Judith Ridner: The Scots Irish of Early Pennsylvania, a Varied People

"...as probably many Scots-Irish people know, there's a lot of misunderstanding about who they are as a people. And I think a lot of modern Americans think one thing, and perhaps us historians would say that maybe they should be thinking about something else.

So today I think a lot of people take pride in being Scots-Irish because they sort of think they know a lot of things about their heritage. But that heritage has been highly stereotyped, both good and bad. And it's been popularized by a lot of modern politicians who have kind of used it to sort of get at what they see as like the critical essences of being an American... one stereotype of the Scots-Irish is that they're these rugged individualists. They're men, they're usually men. It emphasizes masculine kind of conquering of people and land. These were people who settled the frontier. These were people who fought Native Americans. These were people who fought in various wars to defend the United States, the colonies, and then the United States. So a lot of that gets used to kind of construct a picture that kind of epitomizes a lot of what we see as kind of quintessential American values, this kind of, you know, ruggedness, this toughness, this individualism.

And in reality...the picture's a little bit more complicated. They were a pretty tight-knit group. They put a great deal of emphasis on family and community, particularly in their religious communities. They were not necessarily all people who settled on the frontier. Lots and lots of them settled in cities like Philadelphia or New York City or in towns like I've studied Carlisle. They settled in lots of other towns across Pennsylvania. So they were also a highly urban people. And many of the people who came were educated. Many of them had come from parts of the north of Ireland that were actually quite urbanized and even industrialized for the 18th century. I mean, they were part of, many of them were part of the linen economy of the North of Ireland that was really quite a sophisticated manufacturing enterprise for the 18th century. So they're just, they're this very diverse people..."

About Judith Ridner

I am a historian of early America with interests in the American frontier, ethnicity and immigration, oral and public history.  Although most of my research to date focuses on the eighteenth-century Pennsylvania and the Scots-Irish, my work has broadened over time to include oral history, public and digital history, and especially material culture.

I’m currently working on two book projects. In Clothing the Babel: The Material Culture of Ethnic Identity in Early America, I’m analyzing how clothing and other items of personal adornment that various European immigrants wore influenced how eighteenth-century Americans perceived and reacted to them.  My other project, The Dirty History of Soap, traces the material history of this ordinary substance, from the ancient world to the present.

I am also co-editor of the academic journal, Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal.

1994 Ph.D., History, The College of William & Mary
1988 M.A., History with a concentration in Historical Archaeology, The College of William & Mary
1986 B.A., History and International Studies, Dickinson College -- Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude

jridner@history.msstate.edu

Transcript

Connie Doeble 0:00

Welcome to We Love PA History!, the podcast where we explore the stories, people, and moments that shaped Pennsylvania and helped shaped America. I'm Connie Doebele, and each episode we'll uncover a piece of our shared past, from famous events you thought you knew to hidden stories waiting to be rediscovered right here in the Keystone State. So let's jump into today's story. Welcome to Judith Ridner, who teaches history at Mississippi State and has researched and written about 18th century Pennsylvania Scots-Irish. Hello.

Judith Ridner 0:39

Hi, thanks very much for having me.

Connie Doeble 0:41

Absolutely. You know, if you live in Pennsylvania, it's not at all unusual to hear somebody say, I'm Scots-Irish. But what does that mean?

