C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists

2026 Conference | 12–14 March 2026 | Cincinnati, Ohio

“To Give Them All A Welcome To Our Shores”:

Immigrant Voices and Advocates in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals

organized by the Margaret Fuller Society

On 28 June 1845, Margaret Fuller published a piece in the New-York Daily Tribune calling on readers to celebrate “The Irish Character.” In her opening paragraph, Fuller positions her article as a response to a piece published the week before titled “Spirit of the Irish Press.” Fuller’s eight-paragraph editorial is complicated and, at moments, difficult to read. The final, breathless paragraph opens with one of her characteristic rallying cries:

When we consider all the fire which glows so untameably in Irish veins, the character of her people, considering the circumstances—almost miraculous in its goodness—we cannot forbear, notwithstanding all the temporary ills they aid in here, to give them all a welcome to our shores. Those ills we need not enumerate; they are known to all, and we rank among them what others would not, that by their ready service to do all the hard work they make it easier for the rest of the population to grow effeminate and help the country to grow too fast. But that is her destiny, to grow too fast; it is useless talking against it.

On one hand, Fuller urges us not to name “ills” often associated with particular groups of immigrants (in this case, Irish-Americans). In the rest of the article, she urges us to counter stereotypes and slurs with empathy, with humanity, and with hope for the future of the nation. On the other hand, her article puts words to these stereotypes and slurs in key passages elsewhere. It also romanticizes Irish and Irish-American people, opening with a trio of anecdotes about immigrant families’ sacrifices whose “old romantic associations” feel more like “poetry” to Fuller than the life stories of flesh-and-blood bodies.

One hundred and eighty years later, we too turn to journalists’ outcries to bolster our collective moral compass as a nation—against rising anti-immigrant racism; against dehumanizing expulsions and repressions of refugees, immigrants, and citizens; and even, as of June 2025, against violent judicial erasures of the most fundamental ideas in the Fourteenth Amendment (ratified twenty-three years after Fuller’s piece).

What can we learn from Fuller’s journalism about immigrants? How does it compare to other voices or advocates of her moment? How do her slurs, stereotypes, and/or silences haunt?

Papers for this panel could engage the following topics, among others:

●      studies of immigrant newspapers or other periodicals

●      recoveries of immigrant writers, whether canonical, non-canonical, or unnamed

●      analyses of print culture communities bound together through immigrant periodicals

●      representations of journalism in immigrant literature

●      discussions of immigrant advocates and/or their limitations

●      approaches to teaching immigrant voices and advocates in undergraduate courses 

Submissions about Margaret Fuller are, of course, welcome, but proposals need not be limited to Fuller. We deliberately seek engagement between and across author societies to think creatively and imaginatively together about the future of our work. The Fuller Society’s Committee for Racial Justice encourages submissions that address anti-racist approaches to scholarship, pedagogy, and community engagement. Scholars of color and early-career scholars are—as always—especially invited to apply.

Please send proposals (250–300 words) or questions to Mollie Barnes at mbarnes2@uscb.edu with “C19 2026” in the subject line by 10 August 2025.