This breathtaking new history of the Irish immigrants who arrived in the United States during the Great Potato Famine shows how their strivings in and beyond New York exemplify the astonishing tenacity and improbable triumph of Irish America. Following an extended illustrated presentation, our award-winning guest author will be in dialogue with genealogist-moderator Melanie McComb; then, they’ll answer your questions.  

In this remarkable history, a weaving of scholarship and storytelling, the acclaimed historian Tyler Anbinder presents for the first time the Potato Famine generation’s individual and collective tales of struggle, perseverance, and triumph. Drawing on newly available records and a ten-year research initiative, Plentiful Country rescues the Famine immigrants from the margins of history and restores them to their rightful place at the center of the American story.  Don’t miss Professor Anbinder’s in-depth presentation and discussion with genealogist Melanie McComb about how the stupendous migration impacted our country— nowhere more than New York where, by 1855, roughly a third of all adults living in Manhattan were immigrants who had escaped the hunger in Ireland. This new history reclaims the narratives of the refugees who settled in New York City and helped reshape the entire nation. 

Tyler Anbinder is an emeritus professor of history at George Washington University, where he taught courses on the history of American immigration and the American Civil War era. He is the author of three award-winning books and of numerous articles, and his publications have been honored with the Avery Craven Prize of the Organization of American Historians, the Mark Lynton History Prize of the Columbia School of Journalism, and the Hubbell Prize of the Society of Civil War Historians. Anbinder has also held the Fulbright Commission’s Thomas Jefferson Distinguished Chair in American History at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and has won three prestigious research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Melanie McComb, Senior Genealogist at American Ancestors, assists members and visitors with family history research. She has particular expertise in Irish and Jewish genealogical research, tracing their families back to their ancestral homelands. She's also experienced in DNA and Atlantic Canada, and lectures internationally on various topics. She's a blogger known as The Shamrock Genealogist.