DigitalCommons@C.O.D.

Anderson, Sean

English

Gentrification and Chicago

Casaletto, Liz

ESSAI
Volume 14 Article 13
Spring 2016
Sub-Standard Standards
Liz Casaletto
College of DuPage
Follow this and additional works at: http://dc.cod.edu/essai
This Selection is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for inclusion in
ESSAI by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@COD. For more information, please contact koteles@cod.edu.
Recommended Citation
Casaletto, Liz (2016) "Sub-Standard Standards," ESSAI: Vol. 14 , Article 13.
Available at: http://dc.cod.edu/essai/vol14/iss1/13
32 
Sub-Standard Standards 
 
by Liz Casaletto 
 
(English 1101) 
 
 
 
merican consumers are at a disadvantage, and they do not even know it. When it comes to 
processed food and over-the-counter nutrition supplements, it is nearly impossible to know 
exactly what chemicals are contained inside, and more importantly, the potential side effects 
and interactions those chemicals can have on the body. An example that illustrates this idea is the 
major effects that grapefruit juice can have on the absorption of pharmaceuticals in the body, 
something that relatively few people were aware of until recently. The Food and Drug 
Administration’s publication about this issue explains that “grapefruit juice and fresh grapefruit can 
interfere with the action of some prescription drugs” (“Grapefruit…”). The article consults Shiew 
Mei Huang, the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Clinical Pharmacology. 
She stated that “the juice increases the absorption of the drug into the blood stream,” and this leads to 
“a higher concentration of a drug” in the body (qtd. in “Grapefruit…”). High concentration levels of 
certain drugs will result in a higher likelihood of adverse effects, some of these being potentially 
dangerous. 
If something as innocent-seeming as grapefruit juice can react with medications in such a 
drastic way, there is an equal concern about the chemicals present in processed foods and over-the-
counter supplements. Because of this, the Food and Drug Administration should require three things: 
1) that all food producers must transparently represent every chemical, no matter how long-winded or 
small in amount, either on the food’s label or on the food’s corresponding website; 2) that nutrition 
supplement companies must follow standards regarding consistent potency and dosage; and 3) that 
consumers wishing to purchase over-the-counter supplements must consult with a trained medical 
professional before being able to start a supplement regimen of any kind. This system would allow 
for the best of both worlds—consumers will still feel free to do as they wish with their bodies, but 
they will now be less in the dark about the mystery chemicals they consume. 
The active ingredients in over-the-counter nutrition supplements are often found in naturally-
occurring herbs and plants. Many of these plants have been used for centuries already by healers and 
medicine men, believing them to be able to rid the body of sickness and promote a long life. Things 
are not so much different now. “Nutraceuticals,” a word used to refer to the thousands upon 
thousands of differing vitamin, mineral, and herbal supplements on the market, are extremely 
popular; although the modern world has evolved to depend on scientific research before 
pharmaceuticals can be given to the public, nutraceutical standards have not kept up. 
In a New York Times article titled “Miracle in a Bottle,” author Michael Specter explains that 
“[in] 1994, when Congress passed a law that deregulated the supplement industry and opened it up to 
a flood of new products, the use of largely unproved herbal remedies…has increased as rapidly as the 
use of any commonly prescribed drug” (1). The nature of the active components used to make 
supplements means that different samples of plants or herbs can vary wildly in potency. Specter 
states that “the absence of effective manufacturing standards in the United States means that even 
consumers can’t rely on commercial formulas….[and] the herbal product that you buy tomorrow may 
be different biologically from the same product purchased next month” (8). The lack of 
manufacturing standards poses a serious danger to consumers: different dosages and potencies of an 
ingredient can interact in unexpected ways with the body, especially when other medications are 
involved. 
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Specter visited Basic Research, a privately-held conglomerate that distributes the popular diet 
supplement Zantrex-3. Although Basic Research allegedly takes these variables into consideration 
and has strict testing standards, he was reminded by Dennis Gay, Basic Research’s president and 
CEO, that “'[i]f [Specter thinks] we are a sleazy operation, remember: we could do it for half the 
price’” (8). The fact is, these nutraceutical companies rely on an honor system—their products are 
not regulated. If the Food and Drug Administration was to step in and set standards for the 
nutraceutical industry in regards to consistent potency and dosage, many potential health issues could 
be prevented, and we would be able to see the true effects that different supplements have on the 
body. 
Through the popularity of nutraceuticals, we can see that Americans seem to accept the 
ingestion of chemicals in their daily lives, and their acceptance expands much further than this 
specific area of consumerism. Nutraceuticals are a huge industry, dwarfed only by another industry: 
processed foods. The vast majority of the foods we eat will have the words “artificial flavor,” 
