On the Irish Waterfront: The Crusader, the Movie, and the Soul of the Port of New York (Cushwa Center Studies of Catholicism in Twentieth-Century America) - Softcover

Fisher, James T.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801476844 ISBN 13: 9780801476846

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2010

Synopsis

Site of the world's busiest and most lucrative harbor throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the Port of New York was also the historic preserve of Irish American gangsters, politicians, longshoremen's union leaders, and powerful Roman Catholic pastors. This is the demimonde depicted to stunning effect in Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954) and into which James T. Fisher takes readers in this remarkable and engaging historical account of the classic film's backstory.

Fisher introduces readers to the real "Father Pete Barry" featured in On the Waterfront, John M. "Pete" Corridan, a crusading priest committed to winning union democracy and social justice for the port's dockworkers and their families. A Jesuit labor school instructor, not a parish priest, Corridan was on but not of Manhattan's West Side Irish waterfront. His ferocious advocacy was resisted by the very men he sought to rescue from the violence and criminality that rendered the port "a jungle, an outlaw frontier," in the words of investigative reporter Malcolm Johnson. Driven off the waterfront, Corridan forged creative and spiritual alliances with men like Johnson and Budd Schulberg, the screenwriter who worked with Corridan for five years to turn Johnson's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1948 newspaper exposé into a movie. Fisher's detailed account of the waterfront priest's central role in the film's creation challenges standard views of the film as a post facto justification for Kazan and Schulberg's testimony as ex-communists before the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

On the Irish Waterfront is also a detailed social history of the New York/New Jersey waterfront, from the rise of Irish American entrepreneurs and political bosses during the World War I era to the mid-1950s, when the emergence of a revolutionary new mode of cargo-shipping signaled a radical reorganization of the port. This book explores the conflicts experienced and accommodations made by an insular Irish-Catholic community forced to adapt its economic, political, and religious lives to powerful forces of change both local and global in scope.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"For anyone who has ever been moved by Marlon Brando delivering the immortal line, 'I coulda been a contender,' this book is a must. Through state-of-the-art research, James T. Fisher recreates the tough, corrupt universe of the waterfront, a huge commercial and criminal bounty where careers were built, noses broken, dissenters murdered, riches gained and lost--and it all became the basis for one of the most cherished American movies of all time. On the Irish Waterfront is a major act of historical restoration and a fascinating yarn told by a skilled literary maestro."--T. J. English, New York Times bestselling author of Paddy Whacked, The Westies, and Havana Nocturne

"James T. Fisher's On the Irish Waterfront gives a richly detailed portrait of the world of the New York Harbor within which lived the real people behind the characters in Elia Kazan's great film, especially the dynamic and charismatic priest Father Pete Corridan, whose efforts on behalf of the longshoremen won him the enmity of both the mobsters and many within the Church itself. Deeply researched and wonderfully written, On the Irish Waterfront brings to vivid life a tumultuous era in American labor history that itself brought into being one of our greatest films."--Leo Braudy, University Professor and Bing Professor of English and American Literature, University of Southern California, author of From Chivalry to Terrorism and The World in a Frame

"With a subject as deep and as dark as the harbor, in a voice as colorful and as lively as his characters, James T. Fisher weaves a remarkable tale of saints and sinners--of Jesuits and gangsters, longshoremen and waterfront chieftans, not to mention Hollywood's elite. His readers will never look at the Hudson River piers in quite the same way again."--Helene Stapinski, author of Five-Finger Discount

"James T. Fisher penetrates the code of silence that characterized the Irish culture of New York's waterfront, bringing to life the violent world of longshoremen, crooked unionists, politicians and businessmen, crusading writers, and Catholic clerics fighting over control of the nation's busiest port and what moral code it would live by. He brilliantly reconstructs the story behind On the Waterfront and the actual events on which that great film was based."--Joshua B. Freeman, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, author of Working-Class New York and In Transit

"What a story: Religion, politics, ethnicity, labor, and a classic film. By giving a deep reading to this rich cultural mix, James T. Fisher reveals much about urban life and social change in twentieth-century America."--James M. O'Toole, Clough Professor of History, Boston College, author of Passing for White and editor of Habits of Devotion

"James T. Fisher's treatment of the 'Spiritual Front' that brought the Irish Catholic priest Father John Corridan and the Jewish writer Budd Schulberg together in a common crusade for justice--and of their triumph, not on the waterfront, but on the silver screen--is scintillating. Fisher is a good writer and a very fine historian--intellectually sophisticated, indefatigable, wonderfully sensitive to human drama and foibles. On the Irish Waterfront covers an amazing amount of terrain. Urban, cultural, intellectual, and labor history all fall within Fisher's purview and magnify the importance of his work."--Bruce Nelson, Dartmouth College, author of Workers on the Waterfront and Divided We Stand

"On the Irish Waterfront documents the true story of labor struggles in the Port of New York that led to the making of the classic film On the Waterfront. James T. Fisher's exploration of the high-stakes, true-life battle between Jesuit labor priest Pete Corridan and Irish mobster Bill 'Mr. Big' McCormack over the 'shapeup' system among dockworkers reveals the multiple, contradictory currents of justice and violence, exploitation and solidarity, that shaped prewar American Catholic culture. A remarkable story in the hands of a talented storyteller, On the Irish Waterfront takes readers on a rollicking journey to the bars, cathedrals, boxing gyms, back alleys, parish basements, and front parlors of the Port of New York. This much-anticipated book is classic Fisher--lively, insightful, crackling with verve and intellect, and just plain fun to read."--Amy Koehlinger, Florida State University, author of The New Nuns: Racial Justice and Religious Reform in the 1960s

About the Author:

James T. Fisher is Professor of Theology and American Studies, Fordham University. He is author of Communion of Immigrants: A History of Catholics in America, Dr. America: The Lives of Thomas A. Dooley, 1927–1961, and The Catholic Counterculture in America, 1933-1962. Visit James T. Fisher's blog at: irishwaterfront.wordpress.com.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0801476844
• ISBN 13: 9780801476846
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 392