CLOSURE: Central Library will be closed Tuesday, July 21, through Saturday, July 25, while emergency repairs are made to the building’s cooling system. We expect to reopen Monday, July 27. Click for more details on holds, program schedules, and returns during the closure. 

Notice of Public Meeting: Kalamazoo Public Library Board of Trustees | July 27 | 5:30 pm | Central Library/Van Deusen Room. The packet of information for the meeting can be found on the library’s website. 

Book

Plentiful country : the great potato famine and the making of Irish New York

Call Number

  • 974.71 A537.1 (CEN, OSH)

Browse similar titles by call number

Edition

First edition.

Publication Information

New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2024.

Physical Description

viii, 498 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Summary

"In 1845, a fungus began to destroy Ireland's potato crop, triggering a famine that would kill one million Irish men, women, and children--and drive over one million more to flee for America. Ten years later, the United States had been transformed by this stupendous migration, nowhere more than New York: by 1855, roughly a third of all adults living in Manhattan were immigrants who had escaped the hunger in Ireland. These so-called "Famine Irish" were the forebears of four U.S. presidents (including Joe Biden) yet when they arrived in America they were consigned to the lowest-paying jobs and subjected to discrimination and ridicule by their new countrymen. Even today, the popular perception of these immigrants is one of destitution and despair. But when we let the Famine Irish narrate their own stories, they paint a far different picture. In this magisterial work of storytelling and scholarship, acclaimed historian Tyler Anbinder presents for the first time the Famine generation's individual and collective tales of struggle, perseverance, and triumph. Drawing on newly available records and a ten-year research initiative, Anbinder reclaims the narratives of the refugees who settled in New York City and helped reshape the entire nation. Plentiful Country is a tour de force--a book that rescues the Famine immigrants from the margins of history and restores them to their rightful place at the center of the American story."-- Publisher's description.

Contents

  • "Enough to Sicken the Heart" : Ireland, Famine, Flight
  • "The Best Country in the World" : Coming to New York
  • "All the Rude and Heavy Work" : Day Laborers, Domestics, and Other Unskilled Workers
  • "Too Often Seen to Need Description" : Peddlers, Hawkers, and Vendors
  • "I Was Never Out of Work for Twenty-Four Hours" : Artisans
  • "Never Was There a Brighter Brain" : Clerks, Agents, and Civil Servants
  • "Getting On Very Well" : Business Owners
  • "Few Men Better Known" : Saloonkeepers
  • "Well-Cultivated Fields and a Good Bank Account" : The New York Irish Beyond New York
  • "A Respectable Life" : The Children of the Famine Immigrants.

Subjects