“Ireland and Famine”

By:

Kaitlin Mihalov

Potatoes and the Columbian Exchange The potato was introduced to Europe during the Columbian Exchange during the 1500s, after Christopher Columbus discovered the New World. New plants; such as, potatoes and maize, were introduced to Europe and Africa during this time. Shortly after its introduction, the potato spread throughout Europe and found its way to Ireland. This new crop proved to be a reliable and much-needed source of carbohydrates. The Irish began to depend heavily on the potato as a monocrop, a step that would later prove to be disastrous. The Great Irish Potato Famine The Great Irish Potato Famine started in September 1845, when a disease, originating in North America, struck the potato crop in the Irish countryside. The first failure of the potato in Ireland caused some alarm and brought a period of hardship to the country, however, mass starvation did not occur until 1846. At the beginning of the famine, many farmers felt that the potato would recover in the next

season. To make up for their loss, the farmers planted more potatoes for the next harvest, which proved to be worse. In 1846 the potato failed on nearly every farm in the country. Riots, distress, starvation and death began to plague the country a year after the blight began. On September 23, 1846 in the town of Youghal in county Cork, a food riot broke out and Baker’s shops were raided. The mob was successful in keeping some provisions in the town by intimidating the owners. There was no evidence of violence until later in the day when the Cork Chronicle reported “the mob, elated probably by the success of their first attempt, commenced at a later period of the day to demolish the flour and bread shops.” Relief After a year of devastation, the communities, organizations, and governments in Great Britain and Ireland started to provide some relief for the population. The Board of Works set up task work systems to provide the population with jobs to support their families. At first, the system was “harsh and oppressive” and resistance to the system was “increased by the delay in paying the workmen their wages, which was not done until work had been measured.” Another kind of employment for the Irish were workhouses, which were similar to task works, but people would live in the workhouses because they had nowhere to go. Although these systems provided some relief, people were still dying from the lack of food in the country. As the famine years progressed, food shortages rose and starvation and death became more and more evident across the country. Many people looked to emigration for relief. Although emigration from Ireland did not start because of the famine, the potato blight drastically affected the population of the emerald island.

1

Kaitlin Mihalov

Final Paper

Seminar

Population shifts are an excellent way to look at how the environment affects human

movement. Two major population shifts that occurred in history due to environmental change

was the Great Irish Potato Famine and the Great Depression in the United States. These two

disasters are linked by one key factor, population shifts. There are vast amounts of literature

dealing with the population shifts that occurred during the Great Depression and the Great Irish

Potato Famine. The existing literature provides some good information on population changes

but still has some weakness in explaining the overall effects of the environment on population

shifts. A closer look at the impact of the Great Irish Potato Famine in Ireland will help in

understanding the way the environment can cause people to relocate to different countries.

While the Great Irish Potato Famine caused a huge drop in population in Ireland the

United States experienced an environmental change during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

In October of 1929 the stock market crashed leaving the country in a state a ruin and despair.

This crash in the market eventually became known as the Great Depression and it affected every

aspect of the economy. The farmers of the Great Plains, also called Okies, in the mid-west part

of the United States were affected the most because the soil had been over worked and turned to

dust. Due to the dryness of the plains farmers were not able to grow crops to support their

families and had to think of where they could go to make a living. Many of these farmers set off

for the prosperous land of California in search of a new life.

One piece of literature that really looks at the impact of the Dust Bowl on population

shifts is California and the Dust Bowl Migration by Walter J. Stein. In his book he looks at the

2

case study of Okies from the southern mid west moving to California. Stein’s book provides an

excellent case study for anyone wanting to learn more about the rise of migration and the impact

of the Okies in California. His main objective in writing this book is to “explain the brief period

when California rejected migrant admirers such as those she had welcomed in the past.”1 Stein

does a great job proving his argument because he has two chapters that are excellent sources for

examining the Okie impact on California and the rise of the migrant problem.