“natural flavor,” “artificial color,” or “natural color” printed in the list of ingredients on the label; 
however, most consumers do not give these terms any second thought. In reality, these are catch-all 
terms used to lump together and represent all of the chemicals in the food that are added after 
processing in order to enhance flavor and color that was lost at some point in the food’s lifespan. 
These terms are misleading and keep most consumers from questioning the food’s true 
ingredients. Eric Schlosser, author of “Why McDonald’s Fries Taste So Good,” an article published 
in The Atlantic, spoke with Terry Acree, a professor of food science at Cornell University, and 
learned that “natural” flavors differ from “artificial” flavors only when it comes to the process used 
to make them. Acree said that a “natural” flavor is simply “'a flavor that’s been derived with an out-
of-date technology’” (qtd. in Schlosser 5). Schlosser stated that natural and artificial flavors 
“sometimes contain exactly the same chemicals, produced through different methods” (5). Even 
more surprising is that both types of flavors “are now manufactured at the same chemical plants, 
places that few people would associate with Mother Nature” (5). 
Another huge problem with these catch-all terms is that they simply do not state each and 
every chemical inside of the food. This is a concern for those who have any sort of food allergy, 
those with any sort of dietary restriction (such as veganism or Kosher), and those who just want to be 
aware of what exactly they are putting into their bodies. For example, an ingredient called carmine, 
used to add red color to food, is “made from the desiccated bodies of female Dactylopius coccus 
Costa, a small [beetle] harvested mainly in Peru and the Canary Islands” (Schlosser 6). Someone who 
practices veganism cannot eat any foods containing this red dye, but if carmine is lumped together 
under the term “natural color,” they have no way of knowing. Moreover, Schlosser explains that 
carmine can also cause allergic reactions, and many religious dietary restrictions would not allow it. 
Some groups with special dietary restrictions have already begun to take action. Schlosser 
noted in his article, written in 2001, that the “Vegetarian Legal Action Network recently petitioned 
the FDA to issue new labeling requirements for foods that contain natural flavors….[and] to list the 
basic origins of their flavors on their labels” (Schlosser 6). It is simply unfair that those with dietary 
restrictions are unable to know exactly what they are eating, and if food’s label or website were 
required to list each and every ingredient, many people (with or without restrictions) might second 
guess eating so many processed foods. 
The chemicals and ingredients used to make nutraceuticals and flavor/color additives 
undergo an alarmingly low level of safety testing before they are produced in mass quantities and 
sold to the public. Schlosser divulges that the Food and Drug Administration “does not require 
companies to disclose the ingredients of their color or flavor additives so long as all the chemicals in 
them are considered by the agency to be GRAS (‘generally recognized as safe’)” (4). The GRAS 
page of the Food and Drug Administration’s government website explains in a bit more detail: “The 
use of a food substance may be GRAS either through scientific procedures or, for a substance used in 
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food before 1958, through experience based on common use in food” (U.S.). The idea of GRAS is 
concerning because of what its first letter stands for—“generally.” Just because something is 
generally safe does not mean that under a slightly different circumstance it cannot become very 
dangerous to the consumer. The majority of consumers do not give a second thought to eating 
processed foods multiple times a day, and food companies should not assume that if someone 
combines one bunch of GRAS chemicals with another bunch of GRAS chemicals, that person’s body 
will be able to handle it. The public should be able to access information about every chemical they 
consume in order to prevent any possible harm. 
The safety standards in the nutraceutical industry are just as concerning. When Specter spoke 
with David Kessler, dean of the School of Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco 
and former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, he learned that the Food and Drug 
Administration does little to protect the health of nutraceutical consumers: “The supplement industry 
doesn’t have to report adverse events, so the FDA doesn’t have the data it needs to protect people. 
You cannot prove something is unsafe if you don’t have the data” (qtd. in Specter 5). As Kessler 
lamented, this is the ultimate catch-22, and what is even more shocking is that the public seems to be 
unaware of how unregulated the supplements they take almost religiously are. Specter cites the 
results of a Harris poll in his 2004 article, pointing out that “most people believe that if a supplement 
is on the market it must have been approved by some government agency [which is] not true” (4). 
Not only is safety of little concern to supplement-makers, the public is under a completely wrong 
impression that safety standards do, in fact, exist. This is creating a market of consumers that are 
eager to try new nutraceuticals because they are relatively concern-free and unsuspicious of possible 
ill effects, when, in reality, they should be just the opposite. 
