[Ads-l] Emerson on the road to the "Paddy wagon"

[Joel Berson]

Two thoughts from history, as best I remember what I've read.  (And I will deny to my grave that I do lit. crit.)

1)  There was a long history in Ireland of dispossession of land worked by small farmers, from the mid-17th century into the 19th century.  Expropriation in the early period, when land was taken from the "wild Irish" by Englishmen (especially under Cromwell).  Eviction later, when the large landholders found it more profitable to combine small parcels by removing the tenants farming them.
2)  The potato famine began in 1847, and continued for nearly a decade. Immigration from Ireland to America began to increase gradually around 1835, and jumped to extremely high levels for several years starting in 1847.  The majority of Irish immigrants changed from Protestant to Catholic.  They were not well received -- certainly they were poor, Catholics were especially unwelcome in Protestant New England, and the Irish were seen as riotous, drunkards, thieves, etc.  (Earlier, after a small spurt if immigration of Irish Protestants to New England in the 1720s, there were fears that they would become an economic burden on the towns.  Immigration was discouraged, and it much decreased after the mid-1720s.)


Is Emerson's 1850 image (1) the poor, dispossessed Irishman, carrying all his possessions (his "country") in a (perhaps literal) wheelbarrow from one parish in Ireland to another searching for land to farm (or for a parish that will support him on its poor rolls), and/or (2) the emigrant Irishman carrying all his belongings in a figurative wheelbarrow across the sea to America?
The earlier, reversed 1834/1836 phrase "a wheelbarrow is his country", could have arisen just from  (1) above -- the poor, landless Irishman -- and have been augmented by (2) at the time of increased immigration.

Joel
     From: Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Sunday, April 12, 2015 11:35 AM
 Subject: [ADS-L] Emerson on the road to the "Paddy wagon"
   
As already observed, "paddy wagon," now usually associated with police vehicles, was formerly in many texts associated with wheelbarrows. And Emerson may have played a role in the term's history with his 1850 (c.1849) essay (Representative Men: Seven Lectures. Uses of Great Men. Page 35): "Generous and handsome,' he says, 'is your hero; but look at yonder poor Paddy, whose country is his wheelbarrow; ...."

Why did Emerson write that?

In the Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson (W.H. Gilman et al. eds., Harvard U. P.)  are two earlier related texts.
Vol. 4 (1964) page 351 [Journal A, 116. Concord 3 December 1834]: "The poor Irishman [--] a wheelbarrow is his country[.]"
Vol. 5 (1965) page 228 {Journal B, 280. 1836]: "The poor Irishman, a wheelbarrow is his country."

Comments welcome.

Stephen Goranson
http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/





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