Judith Ridner 0:52

Right. What does that mean? Well, I think it sometimes means everything and nothing to a lot of people. Because, as probably many Scots-Irish people know, there's a lot of misunderstanding about who they are as a people. And I think a lot of modern Americans think one thing, and perhaps us historians would say that maybe they should be thinking about something else. So today I think a lot of people take pride in being Scots-Irish because they sort of think they know a lot of things about their heritage. But that heritage has been highly stereotyped, both good and bad. And it's been popularized by a lot of modern politicians who have kind of used it to sort of get at what they see as like the critical essences of being an American. And a lot of that is, you know, one stereotype of the Scots-Irish is that they're these rugged individualists. They're men, they're usually men. It emphasizes masculine kind of conquering of people and land. These were people who settled the frontier. These were people who fought Native Americans. These were people who fought in various wars to defend the United States, the colonies, and then the United States. So a lot of that gets used to kind of construct a picture that kind of epitomizes a lot of what we see as kind of quintessential American values, this kind of, you know, ruggedness, this toughness, this individualism. And in reality, the you know, the picture's a little bit more complicated. They were a pretty tight-knit group. They put a great deal of emphasis on family and community, particularly in their religious communities. They were not necessarily all people who settled on the frontier. Lots and lots of them settled in cities like Philadelphia or New York City or in towns like I've studied Carlisle. They settled in lots of other towns across Pennsylvania. So they were also a highly urban people. And many of the people who came were educated. Many of them had come from parts of the north of Ireland that were actually quite urbanized and even industrialized for the 18th century. I mean, they were part of, many of them were part of the linen economy of the North of Ireland that was really quite a sophisticated manufacturing enterprise for the 18th century. So they're just, they're this very diverse people.

Connie Doeble 3:48

Where do you think uh all of the hyperbole came from?

Judith Ridner 3:52

Well, I think it comes from a couple things. I think mostly it comes from the 19th century and reactions that Protestant, the descendants of these Protestant Irish immigrants, had in reaction to the waves of the Irish Catholic immigrants that come over during the famine era of the 18, you know, late 1840s, 1850s, and then you know, going on into the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And we can talk today too about how there is a part of American identity that's always been defined by Protestantism. I mean, we have a long history of very potent strains of anti-Catholic prejudice that run through the history of this country and the colonies that started it. And so, you know, the Scots-Irish took an immense pride in not being Catholic, in being these Protestant Irish, and thus very much part of an America that is really getting constructed in the 19th century. So I think a lot of it comes from there, people who in the 19th century wanted to advance their, you know, their identity as Americans, not as these Irish Catholics. And so that kind of creates a lot of stereotypes that then kind of build a legacy that lasts into the 20th century. And I think now in the 20th century, again, we've seen in the last decade a lot of resurrection of these kinds of notions to play into modern politics and appeal to sort of what are seen as ordinary people of America. In many respects now, the Scots-Irish are kind of portrayed as like ordinary kind of salt-of-the-earth Americans. And because of that, you know, but a lot of that gets, you know, politicians build on stereotype.

Connie Doeble 5:58

Well, is Vice President Vance's book, uh Hillbilly Elogy, which is probably the you know the most best-selling one of any of the he said in there, I'm a Scots-Irish hill hillbilly.

Judith Ridner 6:11

Right. Even though he grew up mostly in Ohio and it's very like a lot of Scots-Irish people, educated, successful. But yeah, he's his book is among them the best known that kind of play to a lot of these notions. Whereas what's interesting too about his book is that he kind of glosses over some of the other truths about the Scots-Irish, that they were like like he is ambitious, educated, entrepreneurial, very interested in mixing with the powerful and the wealthy, very interested in exerting authority. So there's so much about the vice president's story that is so quintessentially Scots-Irish, but not in the ways that sometimes the popular mythology of them likes to sort of make us think it is. It's not that he was a hillbilly, it's that he he pursued success. He's, you know, he's used connections to build his success, he's used education to build his success, uh, he's used ambition to build his success. And he's actually also, not unusual, also used the military, you know, his his service in the military to help build his success. So again, that's not quite, you know, that's not quite the hillbilly stereotype, but it does fit some of the both stereotypes and truths about these people historically.

Connie Doeble 7:48

Well, let's get down to some of those truths. First of all, where did they come from? Is it obvious that Scots-Irish means Scotland and Ireland?

Judith Ridner 7:58

The Scots-Irish are Scottish immigrants who migrate into the north of Ireland in the 17th century.

