Series 1 - King brothers letters and journal

2 sub-series

Per Professor Kerby A. Miller: 'The King brothers' transatlantic letters and voyage journal are among the King Family Papers, 1798- 1927, a large collection in the Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield, Illinois, which are itemized in Robert L. Brubaker, The King Family Papers, 1798-1927: A Descriptive Inventory (Springfield, 1963), a copy of which is included in this collection.'

Materials pertaining to 27 manuscripts written by the King brothers, which include: 1) 26 letters dated 1816-1843, mostly transatlantic correspondence among brothers David, John Jnr, and Thomas King primarily in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Belfast, and the King family farm in Ballyvennox townland, Macosquin parish, County Derry; 2) a photocopy of John King Jnr's journal of his voyage from Belfast to New York in 1831.
Per Kerby A. Miller: 'The King brothers' letters illustrate:

1. Chain migration and family capitalism, as each sibling, once established in business in America, brings out other, younger siblings, employs them, and sometimes eventually partners with them in business.
2. The processes or stages of chain migration: transatlantic transactions by letter, involving: invitation or 'encouragement' to relative at home, negotiations as to the newcomer's expectations and future prospects, getting references or testimonials, departure and voyage, arrival and establishment, recommencing the cycle with new invitations to another relative at home.
3. American and Irish business practices and ideas, compared.
4. Family and inter-generational silences about kinsmen who were United Irishmen and/or political exiles, as Irish republicanism is eclipsed by evangelical religion, loyalism, and self-interest or self-preservation.
5. Suicide in a 'respectable' Irish Presbyterian family.
6. Social and environmental conditions in Windsor, North Carolina, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; their effects on health.'
   The series also includes: a typed transcript of chapter 65 in Miller et al.,Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan, on the King brothers' uncle, John Nevin, a United Irish exile in the United States between 1798 and his 1806 death in Knoxville, Tennessee; Robert L. Brubaker's published inventory of the King Family Papers in the Illinois State Historical Library; Miller's research correspondence with archivists and librarians; research notes by Miller and his colleague Bruce D. Boling of the University of New Mexico, mostly from Irish primary sources; and photocopied pages from early published works on Pittsburgh.