Even though these two chapters are really well put together they should be reversed in the

book because explaining the rise of the migration first would be the most logical way to set up a

book dealing with history. Readers would be able to understand the rise of the migration before

getting into the impact of the migration. Another thing that Stein discussed was the fact that due

to the Depression California was loosing a mass labour force of Mexicans because the cities

could not “tolerate the relief-harvest labour relief cycle that developed in prosperous times

among the Mexicans.”2 He states that many California people did not “see” the agricultural help

because the Mexicans went home after the harvest. The Mexicans provided an invisible labor

force for California farmers. When the Okies moved in and Californians could see them on the

side of the road or out in the field they thought that they had a problem with migrants. Instead

they got a replacement for the Mexicans who went home during the Depression.

While Stein’s book is good since it was more of a case study about migrants moving to

California he could have had a closer look at the population shifts in the different counties

instead of focusing the major part of the book on the government trying to keep the Okies from

moving to California.

1 Stein, Walter J. California and the Dust Bowl Migration. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1973

2 Stein, Walter J. California and the Dust Bowl Migration. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1973

3

One journal review by Harry McDean states that while Stein’s books is good there are a

few weaknesses. A weakness that McDean points out is that the book is “comprised of details in

California history that often do not relate to the Okie migration.”3 This is observation is very

true. Stein focuses more on the policies that came out of the migration instead of explaining his

real issue of why Californians rejected the Okie. McDean goes on to criticize that Stein “neither

catches events crucial to the Okie migration nor develops those which he does.”4 Despite some

of these weaknesses that McDean points out he still recommends the book if anyone is interested

in the Okie migration to California.

Despite some of these weaknesses of the book it still offers a good insight into the Dust

Bowl migration and how that had an affect on one part of the United States. Stein does go into

an overview of the government which while it is a weakness still helps to understand the

situation on the larger scale. It will be a good source to help back up primary sources and help

with explaining how the environment plays a role in human movement.

The other book that I looked at concerning the Dust Bowl is Timothy Egan’s The Worst

Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. In

contrast with the Stein’s take on population shift and government intervention in California,

Egan looks at more personal stories to explain the impact of the Great Depression. Egan wants

to look at “how the greatest grassland in the world was turned inside out, how the crust blew

away, raged up in the sky and showered down a suffocating blackness off and on for most of a

decade.”5 This is another way to give perspective on how individual families dealt with the Dust

3 McDean, Harry C. The Journal of San Diego History. Winter 1974 Volume 2 Number 1

4 McDean, Harry C. The Journal of San Diego History. Winter 1974 Volume 2 Number 1

5 Egan, Timothy. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American

Dust Bowl. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006 p.2

4

Bowl and moving to different areas to start a new life. Along with the primary accounts Egan

also gives a good general view of the Depression and how is affected the country as a whole.

While the book was good there are a few areas that need some improvement or further

explanation. Unlike Stein, Egan does include many pictures which help with his thesis. Plus

since Egan’s book is written much later then Stein’s he has more access to primary sources. But

Stein does a good job showing population change in California without many primary sources

because he used charts instead. That is one thing that Egan could have done a better job at

doing. Maybe he could have found some charts showing how many families in the mid west

were crippled by the dust storms or had to move to different areas. Since he was looking at

individual families he could have gone into more detail if he had the facts as to where they

moved since the Dust Bowl had such a huge impact on migration from the mid-west. The impact

of the Dust Bowl on the American mid-west was nothing like the United States had ever seen

before. However, just ninety years before the Dust Bowl there was an even greater

environmental impact that occurred an ocean away.

The Great Irish Potato Famine caused an even greater shift in population then the Dust

Bowl in the 1930s. The Great Irish Famine is a very interesting topic because unlike the

migration during the Great Depression in the 1930s that just affected the southern states the

migration during the Great Irish Famine had a huge impact on many countries populations. The

Irish Famine lasted for about ten years from 1845 until 1852 and was due to the potato blight that

infected the potato crop in Ireland. At first it was not as bad as many people thought but as the

years went on and the crop did not recover it started to take a toll on the people of Ireland

making them move, just like the Okies of the United States, to find a better living. Many people

left for England but as the cities like London and Manchester got over crowded people started to

5

look at different places to emigrate to in order to make their lives better. The Famine caused a

huge shift in population not just in Ireland but also in many cities on the Eastern seaboard of the

United States and Canada.