Connie Doeble 8:07

Why?

Judith Ridner 8:08

So well, mostly for economic opportunity because times are pretty tough in the lowland areas of Scotland. And so they are looking for a place to go where they can find greater economic opportunity. And in the 17th century, the North of Ireland, the English are very interested in recruiting Protestant settlers to settle in the North of Ireland because they are, you know, trying quite quite intensely during the 17th century to gain a firmer grip over Ireland in general. And the North of Ireland is one of the places where they are confiscating land from the native Catholic Irish gentry and giving it in grants to Protestant settlers. And the idea is that these Protestant settlers are going to build Protestant communities that are going to be heavily tied into the English orbit and I will add to the English commercial sphere. I mean, one of the plans, one of the visions that the English have for the North of Ireland is that it will become an urban place modeled more on England itself. You know, that there will be towns, and these towns will be highly concentrated, they will be highly commercial, they will be highly entrepreneurial, and thus Ireland will come to better serve English commercial interests. And in certain respects, that ends up being true.

Connie Doeble 9:49

So did they come to Pennsylvania or were they running away to Pennsylvania?

Judith Ridner 9:55

Well, it's kind of a little bit of both, because initially in the 17th century, especially by the end of the 17th century, some Scots-Irish do really find these Scottish immigrants do really find success in the North of Ireland. But by the 18th century, situation gets to be less favorable. Economic conditions deteriorate. The linen economy that does actually arise, particularly in the eastern regions of the north of Ireland, that kind of goes through a series of ups and downs. And they find themselves too getting affected by some of the English restrictions on Catholics as well, as the English start to crack down on religious dissenters, because most of the Scottish people who come over to the North of Ireland, they're Presbyterians. And so they are not Church of Ireland people. They are not part of the established Protestant church. So that in the 17th century, the English can use them for certain, for certain of their purposes to advance their purposes. But then by the 18th century, when we start to get new phases of English rule in the North of Ireland, they serve those purposes less well. And so they find themselves on the outs as dissenters. So they kind of come to places like Pennsylvania looking for a combination of the economic opportunity and religious opportunity. They want land because they had been primarily leaseholders in the North of Ireland. They want to own land, preferably. And they also want to have a religious freedom. So they don't want to be religious outsiders. They want to be essentially religious insiders. And so it's that combination of economics and religion that really kind of exerts that those are the push factors. But then we've got Pennsylvania is a particularly appealing colony to go to in the 18th century.

Connie Doeble 12:01

Why?

Judith Ridner 12:02

Well, it's viewed, it's an up-and-coming colony. It's growing very, very quickly. I mean, it's it's one of the colonies that's founded the latest in the 17th century. But Philadelphia, the hinterlands around Philadelphia grow so quickly between the 1680s and the early 18th century when the Scots Iris start to come over. And it's perceived of as a place where, you know, it's the so-called best poor man's country, where even people without very much can come over and find a place. It's slavery certainly exists in Pennsylvania. Many of the people come over are indentured servants, but you know, slavery is not the defining labor system of the region. So even if you come over as a servant, you have a good likelihood of first of all surviving your servitude. And then once you obtain your freedom, you have a fairly good chance of finding a niche in the colony, whether it's in a city like Philadelphia, or maybe it's going and pursuing land out on the frontier. So it's just this. So again, there are kind of push and pull factors that drive this migration.

Connie Doeble 13:22

I try to imagine what it must have been like to arrive in a place like Pennsylvania at a time when this little country is just being born, you know, and they're they did they did they know what they were getting themselves into? And how did they react to watching the Declaration of Independence, the war, the Revolutionary War?

