Read The Banshees: A Literary History of Irish American Women for Free Online

abuse, depression,
    addiction, and low self esteem, as well as the very obvious need to avoid
    complacency.
    In sum, despite pressure to desist, Irish American women’s novels con-
    tinue to refl ect feminist literary history. Whereas they originally depicted
    their milieu, over the course of the twentieth century Irish American women
    have increasingly reacted, critiqued, and ultimately helped to shape it. By
    comparing the novels published during each decade and following each
    author’s political trajectory as represented in her fi ction, The Banshees offers
    the fi rst Irish American women’s literary history. In the process, it illustrates
    these banshees’ roles in protecting women’s sovereignty, rights, and reputa-
    tions via the contemporary feminist novel. Thanks to their efforts feminism,
    like the banshee, remains “an intrinsic part of our cultural inheritance”
    (Lysaght 1986, 243).
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    1900–1960
    Ahead of Their Time
    Early on, the word “work” took on for me a gravity, a luster, like
    the stone in a monarch’s signet ring. “Work” was a word I savored
    on my tongue like a cool stone.
    —Mary Gordon, Circling My Mother
    Irish American women writers have been defending their domain since
    they set foot in America in 1717. Whether they arrived before, during,
    or after the Famine, and regardless of their relegation to the lost genera-
    tion, midcentury realists, or twentieth-century feminists, their mission has
    been consistent: through their writing, they protect their own. From the
    beginning, these women wrote to protect their family, their church, and
    their nation’s reputation via satirical, nationalistic, evangelistic, and romantic
    novels (Fanning 2001). However, at the dawn of the twentieth century, this
    focus began to change.
    Irish American women have always worked. Initially they were nannies
    and domestic servants, but as they assimilated they made sure that their
    daughters moved up the economic ladder. Some worked in the manufac-
    turing sector. But thanks to parochial education—and the nuns and teach-
    ing sisters who founded Catholic colleges and universities—through the
    fi rst half of the twentieth century, Irish American women dominated the
    teaching profession. Moreover, with or without college degrees, the major-
    ity of second-generation Irish American women writers began their careers
    as journalists. Increasingly, these banshees protected their domain by mov-
    ing beyond family, church, and nation to expose injustices in government,
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    society, and the workplace. Through their writing they supported women’s
    right to vote, the legalization of birth control, Irish independence, organized
    labor, and safety in the workplace.
    Certainly their literary heritage, inherent knowledge of English, and
    membership in the largest single ethnic group gave them an advantage (Fan-
    ning 2001). But their dual positions as colonized, second-class citizens of
    their country and of their religion gave them their political edge. Thanks to
    their parochial educations, Irish American women grew up with an “incho-
    ate feminism” (Shelley 2006) that can be traced from pious Catholicism
    to apostasy or ambivalence; from reticence about exposing women’s private
    lives to a willingness to break all taboos, ranging from unhappy wives and
    unfaithful husbands to adultery, impotence, sexuality, and sexual preference.
    This chapter not only examines the factors that formed and differentiated
    these women from their peers and predecessors; it also establishes the themes
    characterizing their works and those that followed to illustrate how Irish
    American women laid the groundwork for the contemporary feminist novel.
    A