ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the media portrayals of several famous Americans whose public personas were notably constructed within Irish frameworks. This chapter seeks to bring to light some of the shifting impressions of Irishness in the popular imagination of the early twentieth century and highlight how the media participated in the transformation of Irish-American identity. Examined in this chapter are Mary Mallon (a.k.a. “Typhoid Mary), the Irish immigrant woman believed to have been the source of two lethal typhoid outbreaks in New York City; Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, the celebrated labor organizer; Nellie Bly, the daring stunt journalist; Margaret Tobin Brown (a.k.a. “the Unsinkable Molly Brown”), the Titanic survivor and socialite; “Diamond Jim” Brady, New York’s famous millionaire gourmand; George Clarence “Bugs” Moran, the leader of Chicago’s Irish mob during the prohibition era; Father Charles Coughlin, the controversial “radio priest” and demagogue who pioneered talk radio; and Joseph Kennedy, Sr., the businessman, SEC Chairman, and ambassador who became an icon of Irish-American success. In the media portrayals of these eight individuals, the reemergence and breakdown of old Irish stereotypes occurs, revealing a need for new rhetoric in describing the Irish experience in America.
