Webinar Review: Irish Immigrant Women in the US

As you know, this blog reviews. It is probably time to review webinars! Or at least one webinar that I found incredibly interesting which shared very insightful resources. The webinar was “A Lonely Voyage: Finding Irish Immigrant Women in the United States” given by Elizabeth Hodges, an expert in Irish and Irish American Studies.

Elizabeth Hodges is a Senior Genealogy Library at the Allen County Public Library, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which is the home of The Genealogy Center. You can read about her and the other librarians who are genealogists at: https://www.genealogy.acpl.lib.in.us/about-genealogy-center. She has an amazing combination of skills as historian, genealogist and educator.

In this webinar, Ms. Hodges provides an insightful social history about the women who traveled alone from Ireland to the United States, sharing the reasons for immigration and the challenges they faced at all steps of this journey. She explains the history and context of why so many Irish women traveled alone to the United States. Additionally, she outlines how they traveled, which ports were common departure and arrival ports, and how US laws influenced their immigration experience. She also describes what life and work were like in the US after their arrival. By looking at combined experiences of the time, we can definitely see life through the eyes of our Irish female immigrant ancestors.

As a bonus, wonderful resources were shared. One that was especially useful in my research was The Irish Mission at Watson House website, which will be featured in this blog soon.

“A Lonely Voyage: Finding Irish Immigrant Women in the United States” is now on the YouTube channel for The Genealogy Center at Allen County Public Library https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8AE558B5D8661B31

While you are at the YouTube Channel, you can look for other presentations by Ms. Hodges, additional Irish presentations, and hundreds of other presentations in their playlist.