Between the start of the potato famine in 1845 to 1855 alone, two million residents left Ireland, mostly coming to America. Topp had apparently tapped into a market replete with consumers worried about the flow of immigrants into the country. He also issued a set of four anti-Semitic cards that year and a set of four cards satirizing German immigrants.

George Topp published this set of cards in 1882. Rourke is still an Irishman who drinks too much. Even with his Americanized name, fancy clothes, and political clout, the card shows the consumer that the Hon. His seat of power is the saloon and his simian-like features portray his вЂњtrueвЂќ identity. Nonetheless, our subject is still the butt of the joke. RourkeвЂ™s corpulent body is well-dressed and he gestures confidently with an air of authority. 4 the clay pipe and shillelagh have morphed into a cigar and a fancy walking stick. In becoming an American, he has turned away from many of the signifiers that identified him as Irish. Rourke, implying he has entered into American politics, an option now opened to him as a newly minted United States citizen. At the end of his first decade in America, Officer OвЂ™Rourke has continued his journey of upward mobility to become the Hon. He wields authority as well as a billy club as he walks his police beat in Card No. Potentially Harmful Materials and Descriptions StatementД«y his fifth year, our Irishman has joined the police force and is now addressed as Officer OвЂ™Rourke.Program in Early American Economy & Society.

Shillelagh definition