Irish Titan, Irish Toilers: Joseph Banigan and Nineteenth-century New England Labor (Revisiting New England: the New Regionalism) - Softcover

Molloy, Scott

3.88

8 ratings by Goodreads

9781584656913: Irish Titan, Irish Toilers: Joseph Banigan and Nineteenth-century New England Labor (Revisiting New England: the New Regionalism)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1584656913 ISBN 13: 9781584656913

Publisher: Univ of New Hampshire, 2008

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In 1847 Joseph Banigan, an Irish Potato Famine refugee, established himself in Rhode Island as an entrepreneur. This was a time when "No Irish Need Apply" signs abounded and discrimination against the Irish and other immigrants--institutionalized in the constitution of his adopted state--hindered voting and other human rights. Bucking this trend and belying his humble origins, Banigan succeeded spectacularly in the emerging local rubber footwear industry, becoming the president of the United States Rubber Company--one of the nation's major cartels, and New England's first Irish-Catholic millionaire. Backed by primary and secondary research on two continents, Molloy's inquiry into Bannigan's notoriety and success singularly codifies and elucidates the Irish-American experience during this critical period in American labor history.

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About the Author:

SCOTT MOLLOY is an award-winning Professor at the Labor Research Center, University of Rhode Island. He previously drove a bus, was a union activist, and was Chief of Staff to a United States Congresswoman. A prolific writer, Molloy's most recent book is Trolley Wars: Streetcar Workers on the Line (UNH, 2007).

Review:

The Providence Sunday Journal"

The Providence Phoenix"

The New England Quarterly"

"With the good sense, keen judgment, and undeniable wit for which he is so well known, University of Rhode Island labor historian Scott Molloy has written a fascinating book on a previously underappreciated figure in 19th-century New England."--The Providence Sunday Journal

"This remarkably rich history of 19th-century workers and one particularly successful entrepreneur, Joseph Banigan, is . . . solid. Molloy carries us through the struggles of Irish immigrants and their role in the burgeoning labor movement, along with Banigans's rise to riches and his subsequent fame as a philanthropist. Irish Titan, Irish Toilers is expertly researched and imminently readable." --The Providence Phoenix

"[Joseph] Banigan's story is set within the larger framework of the history of the Irish in nineteenth-century Rhode Island." --Rhode Island History

"Molloy utilizes an impressive range of newspapers, court cases, business records, and other sources to provide not only an excellent biography but also an illuminating examination of Irish Americans in late-nineteenth-century Rhode Island."--The New England Quarterly

With the good sense, keen judgment, and undeniable wit for which he is so well known, University of Rhode Island labor historian Scott Molloy has written a fascinating book on a previously underappreciated figure in 19th-century New England.-- "The Providence Sunday Journal"

This remarkably rich history of 19th-century workers and one particularly successful entrepreneur, Joseph Banigan, is . . . solid. Molloy carries us through the struggles of Irish immigrants and their role in the burgeoning labor movement, along with Banigans's rise to riches and his subsequent fame as a philanthropist. Irish Titan, Irish Toilers is expertly researched and imminently readable.-- "The Providence Phoenix"

[Joseph] Banigan's story is set within the larger framework of the history of the Irish in nineteenth-century Rhode Island.-- "Rhode Island History"

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