Books by "Margaret M. Mulrooney"
2 books found
Of the many recipients of federal support during the Great Depression, the citizens of Norvelt, Pennsylvania, stand out as model reminders of the vital importance of New Deal programs. Hoping to transform their desperate situation, the 250 families of this western Pennsylvania town worked with the federal government to envision a new kind of community that would raise standards of living through a cooperative lifestyle and enhanced civic engagement. Their efforts won them a nearly mythic status among those familiar with Norvelt’s history. Hope in Hard Times explores the many transitions faced by those who undertook this experiment. With the aid of the New Deal, these residents, who hailed from the hardworking and underserved class that Jacob Riis had called the “other half” a generation earlier, created a middle-class community that would become an exemplar of the success of such programs. Despite this, many current residents of Norvelt—the children and grandchildren of the first inhabitants—oppose government intervention and support political candidates who advocate scrutinizing and even eliminating public programs. Authors Timothy Kelly, Margaret Power, and Michael Cary examine this still-unfolding narrative of transformation in one Pennsylvania town, and the struggles and successes of its original residents, against the backdrop of one of the most ambitious federal endeavors in U.S. history.
Twenty years ago, Margaret Mulrooney's history of the community of Irish immigrant workers at the du Pont powder yards, Black Powder, White Lace, was published to wide acclaim. Now, as much of the materials Mulrooney used in her research are now electronically available to the public, and as debates about immigration continue to rage, a new edition of the book is being published to remind readers of the rich materials available on the du Pont workers, and of Mulrooney's powerful conclusions about immigrant communities in America. Explosives work was dangerous, but the du Ponts provided a host of benefits to their workers. As a result, the Irish remained loyal to their employers, convinced by their everyday experiences that their interests and the du Ponts' were one and the same. Employing a wide array of sources, Mulrooney turns away from the worksite and toward the domestic sphere, revealing that powder mill families asserted their distinctive ethno-religious heritage at the same time as they embraced what U.S. capitalism had to offer.