Annual O’Connor Lecture: Irish Bridgets

The Waterford Museum proudly announces that the Annual O’Connor Lecture about “Irish Bridgets” on October 26, 2011, at 7pm. Our featured speaker will be Dr. Margaret (“Peggy”) Lynch-Brennan who will discuss her book, The Irish Bridget: Irish Immigrant Women in Domestic Service in America, 1840-1930. The lecture topic is inspired by the Museum’s current exhibit “Making Waterford Our Home: Irish.”

“Bridget” was the Irish immigrant servant girl (i.e., cook, waitress, chambermaid, etc.) who lived and worked in American homes from the second half of the nineteenth century into the early years of the twentieth. She was a widely known cultural cliché in popular American literature of the period--the young Irish girl who wreaked havoc in middle-class American homes. In her presentation on her book, which is the first book-length treatment of the topic, Dr. Lynch-Brennan will give voice to these young Irish women, many of whom worked in the Capital Region and whose descendants still live in the Capital Region, to celebrate their untold contribution to the ethnic history of the United States.

The event will take place at the Museum and admission to the lecture is complimentary and light refreshments will be served.