This shaving mug has been in my family since the 1870s when its owner, my great-grandfather, James Finnegan, owned a livery stable in New Britain, Connecticut. The image of the horse on this shaving mug is especially precious to me because I learned about James through the stories that my mother told, based on this image. James’ parents came from Ireland during the potato famine of the 1850s and settled in New Britain. Although poor, when their son James came of age, he was able to scrounge enough money to buy several horses  and open a livery stable. With hard work, his business succeeded. He married, raised six children, and in an age when few females attended college, sent three daughters to college. The chips in the mug symbolize the hard knocks that James’ family endured as recent immigrants. They were Irish Catholic in a town where the more established class was Protestant of English descent. Most Irish Catholics in town either cleaned houses or did unskilled labor in the Stanley Works Steel Factory and this seemed an embarrassment. Another challenge was when the Ku Klux Klan expanded to the North in the 1920s, targeting immigrants, one of its headquarters was in New Britain.  In the 1910s, James’s livery stable went out of business due to the Model T. James’ story is like that of many immigrants through time. When I think of these hard-working people, I think of James’ shaving mug and am humbled.

 

– Maryel Barry

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more