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The Sons of Molly Maguire: The Irish Roots of America's First Labor War 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

by Mark Bulik (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.0 out of 5 stars 114 ratings
An “incisive and original” history of the 19th-century Irish secret society that instigated America’s first labor wars in Pennsylvania Coal Country (Peter Quinn, author of Looking for Jimmy).
 
A secret society of Irish peasant assassins, the Molly Maguires reemerged in Pennsylvania’s hard-coal region, organizing strikes, murdering mine bosses, and fighting the Civil War draft. Their shadowy twelve-year battle with coal companies marked the beginning of class warfare in America. But little has been written about the origins of this struggle or the peculiar rites, traditions, and culture of the Mollies.
 
The Sons of Molly Maguire delves into the lost world of peasant Ireland to uncover the links between the folk justice of the Mollies and the folk drama of the Mummers—a group known in America today for their annual New Year’s parade in Philadelphia. The historic link not only explains much about Ireland’s Mollies—why the killers wore women’s clothing, why they struck around holidays—but also sheds new light on the Mollies’ re-emergence in Pennsylvania.
 
When the Irish arrived in the anthracite coal region, they brought along their ethnic, religious, and political conflicts. Just before the Civil War, a secret society emerged, as did an especially political form of Mummery. Resurrected amid wartime strikes and conscription, the American Mollies would become a bastion of labor activism.
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  1. ISBN-13
    978-0823262243
  2. Edition
    1st
  3. Publisher
    Fordham University Press
  4. Publication date
    January 1, 2015
  5. Language
    English
  6. File size
    6.9 MB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Highly readable ... fascinating" -- Irish Historical Studies

Review

“Mark Bulik’s The Sons of Molly Maguire is a superb work of scholarship. Focused on origins, this work situates the Irish emergence and American persistence of the Molly Maguires in all of their considerable complexity, while likewise ably revealing not only the crucial developments of the 1870s that have embedded the Mollies in American memory but also the factors contributing to the Mollies’ continuing legacy extending into the present.”---James P. Leary, University of Wisconsin

Mark Bulik's The Sons of Molly Maguire: The Irish Roots of America's First Labor War is a work of considerable scholarship, which carefully unpicks the tightly braided strands of ethnic, labor and party politics in the mid-nineteenth-century coal fields, especially the west branch of Schuylkill County. Drawing on the extensive research, he illuminates the competition between the Irish and other immigrant groups, and, most interestingly, the regional, class and generation tensions within the Irish community itself.---Breandan Mac Suibhne, Dublin Review of Books

Mark Bulik’s The Sons of Molly Maguire is an engaging and enlightening work of historical research and scholarship. As well as bring into focus the Mollies’ role in giving America its first taste of class warfare, Bulik’s incisive and original explorations sweep aside myths, legends, half-truths, and untruths. He significantly deepens our understanding of these flesh-and blood laborers, who they were, where they came from, and how their struggle resonated through the labor movement in the United States. Thoughtful, insightful and unfailing fair, The Sons of the Molly Maguire is history at its best.---Peter Quinn, author of Looking for Jimmy: A Search for Irish America

With deft writing and impressive research, Mark Bulik offers a new explanation for a conflict that shook the very foundations of post-Civil War America. The Molly Maguires were at the center of America’s first great labor war, but as Bulik shows, the first shots of that war were fired not in northeastern Pennsylvania, but in the fields and villages of Ireland.---Terry Golway, author of Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics

Bulik's unfailingly interesting book has a fascinating story to tell. His analysis of the Irish roots of the Mollies is excellent and in line with the tendency of US historiography to extend analysis beyond the borders of the nation. His accounts of the battles between the Mollies and the forces of law and order in Schuylkill county are well-written ... he does a service in stripping away some of the grey mist from the Mollies. This book will appeal to both a general and an academic audience. ― Capital & Class

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00QH2U1ZE
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Fordham University Press; 1st edition (January 1, 2015)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 1, 2015
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 6.9 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 380 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0823262235
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 out of 5 stars 114 ratings

About the author

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Mark Bulik

Mark Bulik

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Mark Bulik is a senior editor at The New York Times and the author of "Ambush at Central Park: When the IRA Came to New York" and "The Sons of Molly Maguire: The Irish Roots of America's First Labor War."