Americans place high importance on their freedom, and the ability to take whatever 
supplements they please falls under this ideology. As Loren D. Israelsen, executive director of the 
Utah Natural Products Alliance, said to Specter, “'Americans believe they have the right to address 
their health problems in the way that seems most useful to them. Often, that means supplements. 
When the public senses that the government is trying to limit its access to this kind of thing, it always 
reacts with remarkable anger—people are even willing to shoulder a rifle over it. They are willing to 
believe anything if it brings them a little hope’” (qtd. in Specter 2). The public should be able to 
access anything they believe could help them live a better life. However, those working in the 
supplement industry are banking on “hope” rather than real results. 
When Specter met with Don Atkinson, the vice-president of sales for Basic Research, the 
distributor of Zantrex-3, Atkinson divulged his approach to selling the product: “'Do you know what 
people are calling you for? It isn’t the pill. They are calling you for hope. That’s what they really 
want from you…. Our job is to give them hope’” (qtd. in Specter 2). It is concerning that the goal of 
these powerful people is not to provide actual health benefits, but only to give buyers hope—a hope 
that often leads to disappointment when the supplement does not perform. 
Hope can be a powerful healing tool, but if someone is ingesting something without knowing 
the possible ill health effects, they could end up worse than they were to begin with. In 2003, a 
popular over the counter weight-loss supplement containing ephedra was extremely popular, 
“bringing in a billion dollars a year and accounting for more than ten percent of the supplement 
industry’s annual sales” (Specter 5). A highly-publicized death resulted from the use of this 
supplement: “Steve Belcher, a twenty-three year-old pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles, died of 
heatstroke after taking an over-the-counter product that contained ephedra” (Specter 5). The active 
ingredient of ephedra, ephedrine, is a stimulant, meaning that when used in combination with another 
stimulant, caffeine, as it often was, it will raise blood pressure, put strain on the heart, increase the 
rate of metabolism, and boost adrenaline. After Belcher’s death, ephedra was banned by only three 
states until December of that year when the Food and Drug Administration announced it would 
prohibit any further sales. If a system had been in place that would require a potential purchaser to 
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meet with a healthcare professional before beginning a supplement regimen, Belcher’s life could 
have been saved. Giving people hope can be a wonderful thing, but an explanation of the possible ill 
effects must also be provided. People cannot make educated decisions if they are not given all of the 
pertinent information. 
There are many improvements we can make in the nutraceutical industry to protect the health 
of consumers. However, when it comes to processed foods, things are less black-and-white. The 
nature of the foods we eat now make color and flavor additives a necessity: “The canning, freezing, 
and dehydrating techniques used in processing destroy most of food’s flavor—and so a vast industry 
has arisen in the United States to make processed foods more palatable” (Schlosser 2). Because 90% 
of the money we spend on food is spent on processed foods, and because they are both extremely 
cheap and “GRAS” (Schlosser 2, 4), additives are not going anywhere. However, this is no excuse 
for the mislabeling that is now commonplace. 
Instead of the additive ingredients being lumped together as “natural/artificial flavor/color,” 
there should be an exact listing of each and every ingredient that goes into a processed food. This can 
certainly become a reality when we look at how inexpensive these flavor and color additives really 
are: “The flavor in a twelve-ounce can of Coke costs about half a cent” (Schlosser 4). If these 
additives cost so little, companies should use some of their profit to implement a more informational 
system, either by printing out every single ingredient on the food’s label, or providing an online look-
up for each product’s additives. Consumers with food allergies, religious or dietary restrictions, or 
those who just want to know exactly what they are consuming, have a right to know. Although the 
number ingredients in something like “artificial strawberry flavor” is very high (forty-eight to be 
exact), it does not mean the information should be ignored (Schlosser 4). 
Overall, in America’s modern market, valuable steps to protect the health of consumers are 
being overlooked. In a country where technology allows us information instantly at our fingertips, 
the majority of consumers are unaware of the chemicals they put in their bodies on a daily basis, and 
what negative effects they could pose. Although changing the current system may not be as easy or 
cut-and-dry as the ideas proposed here, something has got to change. Nutraceuticals affect the body 
just as much as any pharmaceutical, so there should be comparable restrictions. Similarly, just as 
consumers need to know the exact chemical makeup of the drugs they take, they should be just as 
knowledgeable about the foods they nourish themselves with. If we live in what is arguably the 
greatest country on the planet, why do we not have the highest standards when it comes to health and 
living the longest lives we can? 
 
