Understanding Our Identity
America is a nation of immigrants -- always has been and continues to be. Helping us understand our identity are the many immigration/heritage museums which tell the stories of our ancestors. Here are a few U.S. museums of special significance in describing the Irish immigrant experience:
- Ellis Island, New York, NY (www.nps.gov/elis) - More than 12 million immigrants passed through its gates between 1892 and 1954. Annie Moore of Ireland was the first. In 1907 the station processed 1,004,756 immigrants! About 40% of today's Americans can trace their ancestry through Ellis Island. Seeing the space through which all those people passed is a memorable experience.
- Lower East Side Tenement Museum, New York, NY (www.tenement.org/) - A lower East Side tenement has been restored to help visitors experience what it was like to live in one of the most densely populated places in the world in the early 1900s. On the tour is the home of an Irish family who felt like outsiders when they moved into this mostly-German neighborhood.
- Ireland's Great Hunger Museum, Quinnipiac University, Hamden, CT (http://www.thegreathunger.org/Museum/) - Two floors of art and artifacts help visitors experience the devastation of the Famine and the flight to America.
- Irish Railroad Workers Museum, Baltimore, MD (http://www.irishshrine.org/) - The site consists of five alley houses where Irish immigrants who worked for the B&O Railroad lived. Free Irish-inspired programs occur on the second Saturday of each month.
- Museum of Newport Irish History, Newport, RI (www.newportirishhistory.org/) - In the heart of Newport's best-known Irish neighborhood, visitors learn about Irish immigration to Newport County from the 1600s to the present.
- Irish American Heritage Museum, Albany, NY (http://irish-us.org/) - Preserves and tells the story of the Irish people and their culture; serves as a repository of artifacts from the Ancient Order of Hibernians.
