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Immigrants Digital Collection

The collection does not contain much on the subject of immigration. However, The Transplanted Shamrock; or the Way to Win an Irish Heart (1860) is a fascinating story of converting an Irish Catholic immigrant servant girl to the Protestantism of Boston, and it may be supposed that this was one response to the waves of Irish immigration in the 1850s. The frontispiece shows the girl, Nelly, being admitted into a Boston household with the Old North Church in the background, a symbol of the religious terms on which Nelly will be assimilated. "We are sthrangers in a sthrange land, ma'm," the story begins. It is an attempt to represent the Irish brogue, and just as it will appear strange to the reader, it signals that we are seeing the Irish through the Protestant evangelical eyes of the American Tract Society. The story of Nelly's conversion reveals the doctrinal impasse between Protestant and Catholic and the class antagonisms that a servant of a different faith might foster in the household. In its zeal to convert, in a sense, the story is a record of religious intolerance, couched in the language of compassion. Nelly is reasoned into Protestantism, conversion being the only form of assimilation possible, then Nelly forgives her one-time Protestant antagonists. This is by no means an accurate or representative picture of the Boston Irish (though it may reflect some experience) but it is a revealing document of evangelical psychology.

— Stephen Rachman, Department of English, Michigan State University

Items in the Immigrants collection:

Thumbnail Image	Title	Publisher	Author	Call Number	Description	Available Format(s)
	Title: Examples of Goodness, Narrated for the Young	Publisher: Philadelphia: J. W. Moore, 1858	Author(s): Author Unknown		unknown or unavailable	Available Format(s): jpg
	Title: The Emigrant Boy, Substantially a Narrative of Facts	Publisher: New York: American Tract Society, 18--?	Author(s): Author Unknown		unknown or unavailable	Available Format(s): jpg
	Title: The Shamrock Flower: An Irish Girl in America	Publisher: Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 18--?	Author(s): Author Unknown		unknown or unavailable	Available Format(s): jpg
	Title: The Transplanted Shamrock; or, The Way to Win an Irish Heart	Publisher: Boston: American Tract Society, 1860	Author(s): Author Unknown		unknown or unavailable	Available Format(s): jpg
	Title: Tom, the Oyster-Boy	Publisher: New York: Carlton & Porter, 1861	Author(s): Author Unknown		unknown or unavailable	Available Format(s): jpg