The Old Croton Aqueduct State Historic Park contains the Old Croton Aqueduct, built between 1837 and 1842 to provide New York City with fresh water for firefighting and disease prevention. The 41-mile aqueduct remained in use until 1965.
The park offers interpretive signs and self-guided tours.
The Jerome Historical society seeks to preserve and share the history of Jerome, Arizona, once known as the “Wickedest Town in The West.” To this end, the society operates a museum and an archival collection. The museum presents local history through displays covering mining history; gambling; the Chinese, Slavs, Italians, Russians, Mexicans, and Irish in Jerome; and other topics. Collection highlights include mining equipment and a Colt pistol used by Marshal Johnny Hudgens.
The society offers exhibits and archival access.
The Museum collects, preserves, and displays photographs, letters, documents, artifacts, and oral history that trace the chronology of Irish immigration and settlement in Newport County, as well as the social and cultural impact of this immigration on the community as a whole.
The museum offers lectures and research library access.
The Society, founded in 1897 to inform the world of the achievements of the Irish in America, is today a national center of scholarship and culture. From its home on New York's Fifth Avenue, the Society serves as a focal point of the contemporary transatlantic Irish experience, a place where current public issues are explored, and where the great renaissance in Irish culture is celebrated in lectures, concerts, art exhibits, and a literary journal.
Does not appear to be affiliated with any specific historical sites.
On March 17, the U.S. celebrates an Irish feast day with parades, food, drink, music, and the color green—but Irish immigrants, and their children, have given more to the U.S. than a spring holiday. Answer the questions below about notable Irish Americans.
1. Who was the first Irish American to run for president?
b. Alfred Emmanuel Smith, Jr.
In 1928, Alfred Emmanuel Smith, Jr., four times governor of New York, ran as the Democratic candidate for president of the U.S.. Though "Al" Smith's heritage also included German, Italian, and English ancestry, he identified as Irish American, and faced prejudice for both his ethnicity and his religion (he was Catholic) during his campaign. The press and the public suspected him of drunkenness (stereotypically associated with Irish Americans), manipulation by the Pope, and involvement with Tammany Hall (a New York City Democratic political machine known for supporting Irish Americans in politics).
Smith lost the election to Herbert Hoover, but he went on to become president of Empire State, Inc.—the company that built the Empire State Building.
2. Which of the following men with Irish ancestry was known as "father" of a branch of the U.S. military?
a. John Barry, naval officer in the American Revolution
Irish-born John Barry first crisscrossed the Atlantic as a respected commander of merchant ships—but when war broke out with England, he joined the Continental Army and was commissioned a naval captain in 1776. (He also served in several battles on land, while a ship he was to command, the Effington, was under construction.) Though he gained fame for valor and loyalty during the war, he returned to captaining merchant ships when it concluded.
However, in 1794, some time after the establishment of the U.S. Navy, President George Washington chose Barry as senior Captain of the Federal Navy. Barry saw active service until 1801, and trained many of the naval officers who would serve in the War of 1812. He was referred to as "Father of the U.S. Navy" in his own time.
3. Which famous survivor of the Titanic's sinking was Irish American?
d. Margaret Brown, activist and socialite
The daughter of Irish immigrants, Margaret Brown rose into high-society circles when her husband, James Joseph Brown, became a board member of the Ibex Mining Company. She used her new social status to advocate for the rights of women and children—activities which she continued throughout her life. Her status also allowed her to board the Titanic as a first-class passenger; she earned fame and the nickname "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" for her efforts to get passengers into lifeboats and to bring her own lifeboat around to look for survivors.
4. Which of these women of Irish ancestry helped found the Industrial Workers of the World, a major (and still existing) labor union?
a. Mary Harris Jones
Mary Harris Jones, also known as "Mother Jones," participated in the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1905. Jones, who was born in Ireland and grew up in the U.S., took a leading role in the early-20th-century labor movement following the death of her husband and four children in a yellow fever epidemic and the later loss of her dressmaking shop in the Great Chicago Fire. Arrested multiple times, she gained notoriety across the country as a labor organizer, motivating women and children to participate in strikes in support of their husbands and fathers. She also organized children to strike for their own rights—in 1903, child mill and mine workers marched in Jones's "Children's Crusade," helping to bring child labor to public attention.
Jones remained active in labor organization until her death in 1930, when she was over 90 years old.
For more on the first successfully-elected Irish American presidential candidate, try the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. The organization offers primary and secondary sources and resources for both teachers and students.
To read a full history of John Barry's life and his service to the rebelling colonists and the young United States, try this article at ushistory.org, website of the Independence Hall Association.
Want to learn more about Molly Brown? If you live and teach near Denver, CO, you could visit her home, today the Molly Brown House Museum. If you don't live in Colorado, you can still read the website's overview of her life.
For more on Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, try Susan Campbell Bartoletti's book Kids on Strike! Eight chapters, illustrated with historical photographs, cover children in labor movements from the 19th century to the 20th, with one chapter devoted entirely to Jones's Children's Crusade. The Library Journal lists the book as appropriate to grades 5-8 and recommends it as a "fine resource for research as well as a very readable book."
Professor Edward T. O'Donnell analyzes an 1876 Harper's Weekly cartoon of an Irish immigrant, which reveals the racism of the day.
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Josh Brown of the American Social History Project examines a cartoon by Thomas Nast that lampoons the Democratic Party right after the Civil War.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary introduces immigration to America, which began in the Colonial Period but took off following the War of 1812, and the arrival of a giant stream of refugees on American shores.
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The November 6, 1869 issue of Harper's Weekly included this double-page cartoon that mocks the platform of the New York Democratic Party, including its opposition to the 15th Amendment. Josh Brown of the American Social History Project examines the details.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary describes the results of the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s: one million people died, and another 1.5 million emigrated, mostly to the United States. These immigrants became reliant on the Catholic Church.
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