The potato was introduced to Europe during the Columbian Exchange during the 1500s

after Christopher Columbus discovered the New World. New plants like, potatoes and maize,

were introduced to the Europe and Africa during the 1500s. Maize that was brought to the west

coast of Africa by the Portuguese changed many societies and villages on the continent.6 Maize

became so apart of African culture that holidays were named after it and each part of Africa had

its own name for the crop. Maize became such a popular crop in Africa that farmers started to

only cultivate maize. Focusing on only one crop led to famine and crop failure all over Africa.

However maize was an easy and flexible crop to grow so it was hard for many farmers to give up

maize. Like maize in Africa, the potato that was brought to the Old World by the English.

Shortly after the introduction of the potato it spread around Europe and ended up in Ireland. The

Irish found this new crop a reliable plant and one that could support families. Like maize, the

potato provided a much needed source of carbohydrates into the Irish diet. The Irish started to

depend heavily on the potato as their monocrop but this would prove disastrous centuries after its

introduction.

The Great Irish Potato Famine started in September 1845 when a bizarre disease struck

the potato crop in the Irish countryside. Research into the disease has shown that it originally

came from North America where a few years earlier it had plagued the potato crop along the east

coast of the United States and Canada.7 The first failure of the potato in Ireland caused some

alarm and brought a period of hardship to the country but mass starvation did not occur until a

6 McCann, James C.

7 O’Grada, Cormac. Ireland’s Great Famine: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Dublin: University College Dublin

Press, 2006 p.25

6

year later in 1846. At the beginning of the famine many farmers were not concerned about their

crops but felt that the potato would recover in the next season.8 To make up for the lose of the

potato farmers planted more potatoes but the next harvest would prove even worse than the year

before. In 1846 the potato failed on just about every farm in the country.

With another failure people started to see the real crisis that they were facing. Riots,

distress, starvation and death began to plague the country a year after the blight started. On

September 23, 1846 in the town of Youghal in county Cork a food riot broke out and Baker’s

shops were raided. The riot was reported in the Cork Examiner by a reporter who was in the

town at the time. The mob was successful in keeping some provisions in the town by

intimidating the owners. There was no evidence of violence until later in the day when “the mob,

elated probably by the success of their first attempt, commenced at a later period of the day to

demolish the flour and bread shops.”9

However in some places like Dublin and the more northern counties were not hit as hard

with the crop failure. Most of the devastation occurred in the southern counties because living

conditions were not as good as those in the east and northern counties.10

Many people living in

the south and west of Ireland were poor farmers and the potato was all that they had to keep their

families alive. With food shortages the effects were starting to be seen across the country. One

article from The Cork Examiner describes some of the effects of the famine. The parish of Rev.

Mr. Daly of Kilworth “had no other means of subsistence but cabbage leaves, the effects of

8 O’Grada, Cormac. Ireland’s Great Famine: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Dublin: University College Dublin

Press, 2006 p150 9“ Food Riots in Youghal. Destruction of the Baker’s Shops,” The Cork Examiner, September 23, 1846.

10 Edwards, R. Dudley, Grada, Cormac O, and Williams, T. Desmond. The Great Famine: Studies in Irish History

1845-52. Dublin: Lilliput Press Ltd., p.300

7

eating which were visible in their altered frames and appearances.”11

With not having a varied

diet many people started to look like walking skeletons and fade away to nothing.

After a year of devastation the communities, organizations and governments of both the

British and Irish started to provide some relief for the population. In County Tipperary the town

of Clonmel established a soup depot “where a substantial nutritious article might be obtained by

all in need of it at a merely nominal price.”12

Task work systems were also set up by the Board

of Works so people would have jobs and pay so they could support their families during the

famine. At first the system was “harsh and oppressive” and resistance to the system was

“increased by the delay in paying the workmen their wages, which was not done until work had

been measured.”13

With opposition to this program labourers were now being paid a certain

amount during their work for food and then they would get the rest of their wage after the job

was completed. Another kind of employment for the Irish were workhouses which are similar to

task works but people would actually live in the workhouses because they had no where else to

go. These systems provided some relief but people were still dying from the lack of food in the

country.

