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Title: South Boston: My Home Town: The History of an Ethnic Neighborhood by Thomas H. O'Connor, Thomas Oconnor ISBN: 1-55553-188-1 Publisher: Northeastern University Press Pub. Date: December, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3 (2 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Unreferenced claims, and Media Stereotypes.
Comment: Written by a South Boston expatriate [who hasn't lived in South Boston for decades], the book: 'SOUTH BOSTON: My Home Town - The History of an Ethnic Neighborhood' (c. 1988, 1994) by B.C. history professor Thomas H. O'Connor, ignored the usual tenets of logic and historiography and took a contingent and non-teleological world view of the history of his ex-neighborhood, South Boston.
Containing all the usual ingrediants of determinism - such as: truisms (e.g. "The Dorchester Heights monument was completed in 1901 ..." p. 107) interpreted with many unreferenced categorical statements (e.g. " 'Most' of the Irish who came to America ..." p 78, and "In 'most' South Boston Schools ..." p. 121, or " ... the anti-semitism among 'some' Irish Catholics ..." p. 186); Professor O'Connor, in an attempt to initiate a self-fulfilling prophecy, simply collected a series of stereotypes which coincided with the media coverage of the anti-forced busing events of 1974-1984 Boston, of which he personally was not involved!
This blatant manipulation of information is further enhanced by these curiously irresponsible statements that "To a great extent, Irish emigrants brought their traditional drinking habits with them when they came to America." (p. 44) and " ... the potato was the absolute mainstay of the Irish diet." (p. 47). In light of the facts that the first beer pump in Boston is found in South Boston at the German bar "Amrheims"; and in Ireland, the Irish don't just eat potatoes!
As a further case in reader manipulation, the book 'SOUTH BOSTON: My Home Town' contained an anachronism as Prof. O'Connor perpetuated a crude specimen of Boston 'Mytho-history'. On page 254 in Prof. O'Connor's sources is found the screed LIBERTY'S CHOSEN HOME (c.1977) where journalist Alan Lupo related the excited outburst of an anti-forced busing protester in 1974 to then Mayor Kevin White that: "No matter how poor we were, Kevin, we always had clean lace curtains on our windows"(p. 30). And through sheer hyperbole, this exclamation from a non-Irish women found its way into 'SOUTH BOSTON: My Home Town' (p. 87) as the 1901 long established tradition of "the lace curtain Irish"! It is undocumented that there has ever been a lace curtain Irish in Boston and this description is specious.
The book 'SOUTH BOSTON: My Home Town' presented a series of inconsistencies and mechanistically biased views of the author's former hometown: Prof. O'Connor emphasized white racism and ignored all the black racism found in Boston (p. 219); constantly referred to South Boston as an 'ethnic' neighborhood, but didn't describe at EXACTLY what point South Boston became a 'white' neighborhood when it came to his description of forced busing (p. 209); the author mentioned historical 'forces' throughout his work with no explanation of exactly what those mysterious 'forces' were? (e.g. pgs. 115 & 246); and in confusing digressions for correlations, Prof. O'Connor committed the 'post hoc' fallacy by constantly comparing two disassociate events: the Irish immigrants in the 1854 North End (Boston) as a "theme" (p. 32) for the behaviour of the Irish American minority in 1974 South Boston, two miles away and 120 years later! (An illegitimate teleology occurs when an author speculates, without sufficient proof, that x causes y).
The omission of relevant data also marred 'SOUTH BOSTON: My Home Town' as Prof. O'Connor listed some of the whimsical nicknames (p. 178) found among South Boston residents but neglected to include his poster boy's, former mayor Ray Flynn, sobriquet of 'Mel' Flynn (and why he earned it). Also omitted from this work was the fact that the Irish American became a vocal minority by 1974, surpassed in the 1950s by Lithuanian, Polish, Estonian, Latvian, and Albanian immigrants fleeing communist persecution by the former Soviet Union - thereby breaking any contingency between the Irish immigrants of 1854 Boston, and the Irish American of 1974 South Boston! There were also 240 Afro-American families, plus a small colony of Mic Mac Indians from the Canadian Maritimes living in Southie when the Federal judge declared the Boston Schools segregated, which escaped the author's attention.
Though this was supposed to be a history of South Boston, the author tended to drag in the history of all the Irish no matter how far or removed from Southie; e.g. Irish immigrants of New York city. (This is where Prof. O'Connor's specialty in demographics tended to displace his knowledge of South Boston history.) Then, inconsistently, Prof. O'Connor failed to mention the most segregated and insulated neighborhood in Boston's entire history - Chinatown!
Professor O'Connor's collection of generalizations, unsubstantiated allegations, and unreferenced claims, makes it impossible for the researcher to verify his information. The yarn: 'SOUTH BOSTON: My Home Town' by history professor Thomas H. O'Connor, is a distorted work which is not history, but encompassed all the worse traits of a poorly written biography. By allowing his imagination to run away with him and indulging in a weak psychobiographic speculation with few sources or no proof, professor Thomas H. O'Connor had produced not a technically proficient work of history, but a weak biography on his ex-neighborhood, with all the veracity and authority of an eighth grade book report.
Any life long resident of South Boston would immediately pick out the flaws and errors of this work (e.g. Life long South Boston residents do not refer to themselves as 'Southies'!)
'SOUTH BOSTON: My Home Town: The History of an Ethnic Neighborhod' is a perpetuation of many media stereotypes, documented truisms, vague categorical statements, and added nothing new to the knowledge of South Boston's history.
Rating: 5
Summary: A complete, and very thorough history of Southie
Comment: I had to read this book...and comment on it. Like Thomas O'Connor, I am also a native of Southie. Using a voluminous store of references, and countless personal interviews, O'Connor has written the most comprehensive history of "The Town" I've ever read. He takes the reader from the very beginnings of life in the relatively isolated peninsula settlement, through the cultural, ethnic, occupational, and religious history of the residents, emphasizing their insular nature, seemingly always at odds with the rest of Boston and other outsiders, right through the 80's.
The detailed background information provided by O'Connor over an entire chapter, regarding the forced busing for school integration and ensuing Southie riots, will give the non-Southie(and maybe some Southies also) reader a much better understanding, and different perspective, on the town. O'Connor is clear on the causes of the riots, namely a clueless judge following the path paved by a self-serving state legislature that passed a law which would preclude busing to Boston's lily-white suburbs, compounded of course by Southie's insular nature and desires to maintain their neighborhood schools. I recommend Michael MacDonald's recently published "All Souls" for a terrific read on the tragic experiences of one very poor Southie family in the projects during the those riots in the 70's, and on through the 80's, into the 90's.
Overall..a terrific historic work on South Boston by O'Connor..the best Ive ever read.
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Title: All Souls : A Family Story from Southie by Michael Patrick MacDonald ISBN: 034544177X Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 03 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Boston Irish: A Political History by Thomas H. O'Connor ISBN: 0316626619 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 1997 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Street Soldier: My Life as an Enforcer for Whitey Bulger and the Irish Mob by Edward Mackenzie, Phyllis Karas, Ross A. Muscato, Edward J. MacKenzie Jr ISBN: 1586420631 Publisher: Steerforth Press Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Boston Against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s by Ronald P. Formisano ISBN: 0807842923 Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr Pub. Date: March, 1991 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Black Mass : The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob by Dick Lehr, Gerard O'Neill ISBN: 0060959258 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 22 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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