Politics, Culture and the Irish American Press, 1784- 1963, eds. Debra Reddin van Tuyll, Mark O’Brien, and Marcel Broersma (Syracuse University Press, 2021)
Describe the focus of your book.
This book examines the history of the Irish American press from the Early National period to the Kennedy presidency. We look at individual journalists who created the Irish American press, the journalists that constituted it, and, most importantly, the transnational nature of that particular press genre.
How did you come across this subject? Why did it interest you?
Editors Debra Reddin van Tuyll and Mark O’Brien met a decade or more ago at the annual meeting of the Newspapers and Periodicals History Forum of Ireland. During the conference, they began a discussion of how similarly, yet how differently, historians from different parts of the world told the stories of the Irish and the Irish diaspora presses and also how, together, they all seemed to constitute on continuous story. Or maybe a story on a continuum is more accurate. Van Tuyll and O’Brien believed they had an insight into a useful new way to frame journalism history stories, to both deepen and broaden understanding of how a diaspora press is connected to its home and vice versa. They thought this idea might be worth exploring with other historians in a couple of academic gatherings, though they didn’t have a name for it initially.
After the first conference, in Augusta, Ga., in 2016, Van Tuyll stumbled across an article by a Dutch journalism historian, Marcel Broersma, that offered a name for the approach she and O’Brien had been working to describe. Broersma had written a piece that defined and laid out all the parameters of what he called transnational journalism history. O’Brien invited Broersma to be the keynote speaker at the 2017 conference in Dublin, and afterwards asked him to join them in editing a book they were pulling together with other scholars. That book became Politics, Culture and the Irish American Press, 1784-1963.
The topic interested these three because it offers a way to move journalism outside the national frame to look at how it flows seamlessly across the globe. Even in the days before broadcasting, journalists, newspapers, magazines, stories, and technology were never limited to a single country. There are stories to be told about journalism that go beyond national borders, and that is what this approach/frame/methodology facilitates.
What archives or research materials did you use?
This would vary based on which chapter author you ask. Newspapers.com, the American Antiquarian Society, the New York Historical Association, the Massachusetts Historical Association, and the National Library of Ireland were among the most important archives for van Tuyll. Newspapers from the relevant time periods were the primary sources van Tuyll used, and that would be true for many of the chapter authors. In one case, Nancy Mackenzie Dupont actually tracked down the descendant of one of her subjects who had family papers she was able to use. Published manuscripts and letters are also common sources for this project
How does your book relate to journalism history? How is it relevant to the present?
This book is about the history of a particular diaspora press in the United States that fits neatly into contemporary transatlantic studies. It also offers the opportunity to comment on race, another popular topic among historians today, how whiteness came to be defined and how Irish immigrants fit (or not, depending on the historian you consult) that definition. What makes this work unique is that it looks at phenomena such as race, journalism, and the “othering” and assimilation of immigrants. But it also looks at Americans who cross the Atlantic eastward and how they contributed to Irish and British understanding of “American” and race. The experience of Irish immigrants is more similar than dissimilar to the experience of today’s immigrants to the United States, and in that way, it helps illustrate patterns that hallmark the country’s history. And, of course, there are the stories of the journalists who crossed the Atlantic, or sometimes crisscrossed it, and the Pacific to ply their trade in a new place for new audiences.
What advice do you have for other historians that are working on or starting book projects?
Edited books can come together much more quickly than monographs because you spread the tasks among a group of people, experts who strengthen arguments and insights because of their different viewpoints. One of the most valuable aspects of this book was the international team who put it together. We were Americans and Europeans writing about the transatlantic experiences of Americans and Europeans. That kind of team tackling that kind of topic can produce excellent work. So, first piece of advice: if you’re working with others on a book project, choose carefully.
Second piece of advice: Don’t get discouraged if it takes a while to get your manuscript ready. It will be worth it in the end.
Third piece of advice: Choose a topic you can live with for a long time. First, books take time to produce. Second, despite what you think now, this may not be the only time you write about your present topic. Save your notes, your sources, keep bibliographies.
Fourth: Go for it! If you’re fascinated by a question or a hypothesis that is still somewhat amorphous, chances are someone else will be, too, and will be willing to help you pursue it. Don’t let self-doubt paralyze you.