As the famine years progressed, food shortages rose and starvation and death became

more and more evident over the country many people began to look for other means of relief.14

The government and communities around the country did what they could do or saw fit to do for

the citizens of Ireland. These measures were not enough and many of the effected Irish started to

debate about moving to another country instead of risking another failed season of the potato

crop.

11

“Appalling Distress,” The Cork Examiner, October 2, 1846. 12

“Soup Depots,” The Cork Examiner, November, 9, 1846. 13

“Employment of the People—Task Work,” The Cork Examiner, November 13, 1846. 14

Edwards, R. Dudley, Grada, Cormac O, and Williams, T. Desmond. The Great Famine: Studies in Irish History

1845-52. Dublin: Lilliput Press Ltd., p.150

8

Before the Great Famine hit Ireland in 1845 there were other smaller famines that had

happened in the decades prior but none of them were on the scale of the Great Famine. The

population of Ireland before the famine was close to 8.5 million people but as the famine

continued to ravage the countryside people started to turn to emigration.15

Emigration from

Ireland did not start because of the famine but had always been a feature of Irish history. Many

people all over the globe can trace part of their heritage back to Ireland.

The majority of the emigrating Irish went to Canada and the United States but a small

percentage moved to England. Cheap fares to America and Canada made it easy for whole

families and individuals to try for a new life in North America. However these optimistic hopes

were crushed by diseases and crowded conditions on the voyage across the ocean. These ships

would become known as “Coffin Ships” because of the high mortality due to disease and

cramped conditions. Many captains of these passenger ships were to blame because they would

over crowd the ships in order to gain more profit off of the ailing Irish.

One example of a “Coffin Ship” was the Brigantine Mary which set sail from Cork and

was headed for Boston in the United States. When the ship reached the port of Boston in May

1847 they were turned away by the city authorities “would not suffer them to be landed, owing to

their destitute condition.”16

In order for the passengers to land in Boston the captain of the Mary,

Captain Wyman, was ordered to pay bonds for them but was not able to do so. He then made the

decision to take them to the port of Halifax, Canada. When the passengers heard that they were

headed for another port they “took possession at the handspikes and windlass, and assaulted

Capt. Wyman.”17

The crew of the Mary called for help from the ship Hamilton and six men

15

O’Grada, Cormac. Ireland’s Great Famine: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Dublin: University College Dublin

Press, 2006 p.125 16

“Disturbance in the Harbour of Boston.” Saint John, New Brunswick, Morning News, May 28, 1847 17

Ibid.

9

went aboard to restore order on the Mary. Luckily no one was hurt badly and after returning

order to the Mary she was able to take the passengers up to Halifax safely. This is just one

example of how things could turn violent after a long, cramped, disease ridden voyage to North

America.

Over one million people made the voyage to North America with around 28 percent

traveling to Canada, the majority with 70 percent making the trip to America and the last 2

percent going to Australia.18

Most families and individuals paid their own fares but there were

some who got the money from their landlords. At first America and Canada did not realize how

disease ridden the ships were and so accidentally spread some of the diseases to the populations

of North America. Once this was realized many ports set up quarantine areas for the new

arrivals and when new ships came to drop off their passengers some people were sent to these

centres to see if anyone would get better. These centres also proved to be a breading ground for

the diseases and many people who went there never saw their families again.

So the trip to the New World was a long, hard one with many families losing relatives

along the way. Then when passengers arrived at their destinations it could be another long wait

until they could start their new lives. Even though there were these risks many people were still

willing to find a way of escaping what had befallen their homeland. The emigration the North

America and around the world did not stop when the famine was over. For the next century or so

Irish left their homes, families, and lives behind in search of something better. This emigration

had a huge impact on both the population of Ireland and in the New World. After the famine

was over in the early 1850s the population of Ireland was about half of what it was in 1845.

