Part 2, Finding Lena

screen capture from Rebellion, Season 2, episode 1 (Netflix 2019) There are no photographs of Allena Finnegan, not a single one.  Not now, not ever.  I feel confident in this declaration.  I doubt there were childhood photographs of any of Miles and Maggie’s six children, and it is possible that there was never a single …

Part 1, Crossings: Miles Finnegan Makes His Mark

SS Germanic History begins in the present.  “What is history but that which has happened before I was born?” Roland Barthes asks in teasing out the appeal and the power of photography as artifact.  It is perhaps fitting then that this genealogical family story begins not with a passenger ship manifest marking an ocean crossing …

About “Somebody In Boots”

"Somebody In Boots" is a blog by Jim Finnegan (fourth-generation Irish-American, laborer, writer), in which I will explore different ways of thinking about class and work. I am particularly interested in the intersections of class and work with personal stories and public histories. I will be writing personal observations and reflections, aiming for something between …