This first series will feature four outstanding undergraduate student presenters:

• Carrie Ertel a senior political science major will present her work regarding International Cooperation in the Area of Nuclear Non-Proliferation
• Amanda Bell is a senior majoring in both mathematics-statistics through McMicken College of Arts & Sciences and performance-clarinet through CCM. Amanda will present her work regarding Re-creating 18th Century Music using Statistical Inference
• Matthew Burke a junior biochemistry major will present his work on Combating Cancer Through the Development of  Anti-Tumor Agents
• Angelica Hardee a senior health education, public and community health major will present her work on a  the development of a Cultural Competency Toolkit for Employees of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

The event is free and open to the UC community and public. Faculty and students alike are encouraged to attend for an afternoon of refreshments and enlightening cross-disciplinary discussion. More information is available online.

-Not your colloquial Irish farewell, mind you, because that would have us skipping out when it is our turn to buy a round of drinks, and you just know we would never do that!  Rather, a farewell to Archives Month in Ohio and its 2012 theme of “Ethnic Peoples of Ohio.”  In southwest Ohio, the focus has been on Irish heritage and the Celtic contribution to our culture.  From businessmen and women and Civil War soldiers to civic leaders and politicians, to writers and artists, Cincinnati and this corner of the state have been greatly enriched by the Irish.

In addressing this theme in October, we were very fortunate that it coincidentally embraced the annual Niehoff Lecture at the Mercantile Library, presented by Irish poet and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney.  It could have been happenstance, of course, but more likely cinnuint, or destiny to youse guys.  On Saturday evening, October 20, Heaney spoke before an enthralled audience at the Westin Hotel as part of a lecture series that has helped mark the Mercantile as the center for literary life in Cincinnati.

Heaney’s appearance brings to mind that of another notable Irishman who graced the dais in Cincinnati a mere 130 years ago (ah, we are reaching the stage of our history when we could safely refer to it as heritage!).  While variously labeled as poet, playwright, author, and all-round bon vivant, Oscar Wilde was more aesthete performer than anything else.  In 1882 he undertook an American tour to lecture on “Beauty,” fully relishing the effect he had on American audiences with his shocking views on art and fashion, while wearing his own velvet get-ups.  He was fun to listen to.  The reputation he carefully garnered for himself preceded his arrival in Cincinnati, and the city awaited his appearance with great anticipation.  Local stores advertised Wilde-influenced clothing and jewelry for sale and newspaper reporters eagerly jotted down his opinions on style as he passed through Cincinnati to first lecture in Louisville.

On February 23, Wilde returned to the city and the Grand Opera House to present his lecture on “The Decorative Arts.”  Wilde’s audience loved his talk and applauded enthusiastically.  However, when he traveled again to Cincinnati in June for another lecture performance, the reaction was much more tempered and he was only wearily received by the attendees.  But following the conclusion of his visit to the United States, Wilde remarked how friendly Cincinnatians were and that the city was one of his favorite stops on the tour.

Seamus Heaney’s appearance was more subdued than his countryman’s so many decades ago, and it was richly enjoyed by his audience.  Heaney had a quiet demeanor, a gentle wit, and a mellifluous (and how often do we get use such a quality word?) voice when reading his poetry.  It was a beautiful evening, and typical of the fine work that the Mercantile Library does in bringing such outstanding literary voices to Cincinnati.  And, everyone in attendance received wonderful keepsakes with a program sketch of Heaney by Jim Borgman, along with a Heaney poem at each place setting.  Heaney selected two of his poems, “The Railway Children” and “The Skylight,” and the lecture committee arranged for Steam Whistle Press in Cincinnati to do a special letterpress printing of them.  The texture of the paper and the indentation from the type added to the luster of the poetry.

The month of October is fading now, but there is still much to be discovered about Cincinnati and its Irish connections.  First off, though, is a plug for the Mercantile Library: to learn more about this seminal Cincinnati institution, please go to http://www.mercantilelibrary.com/.  A good place to start looking at contemporary Irish life in Cincinnati is the Irish Heritage Center of Greater Cincinnati, http://www.irishcenterofcincinnati.com/.  To find out about the Society of Ohio Archivists and its annual sponsorship of Archives Month in Ohio, visit the organization’s website at http://www.ohioarchivists.org/.  And, of course, if you are interested in the holdings of the Archives & Rare Books Library, please call us at 513.556.1959, email us at archives@ucmail.uc.edu, or visit us on the web at http://www.libraries.uc.edu/libraries/arb/index.html.