18

Edwards, R. Dudley, Grada, Cormac O, and Williams, T. Desmond. The Great Famine: Studies in Irish History

1845-52. Dublin: Lilliput Press Ltd., p.206

10

The existing literature on the Famine is very extensive and extremely detailed that it is

hard to choose one that will help explain the effects in a general, easy way for readers. One book

that has detail but is easy to understand is The Great Famine: Studies in History 1845-52 by R.

Dudley Edwards, T. Desmond Williams and Cormac O Grada. They have sections dedicated to

topics such as political background, Irish oral tradition, different kinds of relief efforts that were

affected by the Famine. These topics are very interesting because it shows how the Famine not

only had an impact on the poor but also the well-to-do people. However it can get extremely

confusing sometimes with all of the different names and laws that went into effect in reaction to

the Famine. The authors used many statistics and charts to show back up population change in

both Ireland and the new world.

It was a lot harder to find weaknesses in the books on the Famine because I am not as

familiar with Irish History as the authors but still there were some things that were difficult to

understand. The major problem that I found with the book was that since it is so general there is

only one chapter on population change during the time. The chapter on population does go into a

lot of detail which can really confuse the reader so if it was explained in a more simple way

readers might be able to gain a better concept of the Famine and how different countries were

affected.

Edwards, Williams and O’Grada make is hard sometimes to follow what they are saying

because they do not explain who some people are or some of the different laws. If a person who

was interested in the different aspects of the Irish Famine were to pick up this book and try to

understand it they would have an even harder time then someone who has some general

knowledge on the subject. Since Edwards, Williams and O’Grada’s book is a bit confusing in a

11

way they could have concentrated on a specific area like the south west to do some case studies

in population change instead of doing such a general over view of the Famine.

However a different book by Cormac O’Grada called Ireland’s Great Famine:

Interdisciplinary Perspectives goes into even more detail about people leaving the shores of

Ireland in hopes of finding a new life for themselves in a different country. Unlike many other

Famines around the world O’Grada states that “a crucial difference between the Great Irish

Famine and most other famines is that for many of the Irish poor in the 1840s, mass emigration

provided a welcome safety valve.”19

O’Grada is trying to say that the Irish did not have a way of

getting food into their country like other famines of the time and since they relied so heavily on

one species of potato emigration was the only way for them to escape turmoil.

Compared to all of the other books that I have looked at this one has the most charts and

graphs to show population change. The charts are also easy to read and understand with in the

context of the book. These charts are the most helpful part of the book and what I was really

looking for in my secondary sources. One chart that is unique is the one that looks at age in

relation to the Famine. In usual times only single individuals would leave their home in order to

find jobs in other countries but with the large scale of the Great Famine records show that it was

mainly families that were leaving the island.

It was very hard to find any weaknesses in O’Grada’s book because it is so well written

and easily understood. Unlike the other three books where some topics need more explanation O

Grada was able to get his point across in a simple manner without having to many names or laws

that would confuse a reader. However this book did provide much needed information in

researching the impact of the Famine on population change.

19

Grada, Cormac O. Ireland’s Great Famine: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Dublin: University College

Dublin Press, 2006 p.121

12

The effects of the Dust Bowl and the Great Irish Potato Famine had devastating impacts

on populations in both the United States and Ireland. Both countries had to deal with people

moving whether is was to another part of the country or to a different country all together. The

decline of population in Ireland was not just in deaths but a vast majority emigrated to other

countries like American, Canada and Australia. The migrants of the Dust Bowl saw their new

opportunities in the fertile land of California. Examining the existing literature on these two

topics provides an array of information concerning population change. However, to get a better

understanding of the impact of environmental change on populations it is better to look at the

way the Irish dealt with the Great Famine. The case study of the Great Irish Potato Famine

provides a unique look into what can happen when a whole country uses one crop and the

devastating effects it can have on the population.

So after examining an assortment of secondary and primary sources it is easier to fully

understand the results of the environment on human populations in two different countries.

While the literature on these topics provide readers with information some on population shifts

the use of the case study in this paper will help future generation fully grasp and understand what

the environment can do to a population.

