Series 4 - 'Ann McNabb' memoir

4pp

Citation for a memoir from a published source: McNabb, A. (30 March 1905). "The Story of an Irish Cook," The Independent, Vol. 58, No. 2939, pp. 715-717.

[This memoir contains outdated attitudes or language that does not reflect the current views or positions of the University of Galway Library. Reader discretion is advised.]
Photocopy of Ann McNabb's memoir 'The Story of an Irish Cook' published in The Independent 58, No. 2939 (30 March 1905). McNabb was born around 1840 near Limavady, County Derry and emigrated to Philadelphia in the early 1850s, following her sister who sent money home for the passage. The memoir recounts her life and family in Ulster before emigrating, the journey to America, her life as a domestic servant and cook for a wealthy family in Philadelphia, her parents coming to join her in America, property ownership for herself and her sister, and some details of the lives of other family members.
Kerby A. Miller writes, 'Ann McNabb's story was published in 1905, in a Progressive-Era series on US working-class lives, in a long-defunct magazine. It's excellent in that it's an account of the author's entire life, and of many family members. Excellent, also, in that the author was a woman who worked her entire life (as did her sister) as a domestic servant in the homes of affluent families in Philadelphia. Nice description, albeit brief, of the Famine and of her mother's response-to emigrate. Excellent on how young female "greenhorns," coming from impoverished environments, learned how to please wealthy or bourgeois American "mistresses" in domestic service.' Through his research, Miller also came to believe that 'Ann McNabb' was most likely a pseudonym used by the journal, but also writes, 'two scholar informants (Michael Montgomery, an expert on "Ulster Scots" dialect, and Peggy Lynch Brennan, an expert on Irish domestic servants in the US) have advised me that they believe McNabb's "memoir" to be "authentic," albeit obviously the result of a journalist's notes of an interview with McNabb.'

The reference copy of McNabb's memoir, along with Miller's research related to the memoir, is located in P155/11/1.