrival.

A ticket cost $17 to $20, which was all too often every dime the immigrants had. By 1850, 25% of Boston's population was Irish.

Immigration After the Famine
Boston established itself as the second busiest U.S. port of entry after 1870, well behind the numbers going to New York. Immigration through Boston reached a high in 1882, when over 58,000 immigrants came through the port and immigrants' nationalities became more representative of Europe as a whole. Jewish and Italian neighborhoods grew quickly.

At the turn of the century, immigration through Boston mirrored the boom in immigration across the country. Like Ellis Island, Boston immigration peaked in 1907, when more than 70,000 immigrants landed at the Massachusetts port. Immigrants went through medical and legal examinations similar to those experienced by immigrants at Ellis Island.

As the 20th century progressed, Boston's immigration followed national trends, decreasing during WWI, increasing in the 1920s (when Boston saw many Portuguese and Finnish immigrants) and then decreasing during the Depression and WWII.

Source: Lawrence H. Fuchs, "Immigration through the Port of Boston," in Forgotten Doors: The Other Ports of Entry to the United States, ed. M. Mark Stolarik (Philadelphia: Balch Institute Press, 1988).