Irish-Milwaukee history begins with the first Irish immigrants who arrived during Milwaukee's founding in the mid-1830s. Irish laborers helped shape the city by cutting down bluffs, filling in marshes, digging a canal, and creating streets. They were joined in the late 1840s by more Irishmen who were fleeing the Great Famine and starvation in Ireland. It's a history populated with heroic figures, and it's a tale of overcoming some of Milwaukee's biggest tragedies: the sinking of the Lady Elgin, the Newhall House fire, the Third Ward fire. This historical tour captures it all--from the difficulties in adapting to American Ways to the successes (as seen in the many people who have Milwaukee streets and parks named for them). "From the Emerald Isle to the Cream City" describes how the Irish influenced the political, educational, religious, and sports landscape of Milwaukee and their impact on other ethnic groups, overcoming early poverty and bigotry to help make Milwaukee the city that it is today.