STAIR NA HÉIREANN | IRISH HISTORY

Elizabeth Stack, PhD, February 1st 2026 at 2pm
Contested Citizens: Irish and German Immigrants.

On February 1, 2026 our speaker will be Elizabeth Stack, PhD, Director of Education at Celtic Junction Arts Center in St. Paul, MN. Dr. Stack is the recent recipient of the 2025 Heroes of Irish America Award. She was the Executive Director of the American Irish Historical Society in New York City and prior to that was the executive director of the Irish American Heritage Museum in Albany, NY.

How the two largest immigrant groups chose to define their ethnic identity amidst myriad Americanization policies, making it possible for other groups to be ethnic Americans, is the subject of this talk titled: Contested Citizens: Irish and German Immigrants.

In a 1925 Forum magazine, Madison Grant (The Passing of the Great Race) wrote “America for the Americans,” mourning the fact that Anglo-Americans, whom he describes as the native American population, were in danger of being surpassed by immigrants who remained alien and immune to assimilation. He advocated for all citizens register their identification and fingerprints, arguing this could be used for eugenic purposes. He praised the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 as a corrective to the waves of undesirable immigrants, claiming it was “one of the greatest steps forward in the history of this country.” Between 1870 to 1930, approximately 12-15 percent of those living in the US were born elsewhere. Worries about American society changing loomed large in an era which saw large numbers of new immigrants arriving from southern and eastern Europe, while industrialization, urbanization and the threat of war exacerbated the problem. What qualities were desirable in immigrants, what status they should occupy in society, what rights and access to power and systems they should have, who might become a citizen, as well as what contributions they must make, were typical concerns for the native-born population. The Irish and Germans were not immune from this debate. They occupied an in-between status by the late nineteenth century. They had risen through the ranks of city politics, worked their way up from maids to school-teachers, dominated the growing Catholic church, and contributed to a thriving press and theatrical culture. But despite this, they were still conscious of their outsider status in relation to Anglo-Saxon Protestants, finding themselves to be contested citizens, whose status was not guaranteed. They provided a blueprint for other ethnic Americans on how to negotiate a pluralistic identity in the face of an increasingly narrowly defined American one.

GO RAIBH MILE MAITH AGAT

The Fréamh Éireann Genealogy Group would like to thank Féile and the Irish Language Group for their continued sponsorship of our Irish History Lectures.