Dyckman Farmhouse Museum presents

History In Focus 2025:

A Virtual Lecture Series on

Immigrant History in Upper Manhattan!

“Plentiful Country: The Great Potato Famine and the Making of Irish

New York” By Dr. Tyler Anbinder

May 29th 2025

12pm on Zoom

FREE!

REGISTER HERE!

The second session of Dyckman Farmhouse Museum’s History in Focus 2025 will be led by Dr. Tyler Anbinder, a Professor of History at George Washington University with a specialization in nineteenth-century America and the history of immigration and ethnicity in American life.

Dr. Anbinder will discuss his new book, “Plentiful Country: The Great Potato Famine and the Making of Irish New York,” and how it upends what we thought we knew about the Famine Irish in New York and beyond.

In 1845, a fungus began to destroy Ireland’s potato crop, triggering a famine that would kill one million Irish men, women, and children—and drive over one million more to flee to America. The United States was utterly transformed by this stupendous migration, nowhere more than in New York. By 1855, one out of every three adults living in Manhattan was a refugee who had escaped the hunger in Ireland. These so-called “Famine Irish” were consigned at first to the lowest-paying jobs and subjected to discrimination and ridicule by their new countrymen. Even today, the popular perception of these immigrants is one of destitution and despair. But it turns out that the Famine immigrants did far better, far more quickly, than we have previously realized.

This program is supported, in part, by, the Honorable Carmen De La Rosa, New York City Council, District 10.