Irish was something to be ashamed of Scottish not, or at least less so. Of course after the claim is passed down for a few generations, the family believes it.
Elsie Dinsmore thought that being Scottish was something to be proud of, and that the Scottish weren't really immigrants like all the other immigrants, because the Scottish were just like the Americans, since both fought against English tyranny. (This argument did not apply to the Irish, because the Irish were Catholic, and the mere threat of Catholic school killed Elsie in the first book.)
Nice thing about this board, if you have a tiny fact to share on a topic, toss it forth, and someone will add some depth. Like casting bread upon the waters, and getting it back tenfold, only with obscure and wonderful bits of knowledge. I don't know if I can convey just how, well, welcoming that is even after as long as I've been here.
It did! But then she came back to life.
Another data point. Many families who describe themselves as "Scotch-Irish" were of an entirely Irish background. Irish was something to be ashamed of Scottish not, or at least less so. Of course after the claim is passed down for a few generations, the family believes it. (Mind you, there were actual Scotch-Irish, but ratio of claimed to actual was very high.)
The situation is rather different in Australia. Irish immigrants were no more favoured than those heading Stateside (indeed, if anything they were likely to be less so, being shipped out as convicts), but through most of Australia's history they've formed a cohesive and reasonably proud group. The major fault line in Australian society, prior to the removal of the White Australia Policy at least, was between - speaking in generalisations - Anglo-Scottish Protestant middle class Liberal voters, and Irish Catholic working class Labor voters. (My older brother espouses a theory that Australia's culture owes more to its Irish heritage than its English, despite the fact that we were founded as a British colony with British institutions.)
I think the different (at least historical) position of Irish immigrants is a reasonably telling point in signposting differences between America and Australia.
If Abraham Lincoln can fight vampires, Elsie Dinsmore can be a zombie. Think of the moral dilemmas poor Zombie Elsie has to face--risen from the dead but not in heaven? What horrible sin did she commit!
I've found at least two books written while Elsie was popular -- Emily of New Moon, and Main Street -- in which a character uses Elsie as an example of horrible literature. In Emily of New Moon, her teacher finds out she's been reading some novels or something, and he tells her that, if she's going to rot her mind with stuff like that, then she might as well just go read Elsie. In Main Street, the main character is considering becoming a librarian, and thinks about how she'd get to introduce people to the whole world of knowledge they can find in books, but then decides that, no, the reality of being a librarian is probably just dealing with kids looking for the latest Elsie book.
I wonder how that compares to the attitude today towards twilight books. Is today mellower or not?
Another data point. Many families who describe themselves as "Scotch-Irish" were of an entirely Irish background. Irish was something to be ashamed of Scottish not, or at least less so. Of course after the claim is passed down for a few generations, the family believes it. (Mind you, there were actual Scotch-Irish, but ratio of claimed to actual was very high.)
My family is Scotch-Irish on my dad's side (the McCabes were the former, and the Kincaids the latter). Of course, enough generations of residence have thoroughly Americanized everyone; my mom's whitebread English immigrant family has more ties to Scottish culture via their church.
