TY - CHAP
T1 - English Associational Culture in Nineteenth-Century North America
AU - MacRaild, Donald
PY - 2016/12/1
Y1 - 2016/12/1
N2 - During the nineteenth century, European emigrants to the United States and the British Empire laid down many markers of their ethnicity. In so doing they demonstrated a desire to maintain traditional culture as a strategy for integrating into their new homes. Collective self-help and care for the wider national group lessened the risks of alienation and struggle. Among the immigrants’ many efforts was a plethora of clubs, societies and organizations that combined national pride and ethnic celebration with collective self-help and charity. Such associations were both sites of local collaboration and foci for broader networking. The Irish, Scots, Welsh, Germans and many others formed societies bearing the names of their national saints in what were clear reminders of origins. The English were no different. They formed societies named for their patron saint, or else for Albion or England. None of these names could but enhance the knowledge of origins. The English also met on their saint’s day to celebrate England, to hear tales of her history, and to describe the personification of national values in the mytho-poetic persona of Saint George himself. These essentially modernist uses of the saint contrasted with medieval veneration and exploration of St George, but nevertheless utilized him as focal point for identity and activity, a coalescing force. This chapter explores a little-understood feature of English ethnicity through the lens of diaspora, arguing that in terms of public identification and social formation, the English formed a diaspora too.
AB - During the nineteenth century, European emigrants to the United States and the British Empire laid down many markers of their ethnicity. In so doing they demonstrated a desire to maintain traditional culture as a strategy for integrating into their new homes. Collective self-help and care for the wider national group lessened the risks of alienation and struggle. Among the immigrants’ many efforts was a plethora of clubs, societies and organizations that combined national pride and ethnic celebration with collective self-help and charity. Such associations were both sites of local collaboration and foci for broader networking. The Irish, Scots, Welsh, Germans and many others formed societies bearing the names of their national saints in what were clear reminders of origins. The English were no different. They formed societies named for their patron saint, or else for Albion or England. None of these names could but enhance the knowledge of origins. The English also met on their saint’s day to celebrate England, to hear tales of her history, and to describe the personification of national values in the mytho-poetic persona of Saint George himself. These essentially modernist uses of the saint contrasted with medieval veneration and exploration of St George, but nevertheless utilized him as focal point for identity and activity, a coalescing force. This chapter explores a little-understood feature of English ethnicity through the lens of diaspora, arguing that in terms of public identification and social formation, the English formed a diaspora too.
M3 - Chapter
SN - 9780773547131
T3 - Studies in Ethnic History
SP - 189
EP - 214
BT - Between Dispersion and Belonging: Recent Advances in Diaspora Studies
A2 - Chowdhury, Amitava
A2 - Akenson, Donald H.
PB - McGill-Queen's University Press
CY - Kingston, Ontario
ER -