HIST 540 Famine Irish Immigrants and their Children: A Case Study in Immigration
This course will focus on the story of the Irish immigrants who fled their homeland's famine in the late 1840s and their children, who grew to maturity at the turn of the twentieth century, as a case study in American immigration and ethnic group history. Participants will read from all the major secondary sources on topics such as family history and family memory; the background of Famine Irish society; the Famine and its aftermath in Ireland, the processes of migration; the theory of ethnic group evolution in America; Irish participation in the American economy; Irish American neighborhoods; Irish American families; the civic, religious and leisure lives of Famine immigrants and their children; and Irish Americans and other immigrant groups. Participants will also learn how to use primary sources in Ireland and the United States to reconstruct histories of Irish and Irish American families and communities in the nineteenth century.