"They will melt like snowflakes in the sun," said one observer
of nineteenth-century Irish emigrants to America. Not only did they
not melt, they formed one of the most extensive and persistent
ethnic subcultures in American history. Dennis Clark now offers an
insightful analysis of the social means this group has used to
perpetuate its distinctiveness amid the complexity of American
urban life. Basing his study on family stories, oral interviews,
organizational records, census data, radio scripts, and the
recollections of revolutionaries and intellectuals, Clark offers an
absorbing panorama that shows how identity, organization,
communication, and leadership have combined to create the
Irish-American tradition. In his pages we see gifted storytellers,
tough dockworkers, scribbling editors, and colorful actresses
playing their roles in the Irish-American saga. As Clark shows, the
Irish have defended and extended their self-image by cultivating
their ethnic identity through transmission of family memories and
by correcting community portrayals of themselves in the press and
theatre. They have strengthened their ethnic ties by mutual
association in the labor force and professions and in response to
social problems. And they have created a network of communications
ranging from 150 years of Irish newspapers to America's
longest-running ethnic radio show and a circuit of university
teaching about Irish literature and history. From this framework of
subcultural activity has arisen a fascinating gallery of leadership
that has expressed and symbolized the vitality of the
Irish-American experience. Although Clark draws his primary
material from Philadelphia, he relates it to other cities to show
that even though Irish communities have differed they have shared
common fundamentals of social development. His study constitutes a
pathbreaking theoretical explanation of the dynamics of
Irish-American life.
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