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4 out of 5 stars
114 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Mazie Albright
    5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating
    Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    Accuse and wonderfully written. The author completely drew me into this book that I had a had time putting it down!
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Andy in Washington
    4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book on A Strange Time
    Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2015
    I grew up in the coal regions of NE Pennsylvania, and thought I knew something of the Molly Maguires and their struggles against the coal barons of the mid and late 19th century. I evidently did not know anywhere near as much as I thought I did

    === The Good Stuff ===

    * Mark Bulik has done his homework. He traces the Molly Maguires from their rise in the counties of Ireland, and directly relates the struggles of Pennsylvania coal miners against mine owners to the plight of Irish tenant farmers and absentee landlords. .The degree of similarity of their tales is amazing.

    * For those readers like myself, who are primarily interest in the mining history of the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania, there is plenty in the book to make it a worthwhile read. It built on some of the facts I already knew, including the often-contentious relationship between the miners, mine owners and railroads, and how each had a turn being in the proverbial driver’s seat.

    * Bulik is at his best when describing the more human side of the struggles. He captures the futility of a miner working all year, and because of the company store system, actually owing money to his employer. We see the ability of the coal companies to directly affect the health and well-being of a black-listed “troublemaker”, and of course the mine superintendent who disappears on a dark road one evening.

    * I learned much from the book. As an example, I always assumed the “Mummers” were a bunch of guys that liked string bands and going to parades in lavish costumes. I never realized their connection to the Irish labor organizations, their violent past, or their true origin. Fascinating stuff.

    * While the book is “academic quality” in its research and references, the writing style is easy to read and not the convoluted 200 word sentences that seem to be a requirement of “serious, academic” non-fiction.

    === The Not-So-Good Stuff ===

    * Bulik’s topic is the Molly Maguires, not the labor struggles of Pennsylvania. As a result, a good portion of the book, maybe one third, is a journey through the history of Ireland and its secret organizations. And to be honest, this part of the book was hard to follow, and to keep straight the roles and tactics of various Irish organizations. And I never did quite understand the transitions of these organizations from Ireland to the US. There were groups of the name names, but it was unclear the exact relationship, if any, to the original Irish factions.

    * Some of the book was a bit repetitive. I started to lose patience with the phrase “dressed in women’s clothing” when describing the Irish mobs enforcing the discipline of the various secret societies. I got the point after the first twenty times it was mentioned.

    * Bulik avoids making conclusions. The book details much of the individual acts of the Molly Maguires and their associates, but stops short of analyzing the results. Did they ultimately benefit or cost the average miner? Were they responsible for the decline of the coal companies and rise of the railroads as the true power brokers? Were any of their violent tactics justifiable? Did the combative nature of the United Mine Workers and later unions build on the Molly Maguires, or were they a dead end? To me, these are the fascinating parts of the story, and Bulik gives them glancing coverage.