Judith Ridner 13:44

It's so hard to know. It's something that I've thought a lot about because it is fascinating. I think what makes history in general of this period so interesting is trying to imagine what life was like and what they knew. Certainly, they probably had some information because there's a lot of commercial traffic going back and forth between Ireland and Philadelphia from fairly early on. So there would have been some word of mouth about what this was like. Probably some of it was a bit idealized, for sure. I think where you really see it is you read the accounts of settlers who go out to central and western Pennsylvania in, say, the mid-18th century, who really are settling on the frontier. And I think they are pretty shocked at how isolated it was. And they're also clearly afraid of the native peoples who live near them. I mean, clearly they learn to accommodate and sometimes they learn to fight them. But there is a certain amount of fear that exists. So I think that's part of the story. But then in terms of the revolution, I think you have fairly sizable waves of Scots-Irish immigrants who come over before the revolution. And when the revolution starts, they are, as you and your listeners may or may not know, I mean, they are among the vanguard that really steps up to lead the political movement in the state during the revolution. And it's a quite radical political movement in the state during the revolution that results in, you know, a state government that is, you know, considered a state constitution that's considered among the most radical of all the first state constitutions in the United States. But then they also step up to fight. And I think that's also part of the story that, again, is very much part of the Scots-Irish story and the connection to the revolution. And certainly some of that willingness is probably due to their heritage in both Scotland, which for a time had a pretty antagonistic relationship to England, and then their history in the North of Ireland, where again they felt like they had been, they had been encouraged to settle in the North of Ireland, but then a generation or two later, they find that they find themselves in much less favorable circumstances. So they have a wariness about England and its motives. And I guess too, a lot of people would also say that the bulk of these migrants are Presbyterians, and Presbyterians have this very strong congregational organization. And so these are, they're also coming out of religious communities where there is a lot of self-governance. So they are kind of their experience has predisposed them to want to be part of Republican and representative forms of government.

Connie Doeble 16:58

Listening to We Love PA History, it's a podcast of the Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation. And our guest this week is Judith Ridner. She has two of her books in the area of what we're talking about right now. The first one was A Town in Between Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and the early Mid-Atlantic Interior, which was published in 2010. And the most recent one, the Scots-Irish of Early Pennsylvania, a varied people in 2018 pub date. So let's get to know some of these people. Who was Joe Johnson?

Judith Ridner 17:34

Joe Johnson was a Revolutionary War soldier who was a kind of ordinary soldier who volunteers to fight because he sees this as very much part of what I was just talking about, this a conflict that is that is worthy of fighting, not just to fight people, but to fight for a kind of cause. And I think one of the things that he shows, and some of the evidence shows from the various Scots Irish who fought in the revolution is that even ordinary men probably had some grasp on the kind of ideology or ideas that are driving the revolution, this idea of liberty, this idea of having ordinary people, particularly men, should have kind of a claim, a stake in governing themselves, or have some kind of stake in the governance of the nation, of the colony. So I think that they're important because they show how, again, it's not just a kind of stereotypes of the Scots-Irish that there is this stereotype of them as just being, you know, born fighters, as one book said from a bunch of years ago. That it's not just that they're there to fight, they fight for certain uh goals or ideas.

Connie Doeble 19:10

And what about William Irvine?

