Series 5 - Unthank family letters

126pp

John Nevitt's 1816 letter was collected in Ireland in the 1950s by the late Professor Arnold Schrier of the University of Cincinnati, who later gave the manuscript and its associated information to Kerby A. Miller. George Unthank's 1926 letter is held by the Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota, which granted Miller permission to publish.

This series consists primarily of typed transcripts and photocopies of two letters written by members of the Unthank family, middle-class Quaker immigrants from Limerick city. The earliest letter, dated 1816, is by John Nevitt, a merchant in Savannah, Georgia, to his sister, Susannah Unthank, in Limerick city. The second letter is dated 1825 and is by George Unthank, Jr., a recent arrival in New York City, which he describes in great detail. Per Kerby A. Miller, 'The Unthank letters (especially that of 1826) illuminate: Irish Quaker immigrants in early 19th-century urban America; Irish immigrants in transatlantic trade; economy, society, and urban geography in New York City, 1826; the Irish Catholic community in New York City, 1826 (opportunities, occupations, wages, social habits, drinking, etc.), and the 'low Irish' in New York: their social, cultural, and psychological adaptation to American 'freedom.''
The series consists of: Kerby A. Miller's description of the Unthank letters; typed transcripts of the letters; photocopies of the letters; Miller's research correspondence and the resulting information; Miller's research notes, mostly from Irish primary sources; and photocopied pages from published works on Irish Quakers and on New York City.