scholarly journals “The Heart of this People is in its right place”: The American Press and Private Charity in the United States during the Irish Famine

Text Matters ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 151-167
Author(s):  
Paweł Hamera
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
British Empire ◽  
The United States ◽  
Potato Blight ◽  
Irish Famine ◽  
Private Charity ◽  
American Press ◽  
Irish People ◽  
Number Of Individuals

The potato blight that struck Ireland in 1845 led to ineffable suffering that sent shockwaves throughout the Anglosphere. The Irish Famine is deemed to be the first national calamity to attract extensive help and support from all around the world. Even though the Irish did not receive adequate support from the British government, their ordeal was mitigated by private charity. Without the donations from a great number of individuals, the death toll among the famished Irishmen and Irishwomen would have been definitely higher. The greatest and most generous amount of assistance came from the United States. In spite of the fact that the U.S. Congress did not decide to earmark any money for the support of famine-stricken Ireland, the horrors taking place in this part of the British Empire pulled at American citizens’ heartstrings and they contributed munificently to the help of the Irish people. Aiding Ireland was embraced by the American press, which, unlike major British newspapers, lauded private efforts to bring succour to the Irish. Such American newspapers as the Daily National Intelligencer, the New York Herald and the Liberator encouraged their readers to contribute to the relief of Ireland and applauded efforts to help the Irish. The aim of this essay is to argue that the American press, in general, played a significant role in encouraging private charity in the United States towards the Irish at the time of An Gorta Mór and, thus, helped to save many lives.

Networks and Opportunities: A Digital History of Ireland’s Great Famine Refugees in New York

2019 ◽  
Vol 124 (5) ◽  
pp. 1591-1629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyler Anbinder ◽  
Cormac Ó Gráda ◽  
Simone A. Wegge
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
The United States ◽  
Electronic Version ◽  
Easy Access ◽  
Digital History ◽  
Irish Famine ◽  
Savings Bank ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
History Of

Abstract For decades, historians portrayed the immigrants who arrived in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century fleeing the great Irish Famine as a permanent proletariat, doomed to live out their lives in America in poverty due to illiteracy, nativism, and a lack of vocational skills. Recent research, however, primarily by economic historians, has demonstrated that large numbers of Famine refugees actually fared rather well in the United States, saving surprising sums in bank accounts and making strides up the American socioeconomic ladder. These scholars, however, have never attempted to explain why some Famine immigrants thrived in the U.S. while others struggled merely to scrape by. Utilizing the unusually detailed records of New York’s Emigrant Savings Bank in conjunction with the methods of the digital humanities, this article seeks to understand what characteristics separated those Irish Famine immigrants who fared well financially from those who did not. Analysis of a database of more than 15,000 depositors suggests that networking was the key to economic advancement for the Famine immigrants. Those who lived in residential enclaves with other immigrants born in the same Irish parish saved significantly more than other immigrants, and those who created employment niches based on an Irish birthplace also amassed more wealth than those who did not. The electronic version of the article provides easy access to the database and interactive maps, allowing readers to ask their own questions of the data. The article also fleshes out the life stories of many of the immigrants found in the database, using documents found on genealogy websites such as Ancestry.com. These handwritten census records, ship manifests, and bank ledgers are hyperlinked to the electronic version of the article. That makes this essay ideal for classroom use—students can move effortlessly to the documents that underpin each paragraph and see clearly how historians use archival evidence to formulate arguments and shape historical narratives.

The Joint Declaration on the colonies: an issue in Anglo-American relations, 1942–1944

1976 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. E. Williams
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
East Asia ◽  
British Empire ◽  
The United States ◽  
South East Asia ◽  
Joint Declaration ◽  
American Press ◽  
Anglo American

The collapse of the British Empire in south-east Asia in the early months of 1942 brought to the fore in Anglo-American relations the different attitudes of the two countries towards colonialism. Surprisingly, their long standing disagreement about the merits of colonialism was not pushed to one side by the need to defeat Japan. On the contrary, Britain's humiliating setbacks in Malaya and Burma reinforced doubts and confirmed prejudices in the United States about the probity of the British Empire – doubts and prejudices that were powerfully articulated throughout 1942 and succeeding years in the American press as well as in private exchanges between members of the Administration and their British counterparts.

scholarly journals «NEW YORK TIMES» AND THE CHINESE CRISIS OF 1931

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 61-69
Author(s):  
S.O. Buranok ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The United States ◽  
Warring States ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Us ◽  
American Press ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Pacific Ocean

