Paddy and the Republic: Ethnicity and Nationalty in the Antebellum America

288 Pages·1988·5.72 MB·English

by  Dale T. Knobel

Paddy and the Republic

Dale T. Knobel
Paddy and th e R epublic
Ethnicity and Nationality in
Antebellum America
Wesleyan University Press
Middletown, Connecticut
Copyright © 1986 by Dale T. Knobel
All rights reserved
Brief portions of this book appeared in the following
articles by the author: “Know-Nothings and Indians:
Strange Bedfellows” in The Western Historical Quar­
terly, April 1984; “A Vocabulary of Ethnic Perception:
Content Analysis of the American Stage Irishman,
1820-1860” in Journal of American Studies, April
1981; and “Native Soil”: Nativists, Colonizationists,
and the Rhetoric of Nationality” in Civil War History,
December 1981.
All inquiries and permission requests should be
addressed to the Publisher, Wesleyan University Press,
110 Mt. Vernon Street, Middletown, Connecticut
06457-
Distributed by Harper & Row Publishers, Keystone
Industrial Park, Scranton, Pennsylvania 18512.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN
PUBLICATION DATA
Knobel, Dale T., 1949-
Paddy and the republic.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
i. Irish Americans—Public opinion—History—19th
century. 2. Public opinion—United States—History—
19th century. 3. United States—Ethnic relations.
4. Nativism—History— 19th century. 1. Tide.
Ei 84.16x57 1986 973'.049i62 85-8554
ISBN 0-8195-5117-1 (alk. paper)
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition
For my mother and father

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xix
INTRODUCTION
Paddy and the Republic 3
CHAPTER ONE
Finding Paddy 21
CHAPTER TWO
“The Sin of the Irishman Is Ignorance—
The Cure Is Liberty” 39
CHAPTER THREE
“An Irishman by Nature” 68
CHAPTER FOUR
Science and the Celt 104
CHAPTER FIVE
Paddy and the Know-Nothings 129
CHAPTER SIX
Ethnicity and Nationality in Antebellum America 165
Appendix A Content Analysis 183
Appendix B Sources and Sampling 200
Notes 207
Index 241
vii

Illustrations
NURTURE (following p. 76)
“The Lament of the Irish Emigrant”: title page of popular 1840s ballad
A “flood” of Paddies: cartoon, Harper's Monthly, 1856
The stage Irishman: Tyrone Powers 1847 farce, Howto Pay the Rent
Counting the Irish: Federal Manuscript Census, Hudson, Ohio, 1850
“Here and There; or Emigration the Remedy” : English woodcut, 1848
“By industry and economy I am become prosperous”: lithograph, 1843
“Popery Undermining Free Schools”: woodcut, The Papal Conspiracy
Exposed, 1855
“Jamie and the Bishop”: cartoon from the election campaign of 1844
Anti-Catholic newspaper: The Protestant Vindicator, 1841
Protestant martyrs: illustration from A Pictorial History of England,
1845
Philadelphia “Bible Riots”: broadside, 1844
Philadelphia “Bible Riots”: lithograph 1844
NATURE (following p. 156)
New clothes, same old Paddy: cartoon, Harper's Monthly, 1854
“Celtic” physiognomy: cartoon of New York cabmen, Harper's Weekly,
i860
Lantern-jawed and low-browed Irish threaten the public schools: car­
toon, Harper's Monthly, 1852
'Wanted—Protestant Girls”: advertisement, The New York Times,
1852
A half-human Irish family: cartoon, Harper's Monthly, 1855
“Hans”, comic and benign caricature of the German immigrant:
Harper's Monthly, 1856
IX
X ILLUSTRATIONS / TABLES
“Tidy little” German housemaid: cartoon, Harper's Weekly, i860
Paddy, the “ape” behind the angel: cartoon, Harfe/s Monthly, 1856
Bridget, vulgar, drunken, and violent: cartoon, Harfe/s Monthly, 1855
“Contrasted Faces”: ethnic caricatures from New Physiognomy, 1866
“Repository of Science, Literature, General Intelligence”: American
Phrenological Journal, 1855
The “untrained, blunt, coarse bog-trotter”: Irish represented in New
Physiognomy
Nativist self-image with alien as serpent: icon of the Order of United
Americans, 1851
Nativists’ nightmare, immigrants stealing ballot box: political cartoon,
1850s
“Beware of foreign influence”: nativist campaign broadside, 1850s
“Simian” Irishmen: caricature by Thomas Nast, Harfe/s Weekly, 1867
TABLES
The following tables affear in Affendix A:
1. Categories of Ethnic Description 186
2. An Antebellum “Dictionary” of Ethnic Adjectives 189
3. Distribution of Items in Two Adjectival Dictionaries
193
4. Categorization of “Unit-Perceptions” in Antebellum
Conversation 194
5. Evaluative Assertion Analysis Computation 197
6. Evaluative Assertion Analysis in Seven Media 199
The following tables affear in the Notes:
i. 1-2. i Distribution of “Unit-Perceptions” 212-18, 222
5-ï—5-3 Two languages of Ethnic Descriptions 232-33