A Parallel case?: The Irish in abolitionist thought and the emergence of white labor in the United States

Daniel T. McClurkin
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引用次数: 1

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article traces the rhetorical transformation from the Irish as an exemplum to the Irish as a historically situated demographic in U.S. abolitionist writings from the early to mid-nineteenth century. Through close readings of polemical essays, speeches, and newspaper articles, I argue that abolitionist writers such as David Walker, Samuel Cornish, Gerrit Smith, and Frederick Douglass begin to transition away from conceiving of the exploitation of Irish workers as a fraught, though generative comparative case to chattel slavery once a new demographic of native Irish Catholic emigrants are interpellated into the emergent category of “white labor.” The Irish are thus initially used by abolitionist writers to contrast chattel slavery with other forms of labor exploitation under capitalism until the political utility of those comparisons began to wane as the Irish-American laborer proved socially and conceptionally antagonistic to free and enslaved black laborers.
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一个类似的案例?爱尔兰人的废奴主义思想和美国白人劳工的出现
本文追溯了19世纪初至中期美国废奴主义作品中从以爱尔兰人为例到以爱尔兰人为历史定位的修辞转变。通过仔细阅读辩论文章、演讲和报纸文章,我认为,一旦爱尔兰本土天主教移民的新人口统计被纳入新兴的“白人劳工”类别,像大卫·沃克、塞缪尔·康沃尔、格里特·史密斯和弗雷德里克·道格拉斯这样的废奴主义作家开始转变观念,不再把对爱尔兰工人的剥削视为一种令人担忧的、尽管可以与动产奴隶制进行比较的案例。因此,废奴主义作家最初用爱尔兰人来对比资本主义制度下的动产奴隶制和其他形式的劳动剥削,直到这些比较的政治效用开始减弱,因为爱尔兰裔美国工人在社会上和观念上都与自由和被奴役的黑人工人对立。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.60
自引率
25.00%
发文量
18
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