Download or read book Irish on the Move written by Michelle Granshaw and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2019-12-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A little over a century ago, the Irish in America were the targets of intense xenophobic anxiety. Much of that anxiety centered on their mobility, whether that was traveling across the ocean to the U.S., searching for employment in urban centers, mixing with other ethnic groups, or forming communities of their own. Granshaw argues that American variety theatre, a precursor to vaudeville, was a crucial battleground for these anxieties, as it appealed to both the fears and the fantasies that accompanied the rapid economic and social changes of the Gilded Age.