Judith Ridner 19:13

Oh, so William Irvine is somebody who I've worked on a lot. So the Irvine family are really fascinating. He's a Northern Irish immigrant who comes over to Carlisle in the right at the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763. He's from a very well-educated family in the north of Ireland, but he also struggles to kind of find his place. And there's a letter, one of his friends writes, you know, saying, you know, he's probably going to go back to Ireland because he's not very happy here. But then a couple of things happen. He gets married and he marries well, which is very much kind of typical of a lot of Scots-Irish men. And then the revolution happens and it kind of creates this leadership vacuum because the Quakers step out of politics. The Penn family who had been running the colony, they're out because the proprietorship is gone, it's ended. And so there's this power vacuum. And people like William Irvine, who had been kind of, you know, sort of a middle class physician in town, so professional class, but again, he lived in Carlisle. He's not the powerful and you know, he's not a mover and shaker in the colony. But he finds that, yeah, he can volunteer for service in the revolution. He can gradually work his way up the military ranks, and he ends up as commander of Fort Pitt towards the end of the war, and then goes on to have a fairly, you know, serious political career and positions his kids to have quite successful careers in politics and medicine, both in the West and in Philadelphia. So it's like the war is one of the things that really allows him to create this stake in America that then sets up his family for what I would argue is long-term success. And so he's very representative of a lot of Scots-Irish men in particular who use the revolution as a way to really become Americans, but also, again, set up a long-term legacy for their families. Ephraim Blaine, who's another Carlisle person, he rises to a quite high rank in the commissary department. And although he almost goes broke, you know, like a lot of people in the commissary department do, again, he sets up his family for a long term legacy of being movers and shakers at the national political level. Level in the 19th century. And so it's again this group of people who are willing to take that risk of committing to revolution, which when you think about it, if they had lost, this would be treason. They would probably all have been, you know, pretty seriously punished by the British for their treasonous activities. I mean, the British could wage some pretty serious crackdowns, those they thought were traitors. And they're willing to take that risk and they gamble big time. And ultimately, for many of them, they really do see long-term success. Now, the catch is that some of the ordinary men that fight in this war, I mean, they don't always see the same success because many of them serve multiple tours of duty, sometimes in both the militia and in the Continental Army. Uh, they're injured. And some of the reasons why we know about them is that they apply for pensions in the 19th century when they are elderly, they're infirm, and they start telling stories that we could see as quite heroic. You know, they fight at many of the battles that we all know. You know, they're at Valley Forge, they fight, you know, they fight on and off for the some of them the duration of the war, but they suffer, you know, physical ailments as a byproduct of that. They live in poverty, and that's one of the reasons why they're applying for pensions. And so they actually feel pride in what they did, but they also suffer some long-term consequences for their service. So it's it's a kind of interesting and mixed story, is what I would say.

Connie Doeble 23:48

I can't let your aside about Scots-Irish men marrying well go. What's the story? And tell me a little bit about the women who came over.

Judith Ridner 24:00

Uh yeah, I think that's such an important question. So, and it's a question that has been so overlooked. It's so interesting when you actually start studying people, and I I'll speak about Pennsylvania because that's what I know. So many of these Scots-Irish men, and it's not unique to the Scots-Irish, it is certainly a phenomenon, I would say, of colonial and revolutionary America. There are a lot of men who come over as migrants, sometimes as single men, and they marry well. And that is most definitely one of the ways that they advance themselves and ultimately their families. And I'll just do William Irvine as a great example. He marries the daughter of a very prominent fur trader in Carlisle by the name of Robert Callender. And Callender is clearly eager to get his one of his eldest daughters, Ann Irvine, or Nancy, as she went by, out of the house because he's remarrying a much younger woman. Her mother's died. He's remarrying a much younger woman, and he's eager to marry off his kids. And he marries off Ann Irvine, about she's about age 16. And Irvine, William Irvine's in his early 30s, if I remember correctly. And Robert Callender, her father, has all sorts of connections. He has, he's earned a fair amount of money from becoming a quite prominent trader with Native American peoples. He has lots of political connections in the colony. And so clearly, and there's some really interesting dynamics where later in life, William talks to his wife about, talks to his son, excuse me, about how he needs to ask his mother for money, the investments that he for investments that he wants to make, because actually she still controls a bunch of money independently within the family. And so William actually doesn't have all that much money, but clearly his wife continues to have some independent funds. And so I think that that is just very indicative of some of the ways that these men at times use women and favorable marriages to advance themselves. The other thing I've been thinking a lot about is how women also were so crucial to creating this kind of to creating that American stake in these Scots-Irish families because they do tend to have more children in the colonies and new United States than they did in Ireland. And clearly, you know, we can't overlook the degree to which having lots of children is one of the things that's sort of, first of all, if you're relatively poor, it's a labor force. It's the way you can cultivate more land, it's the way you can harvest more flax for linen weaving, you can be more entrepreneurial by having lots of kids that are all working for the family to create wealth. And then those kids go on to intermarry into other American families, then often creates and helps to build generational wealth. And so I think again, we've got to start thinking about how childbearing in this group among women is so instrumental to advancing them as a group. And then we also can't overlook the degree to which a lot of these families are highly entrepreneurial and women's kind of manufacturing activities, like again, processing flax fibers into yarn for weaving, is a way that families earned money on the side that again allowed them to again build more wealth over time and thus create greater stability for themselves. And this is a pattern that you see going on, especially in eastern regions of the north of Ireland, where women had done that. They had always been the family economy was key. It wasn't just men going out and plowing fields, it was a group enterprise that built success or at least survival.