13

Annotated Bibliography

Secondary Sources:

Edwards, R. Dudley, Grada, Cormac O, and Williams, T. Desmond. The Great Famine: Studies

in Irish History 1845-52. Dublin: Lilliput Press Ltd., 1994

This book provides at clear background of the Irish Famine, what caused the famine to occur and

how people dealt with it. I plan on using this book for some background information and general

aspects on the Irish Famine. The authors do have a chapter on emigration which provides some

background on population shifts in Ireland and North America but talks extensively on diseases

and how Americans started to feel that the Irish were causing many problems. So while the book

is interesting it still lacks sufficient information on population change in America and Ireland at

the time.

Grada, Cormac O. Ireland’s Great Famine: Interdisciplinary Studies. Dublin: University

College Dublin Press, 2006

In this book O Grada provides general background but also has a very in depth chapter on

emigration during the famine. I plan on using this chapter to show different population shifts

that occurred in North America and Ireland during the famine. O Grada shows different charts

that explain population movements in the different counties. The book also has many different

theories as to why people left that were not necessarily due to the potato blight. I feel that this

book will provide a different aspect to my case study and open some new doors to new theories

about the famine.

McCann, James C.

Stein, Walter J. California and the Dust Bowl Migration. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1973.

Stein’s book is a good account of the migration of the Okies to California and the impact of the

migration. It has a lot of information on the laws that tried to keep the Okies from

overpopulating California. Stein also shows the failure of some of the laws and how Okies still

came to the “land of opportunity” in search for a new life. Stein also has a few charts showing

the difference in population starting in the 1860s. Stein provides a unique look at the migration

that I think will help with my primary based case study.

Egan, Timothy. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great

American Dust Bowl. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.

In this book Egan gives more personal accounts of people who were trying to survive the Dust

Bowl during the Great Depression. He provides many pictures which show the conditions

people had to endure during the worst environmental crisis in the United States. Egan does not

14

discuss the topic of population shifts during the Dust Bowl but the personal accounts will help in

providing information on what people experienced who stayed in their homes instead of moving

to avoid the devastation.

Primary Sources:

“ Food Riots in Youghal. Destruction of the Baker’s Shops,” The Cork Examiner, September

23, 1846.

“Appalling Distress,” The Cork Examiner, October 2, 1846.

“Soup Depots,” The Cork Examiner, November, 9, 1846.

“Employment of the People—Task Work,” The Cork Examiner, November 13, 1846.

“Disturbance in the Harbour of Boston.” Saint John, New Brunswick, Morning News, May 28,

1847

Kaitlin Mihalov

Reflective Essay

28 April 2009

During my freshman year at Shippensburg University I found that writing papers for a

college was much more different then writing ones in high school. My first history class at

Shippensburg was World History I, where we studied history from the beginning of time up until

the 1500s before exploration. My first paper was about the play Lysistrata by Aristophanes. The

play was a comedy about the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Greece and having equality

between men and women. Since this was the first paper I wrote in college I really did not know

what to expect while I was writing it. After I had written the paper I was happy with my work

but looking back at it now I know that it was not the best work I had done. Since it was my first

paper in college it was to be expected to not be as well as I had done in high school because I

was still getting used to the way papers were written in college. Looking at my paper now I can

see how I did not develop an argument and my paragraphs were very choppy. I did explain all

the points that I was supposed to but it was still very much like a paper I would have written in

high school. As I progressed in my college career my papers gradually got better and I was able

to develop my writing skills.

My next two papers were during my junior year at Shippensburg. During my autumn

semester I took two history classes that would push me as a historian and as a writer. One of

those classes was Theory and Practice. For this class we had the opportunity to write about the

1930s and the Great Depression. Even though this class pushed me in my research skills I

enjoyed the subject matter and had a great time researching my topic. The topic that I decided to

research was the Works Progress Administration which was a program set up to put artists work

during the Great Depression. Unlike my first paper during my freshman year, this paper required

more outside research. For my first history paper I only relied one using one book but for my

Theory and Practice paper I had to use many outside sources. For previous papers I only had to

use secondary sources but for this paper I had to use primary sources to help prove my argument.