The article is devoted to the problem of formation of approaches and assessments of the Chinese crisis of 1931 in the US press; it is based on the materials of both Democratic and Republican press of the USA. The materials of the American press of 1931 dedicated to the search for the most efficient optimal strategy of building relations with China and Japan demonstrate a steady interest of American mass media towards negative and positive experience of Asianpolicy. In the course of a difficult search of an optimal view on crisis, several polar points of view were formulated in the American press. A study of daily newspapers and analytical magazines in the United States shows that in the fall of 1931 two approaches to the «Chinese incident» were formed: isolationist and internationalist. In the fall of 1931, the US periodicals did not yet have the idea of “saving China”, which became popular during the second Sino-Japanese war. The journalists and editors viewed a tacit and indirect support for the Japanese claims as only significant model for solving the «China problem». Thus, the study of the positions of the major American press and the most prominent journalists is important for understanding how the USA, after the Chinese crisis, gradually realized its place in the new system of international relations. In addition, the press shows how the United States planned to develop interaction with the warring states in the Pacific Ocean.

Anticolonial Wilde

2020 ◽  
pp. 29-56
Author(s):  
Deaglán Ó Donghaile
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Oscar Wilde ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Consciousness ◽  
The People ◽  
Irish People ◽  
Lecture Tour ◽  
Irish Art

During his 1882 lecture tour of the United States, Oscar Wilde reminded audiences of the violence done to the Irish people and to Irish art by the powerful forces of imperialism. He acknowledged that conquest, colonisation and coercion had done much damage to a culture that continued to resist the superimposition of “alien English thought” on his country. Wilde also complained that the British empire was now fostering an artificial political consciousness that was “far removed from any love or knowledge of those wrongs of the people”.This chapter illustrates how he supported the insurgent peasantry that fought the Land Wars of the 1870s and 1880s and sympathised with workers in the United States and Britain.

scholarly journals La emigración irlandesa decimonónica tras la gran hambruna, parte intrínseca del carácter irlandés

2020 ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Ester Díaz Morillo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New York ◽  
North American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
The North ◽  
Great Famine ◽  
Irish People

Resumen: A lo largo de la historia han tenido lugar episodios de grandes crisis que transformarían irremediablemente la vida de millones de personas. Uno de estos acontecimientos fue la gran hambruna producida en Irlanda entre 1845 y 1851, uno de los eventos más trágicos de nuestra historia contemporánea que dejaría profundas huellas en su población. Uno de sus efectos más graves fue la oleada migratoria sin precedentes que llevó a numerosos irlandeses especialmente hasta las costas norteamericanas. Este artículo pretende, por tanto, estudiar la migración irlandesa producida por la gran hambruna y las características especiales que mostró y que la hizo distinguirse del resto de olas migratorias europeas decimonónicas. La «nueva Irlanda» que se conformaría en lugares como Estados Unidos nunca perdería su vínculo con la isla y dejaría un legado imborrable en ciudades como Nueva York y Chicago.Abstract: Throughout history there have been episodes of major crisis which would inexorably transform the lives of millions. One of such events was the Great Famine that took place in Ireland between 1845 and 1851, which was one of the most tragic events in our contemporary history and which would leave important marks on its population. The great unprecedented migration wave which led countless Irish people, especially towards the North American coasts, was one of its gravest effects. The aim of this article, therefore, is to explore the Irish migration induced by this Great Famine and the special characteristics that it showed and that made it distinguishable from the rest of the migration waves from nineteenth-century Europe. The “new Ireland” which developed in places such as the United States would never lose its bond with the island and would leave an indelible legacy in cities like New York and Chicago.

‘The Actors Are Come Hither’: Shakespeare Productions by Travelling Companies in Asia

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kobayashi Kaori
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theatre Companies ◽  
History Of

In 1882, a critic of the journal Theatre noted that ‘the theatrical life of the present day might be described as a round of glorified strolling. The ‘circuits’ of Bristol, Norwich, and York of the last century are now replaced by those of the United States, South Africa, India, and Australia, and a modern actor thinks as little of a season in Melbourne or New York as his grandfather did of a week’s ‘starring’ in Edinburgh.’ Yet the story of how these Western theatre companies reached audiences in the faraway lands of the British Empire and Asia is still relatively untold. In this article Kaori Kobayashi explores in detail some itineraries around the turn of the twentieth century of these travelling companies, many of them relatively obscure, showing that the companies had a particular and significant impact on the development of Shakespearean performance and interpretation in the East. In essence, it is impossible to understand the rise of ‘Asian Shakespeare’ without also grasping how Western touring companies helped shape the East’s engagement with the West’s most canonical dramatist. Kaori Kobayashi is Professor of English at Nagoya City University, author of The Cultural History of The Taming of The Shrew (in Japanese, 2007), and editor of Shakespeare Performance Studies in Japan (in Japanese, 2010).

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