Connie Doeble 28:28

We've talked about the impact of the Scots Irish in in uh a variety of areas, but what about higher education?

Judith Ridner 28:36

Uh, higher education, yeah. We can't overlook this because, you know, especially for me, I'm an alum of Dickinson College, and Dickinson College is founded, though they technically trace their origins to 1774. The college itself is really founded in 1783. And the Scots-Irish are very instrumental in this, in large part because there's just a heritage among Presbyterians of making sure of Presbyterian grammar schools, they want their children to be literate because they want their children to be able to read the Bible. They're very interested in having an educated ministry, you know, which is true of many of the Calvinists and Protestants in America. So early colleges like the College of New Jersey, it's about training Presbyterian ministers. But my alma mater Dickinson is really more of founded to be a relatively conservative institution that is supposed to be a counter to some of the more evangelically minded people who were at the College of New Jersey. And it's very much supposed to be a college that's designed to educate a backcountry, an interior, a frontier elite to moderate, that's a word that's often used, moderate principles of sort of Republican government. So two of the people who put it together, Benjamin Rush and John Montgomery. Rush is obviously from Philadelphia, Montgomery is from Carlisle. They're very interested in creating an institution of higher learning that would teach people to be moderate Republicans, not radicals, you know, not rabble rousers, but people who will kind of come into a more moderate Republican fold that will take response, you know, take responsibility for a stable representative government in Pennsylvania and not be a bunch of crazy frontier radicals.

Connie Doeble 30:56

So is your connection with Dickinson the answer to my next question, which is how did you get interested in this issue?

Judith Ridner 31:04

Yeah, in large part, yeah. I'm I'm actually from New Jersey. I grew up in New Jersey and I was quite fascinated living in Carlisle while I was in college, both by the college's history, which I don't think, in all honesty, I took seriously enough as a college student, but I was so impressed by the architecture of the college and the town. It's quite striking. You come from, I grew up in part in northeastern New Jersey where towns just kind of flow from one to another. And one of the striking things about central Pennsylvania is how you can have these highly urban towns with these row houses, you know, everything's so close together, but you exist in really a rural area, but the rural countryside's right outside of town. And so I think, yeah, my college experience pretty much turned me on to Pennsylvania history, most definitely.

Connie Doeble 32:02

How did you come about learning what you considered to be the new information or expanded information of the Scots-Irish? Where did you research? What did you find?

Judith Ridner 32:14

So a lot of my research, some of it was in Carlisle for sure. Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission in Harrisburg. So I worked at a lot of Pennsylvania institutions and did a lot of research, you know, and again, a lot of my research started long before the internet was a thing. So you had to go out to archives or spend a lot of time, as I did, looking at microfilm. I mean, I read The Carlisle Gazette, the 18th century newspaper, reeling through reel after reel of microfilm, kind of reading advertisements, reading articles. So a lot of it, again, in in my era was we went out to archives, we read through people's papers, and you kind of, as a result, you kind of come to know people. You kind of come to know people and who they are and about the families, and you know, they kind of become like, you know, quote unquote, your people. You know, you sort of feel like psychologically you kind of come to know, you know, things about these people and their family dynamics, because, you know, I sat for, you know, ultimately months at Historical Society of Pennsylvania, reading through people's letters, reading account books, reading public records like tax lists, reading wills in the county courthouse in Carlisle. I mean, I wrote petitions at the county courthouse in Carlisle. So it involves like a lot of on the ground research in, you know, all kinds of sources, basically.

