The word Bridget as a slang term

[Moo_the_Magic_Cow]

I’m reading a paper on racism regarding the poet Emily Dickinson for a class, and it references the word Bridget in one of her poems as a racial slur. The author does not distinctively define how the word is racist, simply that it is. I’ve looked through slang dictionaries and googled the heck out of it, but I can’t find what it’s supposed to mean. The closest I’ve gotten is that Bridget was an Irish saint, thus it’d be an insult to Irish women, but that’s a total WAG.

The poem in question is here. http://209.16.199.17/lieder/d/dickinson/spider3.html

My question isn’t whether or not the poem is racist, because that’s my assignment, I’d just like to know what the word is supposed to mean.

Thanks.

[silenus]

St, Bridget wasn’t just an Irish saint. She is the second patron saint of Ireland. The use of her name as a racial slur is just like calling all Irishmen Paddy or Mick, or refering to blacks as Jemima or Rastus. It characterizes the women as being poor, ignorant and no-account.

[RealityChuck]

“Bridget” seems to have be used generically to indicate an Irish servant girl (much as “George” was used for Pullman porters).

[Colibri]

“Paddy and Bridget” were the standard names for Irish racist stereotypes in the nineteenth century.

From here:

In Frederick B. Opper’s cartoon for Puck, titled The King of A-Shantee, Paddy and Bridget are portrayed as the stereotypical Irish peasant couple, living in their lowly shanty; the Irishman is connected through the pun of “A-Shantee” with the African Ashanti, just as his prognathous, simian features suggest that he may be the theorized “missing link” in the evolution between apes and black Africans.

(See here for more on this.)

From here:

The domineering Irish cook had been a popular character as early as the 1850’s. Bridget could be very haughty in an interview and was inclined to be particular about choosing her employers. She might want to know: “How many avenings can I have out o’ the wake fer coortin’? Does the masther belong to the Laigue of Deliverance? Have yez anny objections to me pore ould mither and me husband’s lame nevvy slapin’ in the kitchen?” When one employer asked Bridget how she was on fancy dishes, she replied that she was as easy as possible but still broke them sometimes. Another mistress wanted to know if she was a good cook. Bridget told her that she hadn’t missed an early mass in ten years. She dumped the ashes out of a burial urn; caught flies to put on fly-paper; and started innumerable cookstoves with kerosene, usually blowing up herself and the house. It did no good to tell her she was green because she took it for a compliment.