As the election season draws to a close over the next couple of weeks, it seems appropriate to consider the story of Mike Mullen, perhaps corrupt in the eyes of muckraking journalists, but certainly beloved among his own kind – and isn’t that always the case when it comes to urban politics? A jaded opinion, you say?  Maybe, I respond, but certainly one that is backed by the boisterous heritage of American city life.  And, so in the spirit of Archives Month in Ohio and the democratic system of government, here we go…

Mullen Detective Agency

“Politics are said to be inborn in an Irishman, but at this time, in Cincinnati, he had not shown in any distressing degree this aptitude.” This sentiment, expressed in 1870, was changed by Mike Mullen, the quintessential ward healer.  As the Eighth Ward captain, he controlled dozens of patronage jobs, all of which went from Democrat to Republican when he bolted to the machine politics of George B. Cox.  The son of Irish immigrants, Mullen was beloved in his ethnic community, helping his constituents through bad times and holding a massive “Irish Day” picnic every year. He was Cox’s man on City Council, running his business from City Hall and his private detective agency in a building at Peebles’ Corner.  After he died in 1921, his loyal Irish constituents raised funds for a memorial bandstand in Lytle Park, where a marker to Mullen now stands.

An early Irish immigrant to Cincinnati, Alexander Norris was born in Caledon, County Tyrone, Ireland in 1771.  The date of his arrival in Cincinnati is uncertain, but it was before 1819 when he first appears in a city directory as a chandler.  Norris came to the Queen City with his family, which included his daughter, Elizabeth Ann, who was born in Ireland in 1811.  After establishing a successful tallow business, Norris moved in the local social circles of candle makers, where Elizabeth met and married another Irish immigrant, James Gamble, in 1833.  The couple had ten children, and further joined business interests when Elizabeth’s sister Olivia married the widowed William Procter.  Alexander Norris persuaded his sons-in-law, both of whom were involved in the animal fat business, to join together and form a mutual manufacturing enterprise.

James Gamble was born in Enniskillen, in the Northern Ireland county of Fermanagh, in 1803.  His father, George, was a farmer and after he went bankrupt, he packed up his young family and sailed for America.  The elder Gamble’s intent was to move to Illinois but as their flatboat made its way down the Ohio River, 16-year old James became seriously ill, so a stop was made in Cincinnati. The family decided to settle here and George opened a nursery and also worked as a grocer.  Young James Gamble was apprenticed to a small soap factory and in 1828 at the age of 25, he decided to start his own business.  Opening his own soap factory on Walnut Street, the success of his business soon made it necessary to move to a larger space at Water Street and Central Avenue.  In less than a decade his firm would grow to the point that he would take on a partner.  The resulting concern was called Procter & Gamble.

A native of England, William Procter came to Cincinnati in 1830 and began manufacturing candles.  Procter and Gamble established their partnership in 1837 and built a new factory at Central Avenue and York Street.  During the Civil War, the company would provide soap and candles to the Union Army, thus spreading the reputation of their products well beyond Ohio’s borders, and by the early 1880s Procter & Gamble had begun a nationwide advertising campaign.  The partners remained in that Central Avenue location for half a century until they built Ivorydale in the neighboring community of St. Bernard.  The new factory complex was named for the company’s most familiar product, Ivory Soap.  And, it was Gamble’s son, James Norris Gamble, who trained as a chemist at Kenyon College before developing the process for the floating soap in 1879 – considering its pedigree, what would be the real “Irish Spring” soap, we guess..

It has its roots in the fact that, historically, German and Irish Catholic congregants were often at odds in Cincinnati.  On Mt. Adams, where both Irish and German working-class families lived, there were two Catholic churches, Church of the Holy Cross for the Irish, Immaculata Church for the Germans.  Holy Cross parish was established in 1873 to serve the Irish immigrants on the hill and Immaculata was dedicated in 1860, fulfilling a promise made to God by a fearful and distraught Archbishop John Baptist Purcell when he crossed the Atlantic on stormy, tossing seas.  With a German congregation, Immaculata was part of Purcell’s adroit handling of the ethnic differences in the 19^th century  Cincinnati archdiocese.

All was well for a hundred years.  But as the neighborhood of Mt. Adams changed and religious demographics shifted, the Irish congregants of Holy Cross were notified in 1970 that their church would close and they would merge with the German parish of Immaculata Church.  Jim Crowley, of the venerable Crowley’s Pub in Mt. Adams, asked Father Wilfrid Flanery if the St. Patrick statue housed in Holy Cross Church could be moved to Immaculata so the Irish parishioners could feel more at home.  The statue was originally donated to the church in the 1920s by one James Healy.  Father Flanery did not make the move official, but the church door was conveniently left unlocked one night.  So on March 15, 1970, a cadre of Irishmen took the statue and moved it to their “new” church.

Every March since then, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, accompanied by a lively procession with bagpipe music splitting the air, “steal” the statue and load it on a truck for the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade through downtown Cincinnati.  In actuality, the original statue is no longer used in the parade.  Instead, the Hibernians use one that once stood in St. Patrick’s Church.  In 2012, this St. Patrick’s statue was refurbished by artists Mike Hendley and Linda Mitchell.

Of course, with the patrons of Crowley’s always involved in the shenanigans, there is a tale that one year when the Irish rascals absconded with the statue, a miniature was substituted in its place, safely kept for the Hibernians in a back room of the pub.  And, as far as we know about these matters, St. Patrick has kept a fair number of snakes out of Mt. Adams.