 
  
 
Works Cited 
 
"Grapefruit Juice and Medicine May Not Mix." Food and Drug Administration. U.S. Food and Drug 
Administration, n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2015. 
<http://www.fda.gov/downloads/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/UCM292839.pdf>. 
Schlosser, Eric. “Why McDonald’s fries taste so good: a trip to northern New Jersey, the home of the 
natural flavours.” The Atlantic. 287.1 (2001): 50-6. Academic Onefile. Web. 1 Sep 2015. 
Specter, Michael. “Miracle In a Bottle.” The New Yorker 2 Feb 2004: 64+. Academic Onefile. Web. 1 
Sep 2015. 
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “Generally 
Recognized as Safe (GRAS).” U.S. Food and Drug Administration. U.S. Department of 
Health and Human Services, 4 June 2015. Web. 22 Oct 2015. 
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Sub-Standard Standards

Laatz, Alyssa

ESSAI
Volume 14 Article 23
Spring 2016
From Peasant to Proletariat: How the Irish were
able to overcome the Irish Potato Famine
Alyssa Laatz
College of DuPage
Follow this and additional works at: http://dc.cod.edu/essai
This Selection is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for inclusion in
ESSAI by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@COD. For more information, please contact koteles@cod.edu.
Recommended Citation
Laatz, Alyssa (2016) "From Peasant to Proletariat: How the Irish were able to overcome the Irish Potato Famine," ESSAI: Vol. 14 ,
Article 23.
Available at: http://dc.cod.edu/essai/vol14/iss1/23
87 
From Peasant to Proletariat: How the Irish were able to overcome the Irish Potato Famine 
 
by Alyssa Laatz 
 
(History 2820) 
 
 
 
