Historians have long assumed that immigration to the United States was free from regulation until anti-Asian racism on the West Coast triggered the introduction of federal laws to restrict Chinese immigration in the 1880s. Studies of European immigration and government control on the East Coast have, meanwhile, focused on Ellis Island, which opened in 1892. [Read more…] about Expelling the Poor: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy
Irish History
Clinton County’s Irish Immigrant Legacy
Many people from Clinton County, NY have ancestors from Ireland or Canada. In the 1850 census, in the Town of Ausable, one in four people were born in Canada or Ireland. In the Town of Clinton, every other person would have been born in Canada or Ireland. In the whole of Clinton County in 1850, only half could claim to be born in New York, as was the case for the Town of Black Brook. [Read more…] about Clinton County’s Irish Immigrant Legacy
Clover: A Widely Naturalized Non-Native
Call it a flower or call it a weed – clover is a plant everyone knows. Who hasn’t idled away an hour hunting for a four-leaf clover, hoping for good luck? [Read more…] about Clover: A Widely Naturalized Non-Native
The African Burial Ground, Columbia University & Manhattan’s Grave-Robbers
On July 26, 1788, the Convention of the State of New York, meeting in Poughkeepsie, ratified the Constitution of the United States and, in doing so, was admitted to the new union as the eleventh of the original thirteen colonies joining together as the United States of America.
For New Yorkers, it had been an eventful year. [Read more…] about The African Burial Ground, Columbia University & Manhattan’s Grave-Robbers
Ireland’s Public Record Office Virtual Reconstruction Primer
Beyond 2022 is working to recreate, digitally, Ireland‘s lost national treasure. This all-island and international research program combines historical research, archival discovery and technical innovation to track down copies and transcripts of original records lost in 1922.
Reuniting collections scattered around the globe, the aim of Beyond 2022 is to launch the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland — an open-access, virtual reconstruction of the Record Treasury destroyed at the Public Record Office of Ireland in the Four Courts Fire of 1922.
[Read more…] about Ireland’s Public Record Office Virtual Reconstruction Primer
The First Kennedys: Roots of an American Dynasty
Patrick and Bridget Kennedy arrived in the United States following the Great Famine — penniless and hungry. Less than a decade after their marriage in Boston, Patrick’s sudden death left Bridget to raise their children single-handedly.
Her rise from housemaid to shop owner in the face of rampant poverty and discrimination kept her family intact, allowing her only son P. J. to become the first American Kennedy elected to public office — the first of many. [Read more…] about The First Kennedys: Roots of an American Dynasty
Irish Immigrant, Medal of Honor Winner Terrence Begley Being Honored in Albany
The Friends of the Albany Rural Cemetery will hold a ceremony on Saturday, August 21st to dedicate a military marker for Irish immigrant Civil War Medal of Honor recipient Terrence Begley.
Begley was born in Ireland and raised in Albany. He enlisted as a private in the 7th NY Heavy Artillery regiment, an Albany regiment, on February 11th, 1864.
[Read more…] about Irish Immigrant, Medal of Honor Winner Terrence Begley Being Honored in Albany
Anxiety Over Jazz In Ireland Followed A Tragic Shipwreck
On November 11th, 1919, the first anniversary was celebrated of the Armistice that ended the First World War. For the occasion, a grand ball was held at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Top of the bill was the hugely popular Southern Syncopated Orchestra, one of the first jazz bands to visit Britain, Scotland, and Ireland. [Read more…] about Anxiety Over Jazz In Ireland Followed A Tragic Shipwreck
Fires of Philadelphia: A New Book On The 1844 Nativist Riots
In 1844 America was in a state of deep unrest, grappling with xenophobia, racial, and ethnic tension on a national scale that feels singular to our time, but echoes the earliest anti-immigrant sentiments of the country.
In that year Philadelphia was set aflame by a group of Protestant ideologues — avowed nativists — who were seeking social and political power rallied by charisma and fear of the Irish immigrant menace. [Read more…] about Fires of Philadelphia: A New Book On The 1844 Nativist Riots
Martin Van Buren and New York’s Irish Community
Martin Van Buren’s relationship with the Irish community in New York was rather incidental, developing in parallel to the rise of his career.
The root of what became a favorable association between the two seems to be an inadvertent outcome grounded in political events that shook Ireland and America beginning in 1798 and continued throughout Van Buren’s career/life. [Read more…] about Martin Van Buren and New York’s Irish Community