Hell's Kitchen and the Battle for Urban Space: Class Struggle and Progressive Reform in New York City, 1894-1914 by Joseph J. Varga

Author:Joseph J. Varga [Varga, Joseph J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Public Policy, City Planning & Urban Development
ISBN: 9781583673485
Google: MeMoAAAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1583673482
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 2013-05-01T03:06:43.319827+00:00

For the West Side Irish, connections to Ireland, in the form of relatives and cultural memory, provided the framework for the production of local spaces of ethnic identity. As Ireland experienced numerous instances of struggle with England in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the cause of Home Rule and anti-English settlement served as rallying points to unite ideologically opposed groups. Whereas larger organizations such as Clan na Gael were primarily the reserve of the more well-off members of the New York Irish diaspora, county clubs, such as the Donegal Men’s Club and its Ladies Auxilliary, which met in Hell’s Kitchen, were largely the preserve of the Irish working class.193 County clubs created spaces not only for political activity, as when the clubs united to oppose the peaceful mediation of U.S.–British disputes in 1896, but were also places where business connections could be made. Though the majority of members were drawn from the working classes, county clubs also attracted a good number of Irish professionals and small business owners, and became places where a good carpenter could connect with a local contractor. The county clubs further contributed to the expansion of Irish ethnic space through participation in sports. As Manhattan clubs grew in size, they pooled their resources in 1897 to purchase land in the Laurel Hill section of Queens. There they built Celtic Park, originally set up to provide grounds for the traditional Irish sports of curling and Irish football. Only a ten-minute train ride from the Manhattan ferry terminal in Long Island City, Celtic Park’s surrounding environs quickly became an Irish enclave, housing working-class and professional Irish leaving Manhattan in search of better living conditions.194

The Irish ethnic press was also utilized as a weapon to defend the Irish New York community against racist slurs, and to identify political friend and foe. William Randolph Hearst and his paper, the Evening Journal, came in for particular attention and vitriol in the Gaelic American for “slurs” against Irish women, and reformers like Dr. Charles Parkhurst were often singled out for their characterizations of the Irish as monolithic, despised, and inebriated. The New York Sun, the “recognized organ of the English in New York, although owned by a Jew,” appeared as a weekly foil in the Irish American, and its bias was answered swiftly and decisively. Even fellow Catholics were called on the carpet, as when the Gaelic American conducted an ongoing campaign between 1900 and 1905 to end the “caricaturing of the Irish” at Catholic street fairs. But the Irish ethnic press did not only defend ethnicity. It promoted the Democratic Party in local elections, objecting especially to the “tribute” paid by Irish city dwellers to upstate interests. Irish trade union papers were particularly apt to promote homeownership, often framing the issue in class terms, defending the right of the “trades man” to own his own home.

Churches were obvious places of ethnic and religious solidarity, as well as meeting places and nodal points for many residents. For the Irish, St. Malachy’s on Eleventh Avenue and 40th Street, and St.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.