Connie Doeble 34:01

So, what is your current research and does it have any connection with the Scots-Irish in Pennsylvania and your work in that area?

Judith Ridner 34:09

So, my actually my current project right now has nothing to do with Pennsylvania. I'm working on a in the midst of writing a book called The Dirty History of Soap, which has absolutely nothing to do with Pennsylvania.

Connie Doeble 34:20

But it's so great.

Judith Ridner 34:21

Right, it's an interesting project. And uh it's really kind of goes from the ancient period to the modern period, talking about soap as a kind of material artifact of culture, but also how it's connected into the history of health, the history of industry, uh, and ultimately the history of humanity. So that's what I've been working on most recently. And then I've got another book project that's now on the back burner because of the soap project that has been looking at, again, I have a real interest in material culture that's been looking at ethnic clothing and ethnic appearance in 18th century Pennsylvania. And that one is on Pennsylvania.

Connie Doeble 35:01

And when do you think that one might come out?

Judith Ridner 35:03

Oh, that one I'm afraid it will be years because it's gonna take me it's gonna take me about another year to get back to it, really. And that one really uh came out in part of some of my research on the Scots-Irish because because the Scots-Irish were so good at assimilating, they are thought many respects not to have a material culture. And so one of the things that I became really interested in is you know, when we start reading accounts of 18th century America, one of the things that I find fascinating is that most people thought they knew who they were talking to. Like they put labels on people, oh, the German man, oh, that Irishman, oh, that Irish woman, oh, that Quaker woman. So they clearly put a lot of ethnic or ethno-religious or racial. You know, they also talked about the Indian, the Negro, you know, they put all kinds of ethnic, religious, or racial labels on people. And clearly a lot of those labels were based upon how people looked, including how they spoke. Did they have an accent? And I'm most interested in how they dressed because clearly there were common forms of dress that everyone wore, but there were also some interesting ethnic variations on those forms of dress. And so I was trying to figure out what those forms were. And essentially, I've been trying to answer how people knew or thought they knew who they were talking about, which is to a certain extent, it's kind of getting at an early history of what today we might call racial profiling, like how we all make, today we do it too, we make all kinds of judgment calls based upon visual cues in particular in particular about who people are, what they're about, what class status they are, but also about their racial status and their ethnic status. And people in the 18th century were doing, were engaged in a similar, it's definitely not the same, but a similar sort of process.

Connie Doeble 37:24

Professor Judith Ridner is at Mississippi State, and she has researched and written a lot about the 18th century Pennsylvania Scots-Irish, which has been our topic today. Thank you so much.

Judith Ridner 37:35

W ell, thank you so much. Have a good day.

Connie Doeble 37:36

Yeah, you too. And that's today's story from We Love PA History. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and share it with someone who loves Pennsylvania as much as you do. You can help others discover these stories by leaving a quick rating or review. It really makes a difference. The We Love PA History podcast is produced by Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advances awareness, understanding, and appreciation of Pennsylvania's history and heritage. The Markosky Engineering Group, Incorporated, is a proud sponsor of the Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation, which carries out its mission on behalf of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and the citizens of Pennsylvania. Markosky is pleased to sponsor the We Love PA History Podcast. For more information about Markosky and commitment to Pennsylvania History, visit Markosky.com. That's M-A-R-K-O-S-K-Y.com To learn more, see photos and expore some of the places we talked about today. Visit us at PAHeritage.org. I'm Connie Doebele. Thanks for listening. And until next time, keep exploring Pennsylvania's past. Because Pennsylvania history isn't just history, it's our story.