Irish Fever

"This book builds upon the myriad of cultural-resource studies mining historic New York City and its Irish immigrant communities. Meredith B. Linn presents a number of primary sources from working-class Irish immigrants, focusing on illness, injury, and health care in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. She presents a "visceral historical archaeology" by using interdisciplinary methods and theories to examine how these newcomers to the United States experienced and reacted to three ailments that arguably were their leading causes of mortality and morbidity: typhus, tuberculosis, and work-related injuries. Because of how physicians and the American public understood these impacts, typhus exacerbated the stereotype of the Irish as sanguine, hot-headed, and animalistic, while tuberculosis, or the "white death," instead helped to "whiten" and re-humanize the Irish. In using these ailments as a lens, this study also presents new perspectives about urban labor, housing, community building, and consumption of commodities in a context of Irish diaspora"--

During the Potato Famine of the nineteenth century, about one million Irish people perished from starvation and disease, while more than two million fled the country in fear and desperation, with some 850,000 landing in New York City. After a difficult journey, many found themselves impoverished, taking dangerous jobs, and battling miserable living conditions in an unfamiliar urban landscape. These circumstances resulted in high rates of illness, injury, and death compared with other immigrant groups and native-born Americans. In this profound study, Meredith B. Linn explores three kinds of afflictions--typhus fever, tuberculosis, and work-related injuries--that disproportionately affected Irish immigrants, tracing how existing medical ideas and technologies intersected with American prejudices to further conspire against this once culturally distinct group. Linn makes a compelling case for how Americans' interpretations of the visible bodily changes wrought by typhus fever and injuries contributed to essentializing and dehumanizing biases against these new immigrants, while tuberculosis--with its symptoms of fatigue, pallor, and emaciation--enabled Americans to see individuals beyond stereotypes and to recognize the equal humanity of the Irish. Drawing upon extensive archaeological records, folkloric sources, and historical documents, Linn presents what she terms a "visceral historical archaeology"--a perspective rooted in historical archaeology and medical anthropology--to illuminate the experiences of these immigrants. She investigates their health-related ideas and practices and reveals their efforts to heal themselves using popular remedies from Ireland and several new American commodities. Laden with heartrending stories from real working-class Irish and their American doctors, this richly illustrated book provides new perspectives about urban experience in the context of the Irish diaspora and invites contemplation about how illness, injury, and healing have affected the lives and reception of newcomers to the US.

This work is a sequel to The Irish Victorian City. As a collection of national and regional studies, it reflected the consensus view of the subject by describing both the degree of the demoralization of the Irish immigrants into Britain for the early and mid-Victorian period, when they figured so largely in the official parliamentary and social reportage of the day; and then, in spite of every obvious difficulty posed by poverty, crime, disease, and prejudice, the positive aspect of the Irish Catholic achievement in the creation of enduring religious and political communities towards the end of the nineteenth century.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1876.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1874. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.