Fleeing the Famine: North America and Irish Refugees, 1845-1851 PDF
Preview Fleeing the Famine: North America and Irish Refugees, 1845-1851
FLEEING THE FAMINE This page intentionally left blank FLEEING THE FAMINE NORTH AMERICA AND IRISH REFUGEES, 1845-1851 Edited by Margaret M. Mulrooney PRAEGER Westport, Connecticut London Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fleeing the famine : North America and Irish refugees, 1845-1851 / edited by Margaret M. Mulrooney. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-275-9767O-X 1. Irish Americans—History—19th century. 2. Irish—Canada—History—19th century. 3. Irish—Migrations—History—19th century. 4. Refugees—United States—History—19th century. 5. Refugees—Canada—History—19th century. 6. United States—Emigration and immigration—History—19th century. 7. Canada—Emigration and immigration—History—19th century. 8. Ireland—Emigration and immigration—History—19th century. 9. Ireland—History—Famine, 1845-1852. I. Mulrooney, Margaret M., 1966— EI84.I6F59 2003 304.8730415'09034—dc21 2002030724 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2003 by Margaret M. Mulrooney All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2002030724 ISBN: 0-275-97670-X First published in 2003 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America @r The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21 For Tim In memoriam This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Preface ix Introduction xi Parti: Migration 1 Irish Famine Emigrants and the Passage Trade to North America 3 William A. Spray 2 The Ties that Bind: The Family Networks of Famine Refugees at the du Pont Powder Mills, 1802-1902 21 Margaret M. Mulrooney Part II: Responses 3 The Spirit of Manifest Destiny: The American Government and Famine Ireland, 1845-1849 45 Timothy J. Sarbaugh 4 "An Unprecedented Influx": Nativism and Irish Famine Immigration to Canada 59 Scott W. See 5 "Celtic Exodus": The Famine Irish, Ethnic Stereotypes, and the Cultivation of American Racial Nationalism 79 Dale T. Knobel 6 Irish American Drama of the 1850s: National Identity, "Otherness," and Assimilation 97 Stephen Watt VIII CONTENTS Part III: Memories 7 In the Famine's Shadow: An Irish Immigrant from West Kerry to South Dakota, 1881-1979 113 Kerby A. Miller 8 The Legacy of Irish Emigration to the Canadas in 1847 133 Cecil J. Houston and William J. Smyth Index 149 About the Contributors 153 PREFACE In the early spring of 19941 received a phone call from Tim Sarbaugh, an associate professor at Gonzaga University. Did I want to contribute a chapter to a volume on America and the Irish Famine? Did I ever! A graduate student struggling to com plete the first draft of my dissertation, I leaped at the opportunity. The time cer tainly seemed auspicious for the book that Sarbaugh proposed to publish. The sesquicentennial of the Great Famine loomed on the horizon; important events to mark the solemn occasion were being planned in Ireland, the United States, Can ada, and elsewhere. Most notable would be the opening in Cork of a new museum dedicated to telling the story of the famous potato blight and its impact not only on Irish but on world history. Sarbaugh's book, which he intended as a comparative study by American and Canadian scholars, seemed to suit the moment very well. As fate would have it, however, tragedy soon struck. In the spring of 1996, as the manuscript neared completion, Tim developed an inoperable stomach cancer and passed away, leaving a young wife and three small children. All those who knew him felt keenly the loss. My own memory is fixed: a young man with dark hair, laughing and relaxing over a pint in a Dublin pub, where several acquain tances had met up after an American Conference for Irish Studies meeting. Word of his death spread slowly. Meanwhile, his colleagues at Gonzaga packed up his books, downloaded his computer files, and brought stacks of boxes to his former home. There languished the fruits of his labors: article drafts and lecture notes, stu dent papers and blue book exams, all tossed together higgledy-piggledy with re search materials and bits of his own manuscript, a study of Catholicism's role in John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign. The Famine book seemed buried forever. In 2000, it rose again. With the support of Greenwood Publishing Group, I vol unteered to resurrect the project. Previous calls to the other contributors confirmed
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