Ian Delahanty

History is not just dates and facts. It is the study of the human experience, and without it, we cannot understand the present.

Contact Info

idelahanty@springfield.edu
(413) 748-3646

Office

Room 308
Herbert P. Blake Hall
Campus Map

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

School of Arts and Sciences Information

Honors Program Faculty and Staff

Doctor of Philosophy, Boston College, Boston, Mass., 2013
Master of Arts, Boston College, Boston, Mass., 2008
Bachelor of Arts, Bridgewater State College, Bridgewater, Mass., 2006

Ian Delahanty teaches broadly in American history, including courses on immigration history, public history, African American history, and the history of the Civil War era. His research focuses on international and transnational dimensions of the American Civil War, which he explored in his first book on Irish Americans' involvement in the debate over American slavery. His newest research examines the role of New England cotton gin manufacturers in the global cotton economy of the 19th century.

Research Interests

American Civil War
American Immigration History
Irish History
History of Slavery, Race, and Abolition

Courses Taught

The Civil War Era in History and Memory
American Immigration History
Making History Public
African American History
Foundations of American History
The U.S. & the World Since 1865

Certifications and Memberships

Immigration and Ethnic History Society
Society Society of Civil War Historians
New England Historical Association

Selected Works

Presentations

Invited Speaker, “Slavery’s Footprint in the Connecticut River Valley,” Lathrop Retirement Community, Easthampton, MA [September 11, 2023]
Invited Speaker, “Slavery’s Footprint in the Connecticut River Valley,” Town of Sunderland (invited by the Task Force on Human Rights) [September 27, 2023]
Invited Speaker, “Slavery and Emancipation in the Connecticut River Valley,” Town of Easthampton (MA) Commission on Reparations. [March 27, 2023]
Invited Speaker, “How Irish Immigrants Became Irish Americans: Immigration, Nativism, and Contested Loyalties in Nineteenth-Century America,” Irish History Round Table of New Haven. [April 19, 2022]
Panelist, “Histories of Enslavement & Freedom: A Conversation with Scholars,” part of the Pioneer Valley Historical Network’s launch of Documenting the Early History of Black Lives in the Connecticut River Valley. [June 19, 2021]
Invited Speaker, “Finding Slavery in New England: History & Memory,” Longmeadow (MA) Historical Society. [December 22, 2020]
“Transatlantic Abolitionism and the Great Irish Potato Famine,” New England Historical Association Biannual Conference (Bristol, RI). October 26, 2019.
Commentator, Ian Stevenson, “Camp Benson and the GAR ‘Camps’: Recreational Landscapes of Civil War Memory in Maine, 1886-1916,” Massachusetts Historical Society Environmental History Seminar. January 15, 2019.
“Race and Command in the Union Army: The Debate over Commissioning Black Officers,” New England Historical Association Biannual Conference (Manchester, NH). April 14, 2018.
“Crosscurrents of Abolitionism and Migration between Ireland and the United States,” part of a roundtable discussion on “Irish America in the Civil War Era,” Global Irish Diaspora Conference (Dublin, Ireland). August 18, 2017.

Publications

Embracing Emancipation: A Transatlantic History of Irish Immigration, the Slavery Debate, and the American Union, 1840-1865. Fordham University Press (2024).
“The Transatlantic Roots of Irish-American Anti-Abolitionism, 1843-1859,” The Journal of the Civil War Era 6, 2 (June 2016): 164-192.
“Soldiers’ Diaries and Letters,” Essential Civil War Curriculum (online resource directed by the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies at Virginia Tech University): June 2015.
“‘A Noble Empire in the West’: Young Ireland, the United States, and Slavery,” Britain and the World 6, 2 (September 2013): 171-191.

Spring 2023 Laurels Submissions

Ian Delahanty, PhD, associate professor of History, delivered a lecture on “Slavery and emancipation in the Connecticut River Valley” at the Easthampton (Mass.) City Hall in March 2023. The event is part of Easthampton's efforts to educate residents about the history of slavery and systemic racism in the region after its City Council passed a resolution in support of a federal bill to commission a study into reparations. Delahanty was invited by the Easthampton City Council to deliver this lecture, which was covered by Channel 22 WWLP.

Ian Delahanty, PhD, associate professor of History, was presented with the Suzanne and Caleb Loring Fellowship on the Civil War, Its Origins, and Consequences by the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) and Boston Athenaeum in February 2023. As part of the fellowship, Delahanty will conduct research on the history of cotton gin manufacturing in New England and how New England-born mechanics came to dominate the cotton gin manufacturing in the American South. His research will be conducted at the MHS and Boston Athenaeum for at least four weeks at each institution between July 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024.

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