he Irish Potato Famine is known as one of the most disastrous and preventable events in 
history, caused not just by a simple potato blight, but also by other factors influencing the 
policies set forth to induce aid by the bourgeois State. Their actions or inactions towards 
Ireland not only brought about the famine, but also prolonged its devastating effects; and by enacting 
policies that were geared towards benefitting themselves and the Anglo-Irish landlords, the State 
exploited the Irish peasantry and created a mass exodus of the Irish people. It is through this exodus 
however, that the Irish people were truly able to overcome the negative stigmas surrounding them, 
and further themselves economically in society; from peasant to proletariat and then some. 
In 1800, the British Act of Union officially annexed Ireland as a part of the United Kingdom. 
This was largely due to a rebellion in 1798 against initial English rule, which was quickly put down 
by the English Army. As Marx states, “The civilization and justice of bourgeois order comes out in 
its lurid light whenever the slaves and drudges of that order rise against their masters”. The act 
abolished a 500 year independent Irish government in Dublin and allowed access to English 
capitalists to exploit the Irish markets. In addition, the Penal Laws further stripped the Catholic Irish 
of their rights, including the banning of the Catholic Church and their Gaelic language. Export trade 
by the Irish was forbidden, which furthered the profits of private enterprise.  
During the 1800s, typical words that may have described an Irish person might have been 
lazy, stupid, or backward. However, this is not the case, and certainly wasn’t in the Middle Ages, 
where Ireland opened the first hospital in Europe and was a leading studier of medicine and religion. 
However, it was in 1169 when Ireland was first invaded by the first Earl of Pembroke and then 
invaded many more times in the years following. 
During the late 18th century and early 19th century, the Enclosure Movement was taking place 
in the British Isles. In it, communal land worked by peasants was taken and transformed into private 
land for wealthier landlords. Landlords realized that they could use the commons by enclosing them 
for raising sheep and producing wool for the growing textile industry in order to make a substantial 
profit. To do this, they went to Parliament, which subsequently posted notices on Parish doors for the 
peasants to read and voice objections. However, given that most peasants were illiterate, it was not 
possible for an objection to be risen, and thus inspectors came to see who owned what share of the 
land. Proof of ownership was required in the form of a written document; however, since most 
peasants were illiterate, very few kept such a document, if there was even one to begin with. If they 
could not produce proof, the peasants were evicted from the land that they had worked for 
generations. If they could produce proof, their land was amassed into one large farm and they were 
required to enclose it and pay a legal fee. Given that the cost of fencing and the legal fee was more 
than many could afford, peasants were either forced to sell some of their land to wealthier 
landowners in order to fence a smaller portion, or were evicted entirely due to the inability to pay 
their rent. Although this movement did not originate in Ireland, it did lay the foundation of the belief 
in private landholdings and private enterprise among the Anglo-Irish landlords, who took these 
practices and utilized them for their own gain. 
It was during this time that repeated confiscation of land and estates occurred, leading up to 
the then current system of landholding in 1840. This system reserved all of the best land for the 
Anglo-Irish landlords, who exported their crop and livestock to England for great profit, and shelled 
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out the less desirable land to be rented out by the rural peasantry. The land was primarily fit for 
growing only potatoes; and one acre of potatoes could feed three times as many people as one acre of 
grain. Subsequently, the land was thus rented out to three times as many people and subdivided 
repeatedly until some were living on small strips of land. Thus, the potato became the only crop 
viable to be produced to feed themselves, as planting anything else would leave no extra crop after 
rent was collected by the Anglo-Irish landlords, and wouldn’t be as nutritionally valuable. 
 Because this land was rented out to three times as many people as necessary, the rural West 
became extremely overpopulated and over dependent on the potato for food sustenance. Not only did 
this over dependence lead to mass starvation, but the close proximity in which the people were living 
contributed to the spread of diseases associated with starvation. Mrs. Cecil Woodham Smith wrote in 
her book The Great Hunger that “All this wretchedness and misery could, almost without exception, 
be traced to a single source – the system under which land had come to be occupied and owned in 
Ireland, a system produced by centuries of successive conquests, rebellions, confiscations and 
punitive legislation”. 
 When famine hit, it wasn’t evenly distributed among the people due to regional patterns of 
development. Areas where there were modernized or industrialized techniques, such as Ulster, were 
not hit as hard by the famine. However, places where there was an increasing amount of poor and 
malnourished people, were hit the hardest, in terms of mortality rate, such as Connaught. So while 
the western part of Ireland anguished, the eastern side modernized and induced long-term economic 
change. However, when officials were sent to assess the situation in Ireland, they only went as far as 
Dublin to see the effects, thus not seeing the phenomenally worse portions of the country. This, in 
turn, caused a misguided notion of the situation and thus affected the amount of aid sent to the 
suffering countryside. However, because of ideologies based on providentialism and moralism, 
effective aid was hardly given in the first place. 
 Thomas Malthus, an English cleric and scholar, believed that food production would always 
remain lower than population growth, thus meaning that the population would eventually have to be 
reduced either by means of prudence or natural disaster in order for there to be enough food. His 
stance on birth control was that it was “wicked” and believed a famine to be more ideal and helpful. 
Furthermore, he considered charity to be dangerous and vouched for it to be kept strictly under 
control. His ideas spread throughout and became influential in the dealings of the famine. One man, 
Charles Edward Trevelyan, the permanent head of the treasury, took his ideas to heart and set forth 
actions that mimicked these ideas. 
 Trevelyan believed in laissez-faire, which is the belief that little governmental interference in 
the economy was necessary. This in turn, gave the bourgeoisie a viable excuse to not give a massive 
amount of food aid, as the prices of food would increase and dissatisfy the bourgeoisie landowners 
and private businesses. So, when a new government was established after the Peel administration, 
Trevelyan took it under himself to repeal the aid that was set forth. The corn that the Peel 
administration had purchased and stored in Ireland to be resold at reduced prices became no more, as 
private enterprise had to supply the food instead. To essentially “seal the deal,” merchants then asked 
for assurance that there would be no more governmental food aid; and this assurance was readily 
given by Trevelyan, who not only promised this, but also vowed that there would be “no more 
interfering with the legitimated profits of private enterprise”. Furthermore, the government decided 
to not cease their exporting of goods from Ireland to Britain, which substantially made matters worse 
for the Irish. In total, all of the food and means of living that were taken could have fed the Irish 
