In this pioneering study, David Emmons tells the story of Butte's large and assertive population of Irish immigrants. He traces their backgrounds in Ireland, the building of an ethnic community in Butte, the nature and hazards of their work in the copper mines, and the complex interplay between Irish nationalism and worker consciousness. From a treasure trove of "Irish stuff," the reports, minutes, and correspondence of the major Irish-American organizations in Butte, Emmons shows how the stalwart supporters of the RELA and the Ancient Order of Hiberians marched and drilled for Irish freedom---and how, as they ran the town, the miners' union, and the largest mining companies, they used this tradition of ethnic cooperation to ensure safe and steady work, Irish mines taking care of Irish miners. Butte was new, overwhelmingly Irish, and extraordinarily dangerous---the ideal place to test the seam between class and ethnicity.

Both Ireland and the Pacific Northwest are known for their climates, and have historically been associated with the rose. This collection of essays explores the exchange Ireland has had with the Northwest using the rose as an example by examining the beautiful and the harsh, the petals and the thorns. It is the culmination of the work of established and emerging historians and writers who have traversed the boundary between the Northwest and Ireland several times. The timely contributions gathered here include essays about the imperialist mindset, biased court systems, the victims of social hatred, and organized resistance. Timeless themes include grief, poetry and the oral tradition, and the effect plants have upon a given population. The book is a much-needed contribution to often overlooked aspects of colonialism and boundaries.

This wide-ranging collection of essays addresses a diverse and expanded vision of Montana literature, offering new readings of both canonical and overlooked texts. Although a handful of Montana writers such as Richard Hugo, A. B. Guthrie Jr., D'Arcy McNickle, and James Welch have received considerable critical attention, sizable gaps remain in the analysis of the state's ever-growing and ever-evolving canon. The twelve essays in "All Our Stories Are Here" not only build on the exemplary, foundational work of other writers but also open further interpretative and critical conversations. Expanding on the critical paradigms of the past and bringing to bear some of the latest developments in literary and cultural studies, the contributors engage issues such as queer ambivalence in Montana writing, representations of the state in popular romances, and the importance of the University of Montana's creative writing program in fostering the state's literary corpus. The contributors also explore the work of writers who have not yet received their critical due, take new looks at old friends, and offer some of the first explorations of recent works by well-established artists. "All Our Stories Are Here" conveys a sense of continuity in the field of Western literary criticism, while at the same time challenging conventional approaches to regional literature.

Catholicism s impact on the lives and work of professional historians"

“I realize that I am a soldier of production whose duties are as important in this war as those of the man behind the gun.” So began the pledge that many home front men took at the outset of World War II when they went to work in the factories, fields, and mines while their compatriots fought in the battlefields of Europe and on the bloody beaches of the Pacific. The male experience of working and living in wartime America is rarely examined, but the story of men like these provides a crucial counter-narrative to the national story of Rosie the Riveter and GI Joe that dominates scholarly and popular discussions of World War II. In Meet Joe Copper, Matthew L. Basso describes the formation of a powerful, white, working-class masculine ideology in the decades prior to the war, and shows how it thrived—on the job, in the community, and through union politics. Basso recalls for us the practices and beliefs of the first- and second-generation immigrant copper workers of Montana while advancing the historical conversation on gender, class, and the formation of a white ethnic racial identity. Meet Joe Copper provides a context for our ideas of postwar masculinity and whiteness and finally returns the men of the home front to our reckoning of the Greatest Generation and the New Deal era.

This is the first textbook on the history of modern Ireland to adopt a social history perspective. Written by an international team of leading scholars, it draws on a wide range of disciplinary approaches and consistently sets Irish developments in a wider European and global context.

Franklin Henry Little (1878–1917), an organizer for the Western Federation of Miners and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), fought in some of the early twentieth century’s most contentious labor and free-speech struggles. Following his lynching in Butte, Montana, his life and legacy became shrouded in tragedy and family secrets. In Frank Little and the IWW, author Jane Little Botkin chronicles her great-granduncle’s fascinating life and reveals its connections to the history of American labor and the first Red Scare. Beginning with Little’s childhood in Missouri and territorial Oklahoma, Botkin recounts his evolution as a renowned organizer and agitator on behalf of workers in corporate agriculture, oil, logging, and mining. Frank Little traveled the West and Midwest to gather workers beneath the banner of the Wobblies (as IWW members were known), making soapbox speeches on city street corners, organizing strikes, and writing polemics against unfair labor practices. His brother and sister-in-law also joined the fight for labor, but it was Frank who led the charge—and who was regularly threatened, incarcerated, and assaulted for his efforts. In his final battles in Arizona and Montana, Botkin shows, Little and the IWW leadership faced their strongest opponent yet as powerful copper magnates countered union efforts with deep-laid networks of spies and gunmen, an antilabor press, and local vigilantes. For a time, Frank Little’s murder became a rallying cry for the IWW. But after the United States entered the Great War and Congress passed the Sedition Act (1918) to ensure support for the war effort, many politicians and corporations used the act to target labor “radicals,” squelch dissent, and inspire vigilantism. Like other wage-working families smeared with the traitor label, the Little family endured raids, arrests, and indictments in IWW trials. Having scoured the West for firsthand sources in family, library, and museum collections, Botkin melds the personal narrative of an American family with the story of the labor movements that once shook the nation to its core. In doing so, she throws into sharp relief the lingering consequences of political repression.

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts when Montana historian Robert Swartout gathers the fascinating stories of the state’s surprisingly diverse ethnic groups into this thought-provoking collection of essays. Fourteen chapters showcase an African American nightclub in Great Falls, a Japanese American war hero, the founding of a Metís community, Jewish merchants, and Dutch settlement in the Gallatin Valley, as well as stories of Irish, Scots, Chinese, Finns, Mexican Americans, European war brides, and more.

This work is a distinctive, multidisciplinary encyclopedia covering the cultural, political, economic, musical, and literary impact that Ireland and the nations of the Americas have had on one another since the time of Brendan the Navigator. Ireland and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History aims to broaden the traditional notion of 'Irish-American' beyond Boston, New York, and Chicago. In additional to full coverage of Irish culture in those settings, it reveals the pervasive Irish influence in everything from the settling of the American West, to the spread of Christianity throughout the hemisphere, to Irish involvement in revolutionary movements from the American colonies to Mexico to South America. In addition, the encyclopedia shows the profound impact of Irish Americans on their homeland, in everything from art and literature informed by the emigrant experience, to efforts by Irish Americans to influence Irish politics. Ranging from colonial times to the present, and informed by the surge of academic interest in the past 30 years, Ireland and the Americas is the definitive resource on the profound ties that bind the cultures of Ireland, the United States, Canada, and Latin America.