1 - Reflections on the Meaning of America in Irish Emigrant Material Culture, 1845–1925

Summary

The chapter examines tangible and intangible evidence associated with the Irish who emigrated and settled in America and who sometimes returned to Ireland and evaluates whether it can be considered as part of an Americanising of Irish identity. Material culture associated with Irish emigration to America such as posters, guidebooks, newspapers, wakes, places, spaces, letters, remittances and the returner, ideas and behaviours became integral parts of Irish society and their influence went beyond their practical use in facilitating departure. Each created a vision of America in Ireland which accords with Mark Wyman and Dirk Hoerder’s European-wide findings that two distinct images of America emerged in the home country: the ‘materialistic view of the land of wealth, and the idealistic view of the land of equal rights and democracy’. These largely positive views of America translated into ‘Americanising’ forces in Irish society alongside British and other European economic, political and cultural forces in Ireland. These two-way forces revolving around America as a destination and as a swiftly modernising country, particularly from the nineteenth century onwards, meant that Irish women and men of all backgrounds were exposed to American ideas, practices and behaviours.