Irish Americans (Coming to America) - Hardcover

Deignan, Tom; Moreno, Barry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0764156276 ISBN 13: 9780764156274

Publisher: B E S Pub Co, 2003

Synopsis

The Irish arrived in large waves at the ports of Boston and New York in the mid- and late nineteenth century, many of them refugees from the potato famine, political oppression, and poverty. Originally manual laborers at sites including New York State’s Erie Canal, the Irish soon spread across the continent, first achieving prominence in public service jobs and municipal politics. Here is the story of the ordinary and the famous, from the neighborhood policemen to Boston’s illustrious Kennedy family and many others.

This important new series documents and dramatizes the immigration experience of untold numbers of men, women, and children who arrived in America from the four corners of the world. As they assimilated into American society, they enriched the nation’s character and experience. Many of America’s immigrants passed through the Ellis Island Immigration Center in New York Harbor during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. What were the initial hopes and fears of these new arrivals? Where did they first settle, and what kinds of work did they find? Which elements from their various cultures have since blended into the national scene and helped reshape what has become modern America? The first titles in this dramatic series bring alive the experiences of four important ethnic groups, with contemporary photos and first-person accounts of their dramatic, life-changing experiences. Readers glimpse each group’s social customs, family life, traditional food and drink, festivals, and much more. There are also brief but vivid capsule biographies of famous individuals who rose to prominence from each ethnic group. Approximately 150 illustrations in each book.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

[cover copy]
Some 40 million Americans claim Irish or Scotch-Irish ancestry. This fact makes it impossible to conceive of American history without including the contributions of Irish immigrants. In "Coming to America: Irish Americans, Tom Deignan retells the Irish immigrants' often poignant story. Most of them, after fleeing from oppressive landlords and massive famine, made a harsh and dangerous voyage across the Atlantic, only to face bigotry and hostility in America. Over time, they rallied and earned social respectability as Americans, many of them becoming schoolteachers, police officers, and politicians. One County Wexford immigrant could never have imagined that just over 100 years after he arrived in America and settled in Boston, his grandson would become the first Roman Catholic president of the United States.
Titles in this series:
African Americans Italian Americans Irish Americans Jewish Americans
[flap copy]
For the world's oppressed, poor, or simply opportunistic, America has always offered hope, luck, and the chance for a new start. "Coming to America is a nostalgic and evocative series using the authentic voices and personal accounts of the people who undertook--willingly or unwillingly--the often-dangerous voyage to the new country. Authored by specialists in their subjects under the general editorship of Barry Moreno, a curator at Ellis Island Museum, the books contain dozens of voices that speak clearly down the generations. They relate the engrossing stories of their personal histories, their journeys, how they were received, and what they made of their new lives in America.
Tom Deignan is an editor and columnist at the "Irish Voice inNew York City. He has taught history, cinema, and English at St. John's University and the City University of New York. He has written for newspapers including the "Newark Star-Ledger, and for magazines such as "Commonweal, Irish America, and "America. He also writes regularly for the "Sunday Business Post in Dublin.
Barry Moreno is a historian at the Ellis Island Museum. He has worked on a book of interviews of the immigrants passing through Ellis Island in different decades, and was the author of the Statue of Liberty Encyclopedia.

About the Author:

Barry Moreno is an historian at New York's famous Ellis Island Museum, site of America's most important early-twentieth-century immigration center.

About this edition

• Publisher: B E S Pub Co
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0764156276
• ISBN 13: 9780764156274
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 128