    === Summary ===

    I enjoyed the book, and would recommend it to anyone with even a passing curiosity about the struggles of Irish labor unions and secret societies and/or the coal mining struggles of 19th century NE PA. My personal preference would have been to slightly shift the focus of the book more of an economic analysis, but the author certainly gets to choose his topic. I found the book to be an enjoyable read, and looked forward to picking up the book.
    23 people found this helpful
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  • Patrick H. Campbell
    3.0 out of 5 stars The Irish Roots of Molly Maguires
    Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Well researched book on the history of secret groups in Ireland in the early decades of the 19th century, among them a group named the Molly Maguires. However, if you are expecting details on the Molly trials and executions in the 1870s you should look elsewhere. A more complete account of the Molly episodes in the 1870s can be found in Coleman's The Molly Maguire Riots; Kevin Kenny's, Making Sense of the Molly Maguires; and my own book, A Molly Maguire Story, Revised Edition. {2015]
    21 people found this helpful
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  • Barbara Hennessy
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2014
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    A fascinating read and well told history.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • booklover
    5.0 out of 5 stars Reads like a novel
    Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2024
    Mark Bulik's research is a great addition to the historical record on the Molly Maguires, but his writing makes it a page-turner too.
    One person found this helpful
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  • crackerjackheart
    3.0 out of 5 stars I didn't manage to finish this one, in spite ...
    Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2015
    I didn't manage to finish this one, in spite of being a native of the Pennsylvania coal regions. The book contains lots of fascinating history, but it's a bit heavy going for the average reader.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • paquinn47
    5.0 out of 5 stars Bulik has written a ground breaking history that adds a ...
    Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2017
    Bulik has written a ground breaking history that adds a whole new chapter to the history of the the American labor movement, particularly its Irish-American dimension. Over the years, I found that accounts of Irish America treat it in a vacuum, ignoring the deep roots in Irish history. Bulik offers an importantl corrective. Two other recent books do the same: Terry Golway's revisionist history of Tammany Hall, "Machiine Made," and Irene Whelan's "The Bible Wars in Ireland." Bulik carries the story of America's class war forward to the present day. I read a lot of history. This is up at the top of the list.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • R. Sheen
    2.0 out of 5 stars Good content but very, very boring
    Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    I am reluctant to leave less than positive reviews for books where the author obviously spent a lot of time researching and knows the material well. However, you need to be aware that this book is a great research manual but is incredibly dull reading for the average history enthusiast. Unfortunately, nothing about the Amazon description gives you a hint of this, and that's partly why I've given it two stars because I feel like the reader should have been warned.

    I have a bachelor's and master's in history. I read 40-50 non-fiction books annually, mostly history. I have seldom encountered a book this dry. Set your expectations accordingly if you decide to read it.

    The content itself is interesting. The Molly Maguires were an Irish secret society who used intimidation and violence to protest unfair treatment, first by the bullying landlords in Ireland (especially during the potato famine) and then by greedy coal mine operators. The author traces the origin of the Molly Maguires through Irish history and their connections with the mummers, wren boys and other Irish cultural mythic figures routinely dramatized at certain times of year by roving groups that were akin to America’s trick-or-treaters. Then he turns to the Irish migration to Schuylkill County, PA, a coal-mining locale that would become a hotbed of conflict in the mid-1800s between the coal mine owners and the coal mine laborers. The Civil War was a significant factor in that tension, partly because the government demand for cheap coal was high and partly because unscrupulous people on the side of the coal mine owners conveniently kept trying to draft all the protesting Irishmen into the army rather than having to actually pay them better wages. 

    Against this backdrop, it was not uncommon for the disgruntled mine laborers to occasionally beat or murder a coal mine owner or operator, or to blow up or destroy part of the mine. They also helped incite strikes and generally did all the things that violent labor protests have always done throughout history. Meanwhile, the wealthy and powerful people they were fighting against generally responded by doing as little as possible (safety standards for mines? naw, go ‘way!) and trying to hire from other ethnic pools instead. Oddly, this did not go over very well either.  

    The Molly Maguire influence eventually wound down and slowly morphed into various iterations of the labor unions we have today. 

    Frankly, the topic is actually quite fascinating. This book, however, is not. The author rambles from person to person to person to person to person to person to person and after awhile you simply lose track of what’s going on by whom and why and you are certainly long past caring. He pedantically and laboriously draws connections back to the mummers and wren boys and other cultural trends until he has exhausted the topic to death, at which point he keeps right on going with it. While the book does have a decent chronological flow, it is mostly just a two-page narrative about so-and-so, who either killed, was killed, or knew someone who was killed, after which that puts him in mind thereof of the next individual, and he starts all over with a two-page narrative on the next guy. If you were writing a research paper, this book would be a great directory and an excellent resource. But to sit down and read it cover to cover is pretty rough. There is zero life in this book and you will be extremely bored if you're just an ordinary reader who thinks the topic sounds interesting.
    2 people found this helpful
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