twice over, but still “in 1845 and 1846 about 3,251,257 quarters of corn, 257,257 sheep, 480,827 
swine, and 186,483 oxen were all exported to Britain” (New World Encyclopedia). Cecil Woodham 
Smith wrote that “no issue has provoked so much anger or so embittered relations between the two 
countries [England and Ireland] as the indisputable fact that huge quantities of food were exported 
from Ireland to England throughout the period when the people of Ireland were dying of starvation”. 
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In summary, the state was enacting policies that benefitted the ruling class, i.e. the bourgeois society. 
As Marx states in the Manifesto, “The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing 
the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie,” as was apparent during this time. 
 In accordance to their ideologies, the state set forth “aid” that was not beneficial to the Irish 
people on the basis that any beneficial actions would go against the root beliefs of capitalism. In 
essence, when the state enacted “paid public works” as a means for the Irish to buy food, they were 
simply meaningless tasks masqueraded as public works projects. No houses, hospitals, or 
improvements to existing roads were assigned to these workers, as they would be taking away from 
private contractors, who could make money off of such projects. Rather, roads that went from 
“nowhere to nowhere” were built, as well as bridges that spanned non-existing rivers. Not only were 
these projects completely useless, but they failed to even solve the core problem of how the Irish 
would buy food given that they had no income from their now desolate farms, and were evicted from 
their homes as they could not pay rent. Rather, the works caused the starving laborers to expend all 
of their energy doing back breaking wage labor, and prevented them from focusing on producing 
another crop or returning to their farm land. Furthermore, the little food that they could buy was not 
nearly enough to make up for the caloric content that they had expended doing the work, as it was 
sold at market value rather than at a reduced price. 
 Since the Irish were not able to work on their farms, they were subsequently evicted by their 
landlords. The landlords, who primarily lived in England, wanted to adapt to modern English 
methods of agriculture to their farmlands as a means of increasing profit. So, when the Gregory 
Clause was introduced to amend the Poor Law in June 1847, the landlords nicknamed it the 
“Eviction-made-easy Act”. In it, it stated that “any desperate Irishman who applied for benefit had to 
give up the right to all but one quarter acre of his tenancy in exchange for a mere pittance with which 
to feed his family. This meant that he and his family would soon be doomed to eviction as it was 
impossible to exist on such a tiny sliver of land let alone raise the rent to pay the landlord” 
(Whittaker). Essentially, this act allowed for landlords to evict their tenants off of the estate quicker, 
clearing the land for livestock and grain agriculture in order to increase their profits. 
 However, although the landlords were hoping to make a profit off of their endeavors, the 
exact opposite happened. The Irish Poor Extension Act was signed into law on June 8, 1847 and 
essentially blamed the landlords for the whole famine and stipulated that all landlords would hold the 
entire responsibility of famine relief, including cost. So, the bourgeois used the petty-bourgeois as a 
scapegoat. As Marx states in the Manifesto, “[The school of Socialism] pointed out the inevitable 
ruin of the petty bourgeois and peasant, the misery of the proletariat, the anarchy in production, the 
crying inequalities in the distribution of wealth, the industrial war of extermination between nations, 
the dissolution of old moral bonds, of the old family relations, or the old nationalities”. The Anglo-
Irish, petty bourgeois landowners, although hoping to make profit, were subsequently “bled dry” 
because of this act. They went bankrupt due to high taxation from the State, and had little to no 
income in sight as all of the Irish peasantry and farmers were either in the work houses catching 
disease, or immigrated to America when they were offered passage by the landowners themselves 
who hoped to clear the land for profit. According to the new law, the landowners had to raise 10 
million pounds to support the paupers as relief; and because there was no income coming in, the 
army was sent to shake out money from the already poor Irish people. This included taking anything 
of value that they had, including clothes. Only one million pounds were extracted this way, leaving 
the Irish in an even greater state of destitute and a greater state of hatred towards the ruling class. 
Furthermore, to enforce the laws, the landlords, now very much in debt, forcibly ejected any 
remaining tenants, about 500,000, in order to save on taxes. This, being winter, was almost certain 
death for the Irish. Yet, rather than a decrease in taxes, the bourgeoisie increased them, and at that 
point, many petty bourgeois just decided to emigrate. 
Of those that immigrated to America and survived the trip on the severely cramped and 
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unsanitary coffin ships, many settled in large port cities on the East Coast. Unaccustomed to the 
large-scale farming in the Americas, many took on any jobs or wage labor that they could find. Men 
loaded ships at docks while women took jobs as servants or worked in textile factories. However, pay 
was low and anti-Irish sentiments among the American people began to grow. Many were afraid that 
the Irish would take away their unskilled working jobs as they were willing to work for significantly 
less pay. However, such sentiments eventually shifted due to a focus on the Civil War instead; which 
many immigrants fought bravely in. This was the start of the Irish potentially moving up in class, 
going from pauper and peasant to proletariat. Admittedly, not an impressive change, but still 
significantly better than starving to death as an Irish peasant. 
After the Civil War, Irish laborers were able to find new and better paid work due to more 
industrialized conditions. Building railroads and working in mines led to organizing trade unions and 
strikes for better working conditions and pay. Some even became involved in state politics, which 
helped many new immigrants assimilate into American society more naturally. 
In effect, The Great Potato Famine changed Irish society and demographics substantially. 
Although the famine was eventually solved through an increase in railways, the devastating effects 
brought about by bourgeois greed were already too great to be solved in a small matter of time. The 
population of Ireland plummeted, and went from 8 to 9 million people at its peak, to about 4.4 
million within 65 years, and has never fully recovered to this day. Roughly 1 million of the populous 
had died due to starvation, malnutrition, or related illnesses associated with the famine; and was not 
quickly replenished due to a desolate fertility and birth rate. As Marx states, “each new crisis in the 
class struggle between the appropriator and the producer brings out [bourgeois justice] more 
glaringly,” as was seen in the asinine “relief” efforts that the State and Anglo-Irish landlords put forth 
against the Irish peasantry. The only way that the Irish escaped this monumental exploitation was 
through emigration overseas; and even then they were still exploited by capitalist society. However, 
many were able to escape it and find wage labor, thus improving their quality of life, even minimally. 
It is through this consequence that the Irish were able to advance their social class from peasant to 
proletariat, and then some. They were able to remove themselves from the shackles placed upon them 
by the bourgeois State and replace them with looser ones in America. 
 
