Eliza O'Conor Sloane: Uncovering hidden women's history

Editor's Note: The following piece has been shared with IrishCentral from the American Irish Historical Society's (AIHS) Treasures of Time, stories from the collections and archives of the American Irish Historical Society in New York City.

This article is a shortened version of a longer paper that can be found in our journal of undergraduate research, An Cartlann Gael-Mheiriceánach. This paper was created by an AIHS intern during a semester-long research project.

It’s a well-known secret that history often excludes many from its record. While this is sometimes done intentionally, it’s more frequent to see the exclusion through careless neglect. For women’s history, as is often the focus of our weekly articles, this neglect can come from a lack of interest in researchers, even when the materials are available to be accessed.

In creating the internship projects that built these articles, students were asked to work with a collection and take notice of what stood out to them, building a paper from that. In looking for gaps in research, the social exclusion appeared in tandem. The focus of this paper is on a figure from a large and well-known Irish American family. We have spoken frequently about the O’Conor family, and those who have entered our building have no doubt seen the bust of Charles O’Conor that graces our lobby. But this paper is the first to look at Eliza O’Conor Sloane, the lesser-known figure that haunts the collection of Thomas O’Conor (1770-1855) in our manuscripts.

Eliza O’Conor Sloane’s family’s status as wealthy Irish-Americans set them apart from the norm at their time (the late Georgian to early Victorian era), creating an unusual dynamic that allowed her to travel and sometimes control her own finances. This only occurred with the permission of men in her life, who granted her autonomy and access to wealth that enabled her to travel, spend, and inherit money. Eliza O’Conor Sloane’s economic status and family dynamic enabled her to have a greater degree of financial and personal freedom than the typical wealthy woman in upper-class America in the 19th century.

Her early life is minimally documented, even going as far as her birth date. In her shared grave with her husband, his birth date in 1820 is recorded, and Eliza’s is left blank. Census records also record this varyingly, indicating Eliza may have been uncertain of her age, or errors in census recording. All census records of Eliza exist between 1850 and 1880, as censuses before 1850 only name the head of household; other household members are tallied in categories of age and sex.

We know from a genealogy of the O’Conor family that Eliza’s mother, Margaret O’Conor, died on January 30th, 1816, at 28. The only women recorded are mothers; neither Eliza’s name nor her birth is mentioned. However, this rules out the majority of birthdates from the census, leaving only two potential dates: 1815 or 1811. If these are correct, Eliza’s mother died when she was under 5 years old, possibly contributing to the lack of information. The range of error for Eliza’s census data varies by 20 years, while her husband’s varies by three years. Census errors are common, but women’s information is often viewed as less important in both genealogies and censuses, leading to less accurate or no information at all.

Eliza’s childhood suffers from a similar lack of information, and can only be constructed speculatively, as archival records focus on the 1840s, during Eliza’s adult life. In Thomas O’Conor’s files, he had saved a prospectus of Young Ladies Academy of the Sacred Heart, with an address at 412 Houstoun Street, advertising a trilingual Catholic girls’ school in English, French, and Spanish. Eliza could not have attended the school as she was an adult by the 1840s, when the school was located in Manhattan. However, we can infer that her father wanted his children to be educated with a Catholic and multicultural influence.

In a key letter from the collection is a recollection of a riverboat trip she and her father took up the Hudson River. Thomas O’Conor described New York tourists escaping the city to a countryside boarding house, where he enjoyed socializing with the hosts and guests. 71-year-old Thomas went on a morning hike by himself, and got quickly overwhelmed, and lost for seven hours. Upon his return, he found that the guests had begun “a kind of general search and inquiry” to look for him.  He described his gratitude at the seach party, and return: “I was overpowered and struck dumb. My daughter was in tears.”

This episode exemplifies the relationship between Eliza and her father. He opens this letter with this description: “In company with a daughter, and more under her care than she under mine.” This reversal of traditional parent-child roles indicates that Eliza may have functioned as a maternal caretaker in the home, having lost her mother. She could have been raised by a governess, but censuses before 1850 do not show whether there were staff in the home. American wives and Irish domestic workers often experienced tensions because Irish working women demonstrated greater financial independence, which, if Eliza had been raised with, would have influenced her own independence. Even if raised by servants, as an adult, Eliza would become another female caretaker in the home. Eliza likely rallied vacationers to begin looking for her missing father, needing to take care of him on her own. Eliza seems to have had more independence because of her upbringing, either with independent female influence or being put in the role of caretaker.

In 1842, she seemed to still be living with her father because she gave him instructions on caring for her orange tree and rose bush.[18] Despite likely having gardeners, it appears to be Eliza’s hobby, common in urban Victorian homes.[19]

She appears to be traveling with Christian Sloane, briefly mentioned as “Christn.” Eliza stamped her second letter with a gothic letter “O” for O’Conor, indicating she either had not changed her name and was courting, or was unmarried. Around this time, courtship saw a decline in parental supervision in courtship. This likely did not extend to unchaperoned trips out of state, so they were more likely newlyweds.

