Series 1 - Alexander Irvine memoirs/Michael Kilcran research

2 sub-series

Materials pertaining to the Alexander Irvine memoirs and Kerby A. Miller's research related to the memoir of Michael Kilcran.
Author, lecturer and Congregationalist minister Alexander Irvine was born in Antrim, Ireland in 1863 and emigrated first to Scotland in 1884, and then to America in 1888. Per Bernie McGill: 'Born in Antrim town on 19th January 1863, Alexander was the ninth child of Anna and Jamie Irvine. His father was a shoe-maker, poor and illiterate. His mother had been educated, was destined before her marriage to become a teacher and was a sincere devotee of the Church, but her love for Jamie led her to leave her home in Crumlin and to set up house with him in Antrim to a life of severe poverty and hardship [...] As a youngster Alexander worked as a barefoot paperboy and then as stableboy to the local landlord. He laboured as a miner's mucker in the coalmines of Scotland before joining the Royal Marine Corp where he finally got the education he'd missed out on as a child. After spending some time at Oxford University, he emigrated to the United States where he began his ministry in the New York Bowery slums. In 1903 he took his doctorate in theology from the University of Yale. He was a YMCA padre in the trenches during the First World War; he was invited by Lloyd George to address the miners of Britain who refused to return to work after the General Strike; he was later elected to the National Executive of the American Socialist Party.' Irvine moved to Los Angeles in 1911 to manage the mayoral campaign of Socialist candidate Job Harriman. He died in Hollywood, California in 1941.
Michael Kilcran was born around 1862 in Mohill, near Carrick-on-Shannon, County Leitrim and emigrated to Chicago, Illinois in 1882, following an uncle who paid for his passage. Kilcran wrote his 'Stockyards Memoir' in 1912 and wrote another memoir ca. 1913-1914 about his time in the Chicago Police Department. Upon arriving in Chicago, Kilcran worked a number of labouring jobs for stockyards and meatpackers between 1880 and 1892, when he then joined the Chicago Police Department (CPD). He worked for the CPD until 1912 and in that time was a plainclothes detective for 12 years, a patrol sergeant for 6 years and a street patrolman for 2 years. He died in 1914.
This series contains: copies of Irvine's published memoirs; Miller's research notes and secondary research on Irvine; Miller's research on Michael Kilcran and his family, both in Ireland and America; copies of secondary sources on Chicago history, the Archdiocese of Chicago, and the Kilcran family; and Miller's research correspondence with colleagues, archivists, and Kilcran relatives.

The series arrangement is inherited from the numbering system provided to the archives for this collection.

The original manuscripts of the Kilcran journals are located in P237.

Copies of the Kilcran journals, along with Kerby A. Miller's transcripts, are located in P155/12/9 and P155/125/5.