Sacred Savings? Irish American Women and the Domestic Economy

St. Alphonsus Church lies in the heart of the New Orleans neighborhood, the Irish Channel. Built with the help of Irish labor and Irish pennies, the parish was/is run by the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, commonly referred to as the Redemptorists. Beyond their regular duties, and not commonly known, the Redemptorists also operated a savings bank for their parishioners. Surviving records for the day deposit books cover the period from 1858-1890. My current research examines these records to uncover who utilized this informal bank, the median size of deposits as well as length of time of each deposit to determine the strategies the Irish employed in managing their households. Preliminary conclusions show that it was utilized almost exclusively by women, and sometimes without their   husbands’ knowledge. Moreover, single women also stored their savings with the priests, and often for surprisingly long periods of time.  This paper will examine the deposit books along with information from the city directories as well as federal censuses to create greater transparency of the working lives of Irish women, both in and out of the home, in a post-Famine, post-Civil War world.