Series 2 - Hanlon/O'Hanlon letter transcripts and abstracts

33pp

Kerby A. Miller created his transcripts of the Hanlon/O'Hanlon letters from the original manuscripts held in PRONI [reference number D885]. PRONI also provided Miller with photocopies of many of the manuscripts.

Kerby A. Miller's typed transcripts and abstracts of letters written by (or to) the members of two generations of Hanlon/O'Hanlon emigrants, Catholic emigrants living primarily in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, area, to (or from) their parents or siblings in Ballymote townland, near Downpatrick town, County Down, in 1843-1888.
Per Miller, 'The Hanlon/O'Hanlon correspondence is very rich and illuminates many subjects, including:

1. The letters, advice, remittances, and emotional conflicts and burdens that enabled and characterized the emigrations of two or more generations of emigrants from the same family over several decades, as the children of the first-generation brother, who remained at home and inherited the farm, eventually emigrated to join their uncles and other kinsmen and women in America.
2. Economic and social conditions for Irish Catholic immigrants in 19th-century USA, including:
   a. Skilled and unskilled workers in canal construction in Upper Canada, 1843.
   b. Skilled craftsmen and factory workers in Pittsburgh and Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, in the 1850s- 1860s. Includes detailed information about the negative effects of mechanization and factory production on skilled trades and apprenticeships, and about the difference between apprenticeship programs in Ireland and the US.
   c. Farming in eastern Nebraska, 1860s-1870s: crops, livestock, problems of drought and insect plagues, the costs of land and how to acquire it, farm labor and wages.
   d. Working conditions and insecurities of employment for "respectable" young Irish Catholic clerks, accountants, book-keepers, and members of other petty-bourgeois occupations in large mercantile firms in 1870s Pittsburgh. Problems of anti-Irish Catholic prejudice. Effects of the severe economic depression of 1873-77.
   e. Working conditions for young female seamstresses, hat-makers, and other semi-skilled workers in 1870s New York City and Pittsburgh.
   f. Irish Catholic social life among the young, unmarried, petty bourgeoisie, centered on the Catholic Church-sponsored temperance and debating societies, St. Patrick's Day festivities, and other occasions designed to display and protect their morals and respectability.'

The reference copies of these letters, along with Kerby A. Miller’s extensive research on the Hanlon/O’Hanlon family, are located in P155/24/2.