Another Research Trip. . . .
Looking for those Irish Emigrants--and the work of historians
Image of Rosalie Hart Priour https://ckpetrus.com/petrus/rpriourinfo.html
The last two years have been packed with research trips. This is the second this year already with likely at least two more big ones. This time I’m headed to Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Mobile. I’m still researching Irish emigration 1765-1840 (roughly) and looking at how emigrants landed in New Orleans and made their way to Texas but there was a lot of turmoil in Texas in these years and many of them fled back to New Orleans and on to Alabama (Mobile, Tuscaloosa) to weather these storms. In addition to the Mexican Army, Irish immigrants in Texas had to deal with disease—cholera, whooping cough, yellow fever—Native Indians, and the general disarray of living on the frontier. In particular, I’m following the path of Rosalie Hart Priour, who was just a child when she landed in Texas from Wexford, Ireland, in 1833. So be looking for more on that as a larger project soon.
In the meantime, I’ve scheduled appointments at libraries, archives, the archdioceses in various towns, and a convent. There’s really no telling where the research will take a person.
The charts on yellow fever in New Orleans are both grisly and fascinating. I’m looking forward to a deep dive into the secondary sources on yellow fever and cholera to really understand what was happening.
graph from: https://nolacityarchives.org/2024/03/05/yellow-fever-deaths/#gsc.tab=0 City Archives and Special Collections, New Orleans.
The sheer numbers of people who died from yellow fever are shocking. Mosquitos, who carried the disease, are numerous right now where I live because we’ve had an extremely wet spring. I’ve got bites all over me and while annoying, I’m relieved they aren’t carrying the “yellow fever.”
Again, setting up research appointments at libraries and archives takes a lot of time. First, I have to figure out what holdings they have that might be pertinent to my topic with the call numbers. Then I have to contact the institution by email, phone, or online form (their websites will specify) requesting a time and day to visit, plus telling the librarian or archivist exactly what I want to look at (the holdings may be off site). Then I wait to see if my requests are granted. Plus, I always ask if they know of anything related to my topic (I give them the key words) that I may have missed. I often get lucky that way because they know what they have while I’m just dabbling with their online catalogs and finding guides.
In other news, I’ve had a small nibble from an agent about a book proposal I’ve been working on for months. I have some serious rewrites but (fingers crossed), she will like those changes and want to move forward with it. If it works out positively, I’ll post more on selling a book on proposal.