A new living history exhibit at the Ulster American Folk Park will reconstruct the cramped, multi-ethnic tenements where Ulster immigrants lived in American cities between 1840 and 1910, shifting the story away from rural Presbyterian farmers to include single working women, children, and families in urban slums. This research fills a gap in Irish migration history, which has largely separated Protestant and Catholic experiences and focused on Ulster Presbyterian life in rural settings. By examining material culture—clothing, household objects, and personal belongings—the project will show how class, gender, religion, and race shaped daily life in cities like New York and Boston. If successful, the exhibit will give visitors a more accurate, inclusive picture of the Ulster-American experience, moving beyond the dominant male, middle-class narrative. The research is primarily curiosity-driven, deepening fundamental understanding of diaspora communities. However, it could also inform how museums across the UK and Ireland present contested migration histories, offering a model for interpreting the lives of people who rarely appear in official records.
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This project will provide a comprehensive background to a new living history exhibit at the Ulster American Folk Park. It will explore life and living conditions for Ulster migrants to American cities between 1840 and 1910. The researcher will spend time researching the material culture of Ulster-American life, delving into relevant museum collections, and through consideration of other sites’ best practice, explore how the UAFP could best present case studies of Ulster emigrant life in American tenements. The focus of this PhD will be on the experiences of Ulster emigrants to northern cities in the United States – an experience which is currently understudied in Irish migration history, which tends to separate Protestant and Catholic experiences, and in Ulster historiography, which emphasises Ulster Presbyterian life in rural settings. It will therefore contribute to filling a gap in Irish diaspora scholarship while presenting opportunities for additional interpretation in the UAFP. The time-period studied allows for consideration of multigenerational community identity development, expanding the narrative from dominant male middle class experiences to familial structures, single working women, and children growing up in an American city. This, therefore, allows for the exploration of themes of class, gender, religion, and, as these migrants were living and loving in multi-ethnic urban spaces, ethnicity and race. In these ways, this project contributes to the historiography of Irish migration and the priorities of NMNI.
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