Overview
An Unlikely Union tells the dramatic story of how two of America’s largest ethnic groups learned to love and laugh with each other after decades of animosity. They came from the poorest parts of Ireland and Italy and met as rivals on the sidewalks of New York. Beginning in the nineteenth century, the Irish and Italians clashed in the Catholic Church, on the waterfront, at construction sites, and in the streets. Then they made peace through romance, marrying each other on a large scale in the years after World War II. The vibrant cast of characters features saints such as Mother Frances X. Cabrini, who stood up to the Irish American archbishop of New York when he tried to send her back to Italy, and sinners like Al Capone, who left his Irish wife home the night he shot it out with Brooklyn’s Irish mob. The book also highlights the torrid love affair between radical labor organizers Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Carlo Tresca; the alliance between Italian American gangster Paul Kelly and Tammany’s “Big Tim” Sullivan; heroic detective Joseph Petrosino’s struggle to be accepted in the Irish-run NYPD; and the competition between Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby to become the country’s top male vocalist. In this engaging history of the Irish and Italians, veteran New York City journalist and professor Paul Moses offers a classic American story of competition, cooperation, and resilience. At a time of renewed fear of immigrants, An Unlikely Union reminds us that Americans are able to absorb tremendous social change and conflict—and come out the better for it.
Full Product Details
Author: Paul Moses
Publisher: New York University Press
Imprint: New York University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 3.00cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.680kg
ISBN: 9781479871308
ISBN 10: 1479871303
Pages: 368
Publication Date: 03 July 2015
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Tertiary & Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
The masses of Italian immigrants who arrived in New York City in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries found Irish Americans everywhere in charge: as cops and robbers, saints and sinners, and wary gatekeepers of nearly all the occupations the newcomers hoped to pursue. By Paul Moses's delightfully insightful, warm, and witty account, ethnic tribalism proved no match for enterprising immigrants who saw their opportunities and took them. From Paolo Vacarelli--who as Paul Kelly insinuated himself deep into the heart of the city's political and labor establishments before reclaiming his original identity--to Francis Albert Sinatra, who far surpassed his Irish-American musical 'foreman' Tommy Dorsey, Italian-Americans forged a 'mixed marriage' with the Irish that transformed both communities. -James T. Fisher, Fordham University
Author Information
Paul Moses is Professor Emeritus of Journalism at CUNY-Brooklyn College and a former reporter and editor at Newsday. He is the author of An Unlikely Union: The Love-Hate Story of New York's Irish and Italians and The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam and Francis of Assisi's Mission of Peace.
