James M. O'Toole is associate professor of history at Boston College and author of Militant and Triumphant: William Henry O'Connell and the Catholic Church in Boston, 1895-1944.
"O'Toole tells the remarkably well documented story of an American
family negotiating the terrain of race and ethnicity in the
nineteenth century. Working at the intersection of church history
and racial and ethnic history, he demonstrates that racial
categories have been more fluid than law and custom admit. The
Healys found freedom and extraordinary achievement by embracing
their Irish heritage and the Catholic faith, while distancing
themselves from their African roots and slave status. This
important book presents a more complex American racial past and
contributes to our understanding of the challenges of a multiracial
future."--Lois E. Horton and James Oliver Horton, authors of In
Hope of Liberty and Black Bostonians
"This is a remarkably interesting story. The research is very
impressive in both thoroughness and scope. . . . I know of no book
that is anywhere near as complete in its extraordinary story of an
entire family in the United States when the nation was so heavily,
both historically and fundamentally, a bi-rather than multiple-
'racial' society."--Winthrop D. Jordan, author of White over Black:
American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550-1812
"This book is enormously informative on the subject of race and
religion in the nineteenth century, beautifully told, and superbly
researched. . . . Upon its publication it will be one of the best
books we have on nineteenth-century Catholic history, and an
important study for the rapidly growing field of 'racial'
identity."--John T. McGreevy, author of Parish Boundaries: The
Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban
North
"The story is the thing. And it is a great story."--Cleveland Call
and Post "[A] lucid, riveting work...."--St. Anthony's Messenger
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