Regardless, the couple was not traveling alone; their companions appeared to be other Irish-Americans. One loaned a book to Eliza about Irish revolutions, prompting her to write: “I fear I am more Irish than American when I feel my blood boil reading this account of the wrongs and injustices.”

Traveling with other Irish Republicans demonstrates that her social circle was comprised of other upper-class Irish people.

Seal on letter from Eliza to Thomas O’Conor. (O’Conor Sloane, Eliza. “TOC: Eliza O’Conor Sloan to TOC 1842.” 19 August, 1842. Box 2, Folder 18. Thomas O’Connor Collection. American Irish Historical Society, New York, NY.)

By the 1850 census, Christian and Eliza Sloane, their son, and Thomas O’Conor, now retired, are all listed under the entry for Charles O’Conor. By 1855, the Sloans kept their own household, with a family of 6 Irish boarders, Mr. and Mrs. B. Dillon. Taking boarders indicates that Eliza and Christian needed extra economic support. When a woman could not work outside the home, she could support her household by taking on boarders, doing laundry, or selling produce, which gave women autonomy over household finances. However, Christian was employed as a broker in the 1855 census. A woman who was independent of men could control finances, but when a man was involved in the home, his financial authority superseded the woman’s. In 1855, the Sloanes also employed two Irish-born servants. In the same year, Charles O’Conor usually had five employees for domestic and gardening labor for a household of the same size, showing what a wealthier household could afford.

By later years, they would be more financially stable, and in 1870, they would take in 12-year-old Julia Pardow Mullany. Julia Pardow Mullany was the great-granddaughter of George Pardow, a co-founder of Thomas O’Conor’s newspaper, the Truth Teller. George Pardow also sponsored Charles O’Conor’s education for his legal career. In one interview, Charles called her his adoptive daughter. However, she would be listed in the 1880 census as Charles O’Conor’s niece. Conflicting with this, Charles’ will indicates that his sister was the one who officially adopted her. Eliza inherits two-thirds of his estate, passing to her sons if she dies before her brother, and the remaining one-third to Julia, irrespective of Eliza’s status. Typically, any man in the household could supersede a woman’s financial independence, so it is an unusual choice to skip over Eliza’s sons, giving the money to their widowed mother and adoptive sister directly. This independence is authorized only by Charles, but grants them economic independence rather than passing on the duty of their care to another person.

In a codicil to the will, Charles also gave Julia all his property, employees, papers, and chattels in the state of Massachusetts. This gave her the house he built, lived, and died in, in Nantucket, called Sea Cliff. Shortly after Charles O’Conor’s death, Julia Mullany married, so the house could have been for her husband, but no provisions were made for this. Despite many opportunities to delegate authority to other men, the will explicitly provides property in her name alone, to her heirs and assigns forever, making her the heir and head of the household.

Little information is recorded about Eliza’s life after her brother’s death. She died on November 19th, 1894, and was buried in Woodside, Queens. One must assume that she lived off her brother’s inheritance until her death, and that anything she had would have passed to her sons. Her younger son, Thomas, was willed much of his uncle and grandfather’s writings and books. These would have passed through his daughter, Alice Mary Sloane Anderson, and into the collections of the American Irish Historical Society.

Much of Eliza O’Conor Sloane’s life remains unknown due to recordkeeping that neglects information about women’s lives. However, based on available information, this paper attempts to identify areas where Eliza deviated from and conformed to the norms of American society as a wealthy Irish-American woman. Eliza was raised without a mother, possibly influenced by financially independent Irish domestic workers, as well as a father and brother who cultivated her independence. These factors set her apart from the norm and enabled her to enjoy greater social and financial freedom than a typical Victorian American woman. Wealthy American women did not typically have family dynamics that enabled them to travel or manage their own finances. Poorer women in the Victorian period did not have the advantages of travel, inheritance, or domestic servants to facilitate these freedoms. It is only through access to wealth, permitted by the men, that Eliza O’Conor Sloane was able to live her life independently, unlike other women in different economic or familial situations.

*Caroline Stetson is currently an undergraduate student at Fordham University, Rose Hill, majoring in History and Anthropology. Her research interests include genealogical studies and Medieval history.

This column is adapted from the blog of the American Irish Historical Society (AIHS). Read the full stories at AIHSNY.org/blog.

Founded in 1897 and located on Museum Mile in New York City, the American Irish Historical Society (AIHS) preserves and promotes the history and cultural legacy of the Irish in America through its archives, art collections, and public programs. Learn more at AIHSNY.org.