Many of the primary sources that I used came from the database on the website

www.newdeal.feri.org but I was able to go to some other archives to supplement the ones I found

online. Comparing this paper with my first paper in World History I, I can see how I progressed

as a writer and more importantly as a historian. Theory and Practice really got me into going to

the archives to find different primary sources and also introduced me to more online databases

that are appropriate for historical research.

The other history class that I would like to high light was my Intro to Applied History

with Dr. Bloom. Since I am concentrating in public history I felt that it would be appropriate to

include a paper from one of my public history courses. This class was very interesting because it

dealt with examining museums, archives and other public history programs. One project that I

really enjoyed was a Site Interpretive Tour. For the Site Tour each person had to choose a

historical place that did not already have a tour. I was so excited when we got the project

because I knew exactly which place I was going to do for the tour. I went to my home town of

Dillsburg, Pa and wrote a tour for the Dill’s Tavern just outside of town. We had to describe

everything we would want the tour guide to do as he/she led the tour around the building like

hand gestures, where people should stand, asking questions, and having younger children interact

with some of the items in the tavern.

This was not an ordinary paper like I was used to writing with lots of restrictions. Instead

I was able to include what I thought would be helpful on a tour of the Dill’s Tavern and just have

fun with the whole project! Also with this project I got to work closely with the Vice President

of the Northern York County Historical and Preservation Society, Joanne Klase, which gave me

a first hand experience into public history. She was able to help me figure out what should be

included in the site tour and provided tons of information on the tavern that I could include in the

tour. Joanne did have some specifics that she wanted in the tour and areas where she wanted

groups to go so I did have some restrictions that way but besides those few restraints I was able

to be very creative with the tour and have a lot of fun with it. This project was very different

then the other papers discussed earlier because I had to write specifically on a certain book or

time period. However with the site tour I had the opportunity to show my creative side, pick a

historical place that many people may not know, and come up with a unique tour. Most of my

sources for this project were primary because of the extent of information already known about

the tavern but I did use some secondary sources to help with some background information on

colonial times. Doing this project showed me a different side of history and since I was able to

pick where I wanted to do the tour I could show a more creative side and unique side to the

history that I was interested in. I really enjoyed this class and I am very excited to work on more

public history projects after I graduate.

The last paper that I am going to examine is my Senior Capstone paper for Seminar in

Comparative History. This class is usually taken during the last year at Shippensburg and

combines all that the student has learned throughout their college career. This class was very

unique because it focused on a comparative study of environmental history. It was a very

interesting class because we learned all about environmental history and that it just does not

cover the environment but also encompasses other aspects of studying history. For our project in

this class we had to do a research paper on environmental history but with a comparative

element. Since I had already had Theory and Practice which dealt with the Great Depression I

decided to use that as one of my topics and for my other topic I used Irish history because I am

very interested in Ireland’s past.

To narrow these two topics down a bit I did some work and came up with looking at the

effects of the environment on population. During the Great Depression the Dust Bowl occurred

in the Great Plains and caused mass migration to California and other western states. In the

1840s and 1850s in Ireland the Great Potato Famine occurred causing many people to migrate

and even emigrate to other parts of the world. I thought that doing my Theory and Practice paper

pushed me but this paper really got me work my hardest! For this essay I had to do a

historiography on books that had already written on the Irish Famine and the Dust Bowl and pick

out the authors’ strengths and weaknesses throughout the book. The historiography was only

part of what I had to do for the paper. Another part that I had to do was a case study where I

focused on primary sources concerning the effects of the Irish Famine. Looking at the primary

sources for this part was fascinating because there was so much information and I was getting

some insight into how the Irish felt during the famine.

My seminar paper really pushed me to the limits with my research and writing skills but

also taught me how to bring everything together that I had learned over the years at

Shippensburg. Not all of my papers relate to the same subject but I have explored a wide range

of historical eras and have learned about many different periods in time. From my very first

college paper up until now I have developed much needed skills to be a good historian and I am

very proud that I have made it this far. My experience at Shippensburg has been a great one

because of the amazing staff and faculty in the history department! Their ability to refine and

teach good writing and historical skills has really paid off and I am now ready to face the world

and be a Historian!!!