Becoming American Then: the Boston Irish in 1853
I finished my book Finn’s Clock shortly before our country’s latest immigration debate flared into an ideological riot. At the first mention of a border wall, this tale about a young Irish immigrant working on Boston Harbor in 1853 acquired a deeper resonance. It’s impossible not to compare our current situation to the actions of that era’s anti-immigrant Know-Nothing party, and to the dogged resilience of the novel’s hero, Finn O’Neill, determined to make a place for himself in this “land of the free” despite the odds.
On Wednesday evening, November 20th, in the CATV studio in White River Junction, I’ll present “Becoming American Then: the Boston Irish in 1853.” The combination reading and presentation explores the origins of Finn’s story – the choice of the book’s setting and period, the research that revealed the changing economic and social structure of Bostonian culture, the overwhelming effect of the Irish potato famine on both immigrants and citizens, and how a narrow-minded subculture tried to keep all immigrants out. From the wharves and shipyards to the sweatshops and factories, from the North End slums to Beacon Hill, the conflict played out in a slow burn that frequently flared into brawling.
On the surface, Finn’s Clock is both a coming-of-age tale and adventure story. The presentation maintains that mood, but it focuses on the book’s context, the very real history behind the adventure. Using period maps, paintings, lithographs, and newspaper clippings alongside census data and sobering facts about the Irish experience, the presentation looks beyond the political to the human and literary considerations that went into the creation of the book’s plot and its driving characters: Finn, his father and family, his employer, and the remarkable crew of a Chinese junk that sails into Boston Harbor that fall (an event with an equally remarkable real-life precedent in 1847).
The reading/presentation is free and open to the public. It will begin at 6:00 p.m. and will run for about an hour, including time for questions from the audience. It will also be aired later on CATV. The studio is in the Tip Top building at 85 North Main Street, Suite 142, in White River Junction. The studio doors will open at 5:30. For more information, contact me directly.
For more details about the background to Finn’s Clock, read my previous post, Finding Finn.