 
  
 
Works Cited 
 
Boyle, Phelim P., and Cormac O. Grada. "Fertility Trends, Excess Mortality, and the Great Irish 
Famine." Demography 23.4 (1986): 543. Web. 
Christina Croft. "The Enclosures & the Agricultural Revolution." YouTube. YouTube, 28 Mar. 2013. 
Web. 12 July 2016. 
Donnelly, Jim. "The Irish Famine." BBC News. BBC, 17 Feb. 2011. Web. 18 May 2016. 
"Irish Potato Famine (1845-1849)." New World Encyclopedia. N.p., 22 Apr. 2014. Web. 18 May 
2016. 
"Irish Potato Famine." The History Place. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 May 2016. 
Klein, Christopher. "The Warship of Peace That Fed Famine-Stricken Ireland." History.com. A&E 
Television Networks, 16 Mar. 2015. Web. 18 May 2016. 
Marx, Karl. "Manifesto of the Communist Party." Manifesto of the Communist Party. MIA, n.d. 
Web. 18 May 2016. 
 
4
ESSAI, Vol. 14 [2016], Art. 23
http://dc.cod.edu/essai/vol14/iss1/23
91 
Mokyr, Joel. "Irish Potato Famine | Irish History." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia 
Britannica, 20 Nov. 2014. Web. 18 May 2016. 
Oxley, D. "Living Standards of Women in Prefamine Ireland." Social Science History 28.2 (2004): 
271-95. Web. 
"The Potato Famine and Irish Immigration to America - Constitutional Rights Foundation." BRIA 26 
2. Constitutional Rights Foundation, n.d. Web. 18 May 2016. 
Whittaker, Harry. "Ireland's Holocaust - The Irish Potato Famine, 1845-50." In Defence of Marxism. 
In Defence of Marxism, 10 Dec. 2007. Web. 18 May 2016. 
 
 
 
 
5
Laatz: From Peasant to Proletariat
Published by DigitalCommons@COD, 2016


From Peasant to Proletariat: How the Irish were able to overcome the Irish Potato Famine

Stern, Lindsey

Thorium Shipped Out, and Dust of Deceit Left Behind in West Chicago

Johnson, Martin

The Prairie Light Review
Volume 38 | Number 2 Article 13
Spring 5-1-2016
Blue Planet
Martin Johnson
College of DuPage
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This Artwork is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for inclusion in
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Recommended Citation
Johnson, Martin (2016) "Blue Planet," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 38: No. 2, Article 13.
Available at: http://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol38/iss2/13
Looking to the stars,  
they’re calling me. 
I can hear my name, 
floating, 
through the vast universe.  
 
Wanting to be up there 
in the celestial abyss, 
to frolic in my dreams 
and explore the unanswered questions 
of this wondrous place.
Exploration of a Dreamer
Ashley Curtice
Blue Planet
Photography
Martin Johnson
My heart flies up to the sky 
to dance with the moon 
as we watch the earth spin by. 
The things we could uncover 
gives me child-like excitement. 
 
My heart and mind merge together in harmony, 
on an epic journey through the darkness, 
while my feet stay planted on terrestrial soil, 
never hearing the countdown for takeoff.
Spring 2016 91
Johnson: Blue Planet
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Blue Planet

Staszak, Nancy L.

The Prairie Light Review
Volume 38 | Number 2 Article 19
Spring 5-1-2016
Megalosaurus
Nancy L. Staszak
College of DuPage
Follow this and additional works at: http://dc.cod.edu/plr
This Artwork is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for inclusion in
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Recommended Citation
Staszak, Nancy L. (2016) "Megalosaurus," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 38: No. 2, Article 19.
Available at: http://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol38/iss2/19
Megalosaurus
Acrylic painting on 24” x 24” canvas
Nancy L. Staszak
Prairie Light Review16 1
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Megalosaurus

The Prairie Light Review
Volume 38 | Number 2 Article 40
Spring 5-1-2016
Avian Dinsosaur
Nancy L. Staszak
College of DuPage
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This Artwork is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for inclusion in
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Recommended Citation
Staszak, Nancy L. (2016) "Avian Dinsosaur," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 38: No. 2, Article 40.
Available at: http://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol38/iss2/40
       Tat, tat, tat, tat. 
       It was her. And the sound of her foot-
steps from behind me. 
       “Hey,” she said.  
       “Hey!” she exclaimed. 
       “HEY!” she yelled. 
       I looked over my shoulder.  
       There she was. 
       I said, “Yeah, what is it?” 
       She glanced up at me with probing, 
doe-like eyes. “Would you like to eat lunch 
with me today?” 
       “You ask me this every day . . .” 
       “I do?” she said as she playfully tugged 
on my sleeve, her waist-long hair swathing 
the air about her. 
       “Yeah. And you know the answer.” 
       She laughed and hugged me. 
*** 
       Yeah, that was Caroline. Lanky, gawky, 
doofy and dorky: she was every “y” that 
had a perturbing connotation and then 
some. She was a lot of things, but she was 
also the best, last, and only self-proclaimed 
fangirl I ever had. 
       I remember how whenever her 
sniper-sight caught me in the halls, it was 
over — it was time for a production! She’d 
throw her math/science/history/whatever 
textbooks at some stranger beside her (who 
would surprisingly always catch them) and 
then rush over and by rush, I mean sprint. 
Yeah, she’d run, and run, slamming little 
hunched wallflowers aside and jumping 
over small conclaves of schoolgirls sitting 
on the floor. She was always there, some-
where near me, running. 
       If you asked anybody about her, 
nobody would’ve said she was a knockout. 
Her braces were always tangled with gristle 
and her face was sparingly pocketed with 
red. She was of an average weight but wore
Caroline
Michael Perry
Avian Dinosaur
Acrylic painting on 
24" x 24" canvas
Nancy L. Staszak
Prairie Light Review32 1
Staszak: Avian Dinsosaur
Published by Di italCommons@COD, 2015


