That's tragic about those "No Blacks, No Irish" signs, which I didn't know about. When historians try to explain why so many Irish came to America, they typically cite the potato famine. But the kind of discrimination those signs reflected can't have helped.

It's interesting that you don't recall seeing "Mike Mulligan." Americans had "Peter Rabbit" and other books from Britain back then, but a two-way exchange doesn't seem to have begun until decades later. I'm glad it's happening at last, because both countries have produced wonderful children's authors (with one of my favorites from Britain being John Burningham).