Regina Donlon Knihy

In the second half of the nineteenth century, hundreds of thousands of German and Irish immigrants left Europe for the United States. Many settled in the Northeast, but some boarded trains and made their way west. Focusing on the cities of Fort Wayne, Indiana and St Louis, Missouri, Regina Donlon employs comparative and transnational methodologies in order to trace their journeys from arrival through their emergence as cultural, social and political forces in their communities. Drawing comparisons between large, industrial St Louis and small, established Fort Wayne and between the different communities which took root there, Donlon offers new insights into the factors which shaped their experiences—including the impact of city size on the preservation of ethnic identity, the contrasting concerns of the German and Irish Catholic churches and the roles of women as social innovators. This unique multi-ethnic approach illuminates overlooked dimensions of the immigrant experience in the American Midwest.

On the evening of 20 June 1921, Colonel-Commandant Thomas Stanton Lambert was assassinated at Benown near Glasson in Co. Westmeath. Hours later, the small village of Knockcroghery in south Co. Roscommon was set ablaze by the British forces, seemingly in an act of retribution for Lambert' s murder. The burning was an unfortunate case of mistaken identity, however, that ultimately resulted in the decimation of the local economy and heralded the end of clay-pipe production in the area. This study explores the complex world of rural Ireland against the backdrop of the Irish War of Independence, while demonstrating how local communities were impacted by evolving national narratives. Although it later emerged that the Knockcroghery company of the Irish Republican Army was not involved in Lambert' s killing, this study examines how the social and economic fabric of that community was altered as a result.

Im Fokus stehen die Erfahrungen deutscher und irischer Einwanderer im 19. Jahrhundert, die in die USA kamen und sich in Städten wie Fort Wayne und St. Louis niederließen. Regina Donlon nutzt vergleichende Methoden, um die kulturellen, sozialen und politischen Entwicklungen dieser Gemeinschaften zu analysieren. Sie untersucht, wie die Stadtgröße die ethnische Identität beeinflusste, die unterschiedlichen Anliegen der katholischen Kirchen und die Rolle der Frauen als soziale Innovatoren. Ihr Ansatz bietet neue Einblicke in die vielschichtigen Dimensionen der Einwanderungserfahrung im Mittleren Westen.