Avian Dinsosaur

Mandani, Abdul M.

The Prairie Light Review
Volume 38 | Number 2 Article 52
Spring 5-1-2016
Gaia
Abdul M. Mandani
College of DuPage
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This Selection is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for inclusion in
The Prairie Light Review by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@COD. For more information, please contact koteles@cod.edu.
Recommended Citation
Mandani, Abdul M. (2016) "Gaia," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 38: No. 2, Article 52.
Available at: http://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol38/iss2/52
Garnering a myriad of colors from the sunlight 
and sparkles from the silvery moon 
She embraces nature in her wide bosom 
and embellishes the cerulean sky. 
 
No God can be born without a womb 
nor the devil without being first 
conceived in the mind; 
Her loin spawns the firmament 
as she breathes the universe into motion:
Her tears form the streams, the lakes, 
the flowing rivers and the vast oceans, 
Her milk forms the rolling clouds 
and nourishes the flora and fauna. 
She rides upon the wings of the wind 
and heralds the sun-god each day 
in its burning chariot. 
 
When she shuts her eyes 
she causes icy wilderness.
When she opens them 
she blossoms into the Elysian Fields.
Gaia
Abdul Malik Mandani
Rejoice fertile fruit! 
Your summer opulence, 
perfumed and shapely, 
still sparks romantic interludes. 
Sun drenched and idle, 
your wanton hue whets lips. 
Your rosy fragrance joins hands, 
sweet and pinkened from a picnic’s tattoo. 
You— whose innards are outward, 
whose freckles on rich soft flesh 
fix your immortality, 
you— whose humble title 
humbles your lustrous legacy. 
You taste of memories ripe and passionate. 
STRAWBERRIES
Teri Lavelle
Prairie Light Review46 1
Mandani: Gaia
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Gaia

Frantzen, Anne

The Prairie Light Review
Volume 38 | Number 2 Article 54
Spring 5-1-2016
Canadian Country
Anne Frantzen
College of DuPage
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The Prairie Light Review by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@COD. For more information, please contact koteles@cod.edu.
Recommended Citation
Frantzen, Anne (2016) "Canadian Country," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 38: No. 2, Article 54.
Available at: http://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol38/iss2/54
Canadian Country
Photography
Anne Frantzen
Spring 2016
47 1
Frantzen: Canadian Country
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Canadian Country

The Prairie Light Review
Volume 38 | Number 2 Article 59
Spring 5-1-2016
Moonlight Muse
Abdul M. Mandani
College of DuPage
Follow this and additional works at: http://dc.cod.edu/plr
This Selection is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for inclusion in
The Prairie Light Review by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@COD. For more information, please contact koteles@cod.edu.
Recommended Citation
Mandani, Abdul M. (2016) "Moonlight Muse," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 38: No. 2, Article 59.
Available at: http://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol38/iss2/59
Moonlight Muse
Abdul Malik Mandani
Whenever a voluptuous moon, 
radiantly brimful, looms low 
and gilds the tops of the trees, 
The hills, the sprightly streams, 
the languorously reclining lakes, 
She appears to me from nowhere 
Like a dream, 
Like a flash of inspiration 
to a muddled mind. 
 
My Muse glides gracefully toward me 
like an elusive wreath of smoke 
and gathers me in her embrace 
like a silken robe, 
hovering around me  
like the perfume of roses. 
She appears as a stirring 
source of fantasy and vision, 
Like the magnificent Northern lights 
displaying luminous draperies 
on a star-spangled polar night, 
Like a spectacular rainbow burst 
after an intense shower, 
Like a shooting star, 
Like a blessed apparition. 
 
I take her 
as one would a reluctant bride 
with gentle persuasion 
and resilient arms!
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Mandani: Moonlight Muse
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