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J. Matthew Gallman
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Receiving Erin's Children: Philadelphia, Liverpool, and the Irish Famine Migration, 1845-1855 Paperback – May 29, 2000

by J. Matthew Gallman (Author)
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 5 ratings
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Between 1845 and 1855, 2 million Irish men and women fled their famine-ravaged homeland, many to settle in large British and American cities that were already wrestling with a complex array of urban problems. In this innovative work of comparative urban history, Matthew Gallman looks at how two cities, Philadelphia and Liverpool, met the challenges raised by the influx of immigrants.

Gallman examines how citizens and policymakers in Philadelphia and Liverpool dealt with such issues as poverty, disease, poor sanitation, crime, sectarian conflict, and juvenile delinquency. By considering how two cities of comparable population and dimensions responded to similar challenges, he sheds new light on familiar questions about distinctive national characteristics--without resorting to claims of "American exceptionalism." In this critical era of urban development, English and American cities often evolved in analogous ways, Gallman notes. But certain crucial differences--in location, material conditions, governmental structures, and voluntaristic traditions, for example--inspired varying approaches to urban problem solving on either side of the Atlantic.

Previous page
  1. Print length
    322 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    The University of North Carolina Press
  4. Publication date
    May 29, 2000
  5. Dimensions
    6.14 x 0.81 x 9.21 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    080784845X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0807848456
  8. Lexile measure
    1170L
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A book that makes a welcome contribution to our understanding of nineteenth-century urban history.

"Historian"

[This book] makes an important contribution to both immigration and urban history as well as to the history of public welfare.

"Reviews in American History"

Gallman engages in a fascinating way with big questions of the national characters of the United States and Britain.

Jon Gjerde, University of California, Berkeley

This is a truly impressive study of comparative urban development.

Roger Lane, Haverford College

ÝThis book¨ makes an important contribution to both immigration and urban history as well as to the history of public welfare.

"Reviews in American History"

"""A book that makes a welcome contribution to our understanding of nineteenth-century urban history.

"Historian""

"Gallman engages in a fascinating way with big questions of the national characters of the United States and Britain.

Jon Gjerde, University of California, Berkeley"

"This is a truly impressive study of comparative urban development.

Roger Lane, Haverford College"

From the Inside Flap

This work of comparative history looks at how two rapidly growing cities, Philadelphia and Liverpool, coped with the urban challenges raised by the influx of Irish immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The University of North Carolina Press (May 29, 2000)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 322 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 080784845X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0807848456
  • Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1170L
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.01 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.14 x 0.81 x 9.21 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 5 ratings

About the author

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J. Matthew Gallman

J. Matthew Gallman

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Matt Gallman is the author or editor of a dozen books focusing on various aspects of mid-19th Century U.S. History, largely on the northern home front during the Civil War. His latest book is The Cacophony of Politics: Northern Democrats and the American Civil War (University of Virginia Press, 2021).

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4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8 out of 5
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Top reviews from the United States

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5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2015
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4.0 out of 5 stars Philadelphia: Microcosm of America
Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2005
Verified Purchase
J. Matthew Gallman, in Receiving Erin's Children, analyzes how two demographically similar cities, Liverpool, England, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the 1840s and 1850s handled the large influx of refuges from the Irish potato famine. Purporting to discuss immigration issues, the book is more a social study of how different cultures responded to similar rising urban problems such as poverty and crime. Both Liverpool and Philadelphia were ports with growing populations. "Poverty, sanitation, housing, disease, sectarian and ethnic conflict, crime and policing, education and delinquency...had been ongoing subjects of public debate in both cities." (pp. 211-12) Gallman found that the resolution of these issues depended upon the "material conditions, dominant ideologies, and the magnitude of the migration in each port." (p. 212)

England with its small land mass and large population took a broader more public view of handling social issues. The poor were numerous and encroaching upon the middle and upper classes. Although the poor provided a useful labor force for the cities, their issues were becoming common issues which needed a centralized governmental response. On the other extreme, the United States had a large land mass with most of its population living along its eastern coast. The poor had the opportunity to improve their condition by moving westward. Social problems such as sanitation and crime were viewed as local problems that could be obviated by inducing the poor to move elsewhere. The concept of the frontier was distinctly American and colored the American responses to many social issues.

In England, there had evolved an acceptance of a hierarchy. The government was expected to act on behalf of its citizenry. Whereas, the United States had a strong cultural commitment to voluntarism. There was, and continues to be, a common distrust of centralized bureaucracies and of decisions being made in a hierarchical fashion. The United States, and Philadelphia in particular, consisted of numerous philanthropic societies and benevolent institutions that handled in their own ways with little oversight the problems that they found and chose to handle. The United States had little use for a federal form of internal government at this time.

Although England had a large immigrant population from Ireland, it did not have the diversity of the United States which was already a melting pot of European and African cultures. The Irish were considered to be outsiders by the English but there was no intention of making them conform to "English" ways. The Irish had always been neighbors living in close proximity to England; their culture was not unknown to the English-their culture was not a threat. The opposite was true in the United States. Immigrants were outsiders but because they all came from far away, their cultures were strange and threatening. There grew an impulse amongst Americans to acculturate immigrants quickly. The Irish also arrived a rung up on the social ladder, with Africans remaining on the bottom rung. This immediate movement upward was also threatening. Traditional animosities between nations continued as a microcosm in the new world.

"The crux of this study has been a comparison of choices-as they were made at roughly the same time in two different cities." (p. 224) The methods developed to deal with emerging social issues reflected how the two nations had handled social issues in the past. There was not yet a need to reinvent a new social construct. The English continued to rule and solve problems from the top down and the United States, though growing more democratic, continued to view its issues locally.
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Top reviews from other countries

David Waring
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 29, 2013
Verified Purchase
This book gives a brilliant insight into how these great cities coped with the influx of Irish emigrants during and after the famine years. It addresses the co operation between them in recognising good practices and at times replicating them.
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