Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The image of the Irish in the United States changed drastically over time, from that of hard-drinking, rioting Paddies to genial, patriotic working-class citizens. In 'Twas Only an Irishman's Dream, William H. A. Williams traces the change in this image through more than seven hundred pieces of sheet music - popular songs from the stage and for the parlor - to show how Americans' opinions of Ireland and the Irish went practically from one extreme to the other. Because sheet music was a commercial item it had to be acceptable to the broadest possible song-buying public. Negotiations about their image involved Irish songwriters, performers, and pressured groups, on the one hand, and non-Irish writers, publishers, and audiences, on the other. Williams ties the contents of song lyrics to the history of the Irish diaspora, suggesting how ethnic stereotypes are created and how they evolve within commercial popular culture.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface (p. xi)
• Introduction (p. 1)
• Part 1 The Romantic Image: Emigration from Ireland (p. 15)
• 1. Dear Harp of My Country: The Irish Origins (p. 19)
• 2. Romantic Irish Popular Songs in Antebellum America (p. 32)
• Part 2 The Comic Image: The Irish Peasant in America (p. 51)
• 3. From Teague to Paddy: the Evolution of the Stage Irishman (p. 57)
• 4. Ethnicity and Parlor Songs: Paddy Compared (p. 78)
• Part 3 The Image in Post--Civil War Popular Theater: The Irish in Urban America (p. 91)
• 5. "To the Land We Left and to the Land We Live In," (p. 97)
• 6. The Irish and Vaudeville (p. 118)
• 7. The Irish American in Post--Civil War Song (p. 134)
• 8. The Theater and Songs of Edward Harrigan (p. 158)
• Part 4 The Image on Tin Pan Alley: The Post-Famine Immigration (p. 175)
• 9. Paddy on the Alley (p. 181)
• 10. Irish America in Search of an Image (p. 200)
• 11. All That I Want Is in Ireland (p. 211)
• Conclusion (p. 237)
• Notes (p. 245)
• Works Cited (p. 283)
• Index (p. 297)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This engaging social history underlines the role of popular music in the cultural negotiation of immigrant identity, both in the personal identification with a syncretic immigrant-American culture and in the formation of public ethnic stereotypes. As such, it complements more general works such as Lawrence McCaffrey's Textures of Irish America (1992). Williams convincingly demonstrates the evolution of Irish images in song texts and theatrical presentations through detailed comparative tabulations of analytical themes, although one wonders how Irish Americans themselves viewed their manufactured image. The work is less satisfying as musical history; a sense of the music itself is oddly lacking in a book about a people of remarkable native musicality. Nonetheless, through its pages pass John McCormack, Ned Harrigan, George M. Cohan--some of the greatest names in American popular music before the 1920s. Although reproductions of sheet music art nicely illustrate the development of visual stereotypes, a map of Ireland and a glossary would be useful for unfamiliar names and words. Musical examples would also be helpful to contemporary audiences unfamiliar with Tin Pan Alley songs. The work is well annotated and includes a good bibliography. All collections. M. Forry; University of California, Santa Cruz

Author notes provided by Syndetics

William H. A. Williams is a professor in the Union Institute College of Undergraduate Studies in Cincinnati. The author of H. L. Mencken, he has published widely in American and Irish studies.