| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Inventing Irish America: Generation, Class, and Ethnic Identity in a New England City, 1880–1928. By Timothy J. Meagher. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001. xii, 523 pp. Cloth, $50.00, ISBN 0-268-03153-3. Paper, $22.00, ISBN 0-268-03154-1.)

Timothy Meagher's Inventing Irish America places the construction of ethnic identity in a specific historical context. It does so superbly, weaving a sophisticated treatment of the evolution of Irish American life into a rich account of Worcester, Massachusetts, from 1880 to 1928. The result is a major contribution to American ethnic history and an excellent example of the importance of carefully grounded historical analysis for understanding social group formation. 1

Meagher draws on the concept of "invention" to explain changes in Irish American identity in Worcester. He does not contend, as some theorists have, that ethnic identities are simply collective fictions advanced for political and cultural reasons. Instead he follows the lead of historians of ethnic America who have insisted on the importance of rooting the process of group formation in time and place. The Worcester Irish had a limited number of ways to define themselves in relationship to the local community, to America, and to Ireland. They actively created that definition, but their choices were restricted by economic, social, cultural, and political circumstances. . . .

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