Famine Relief from the Garden City to the Green Isle

The Great Famine in led to philanthropic efforts by Irish-Americans and non-Irish Americans to alleviate suffering by raising money to ship food to Ireland. Word of famine conditions in Ireland, Scotland and European continent appeared in American press during winter of 1846-47, and Americans organized relief efforts that culminated in shipment of food, clothing, and money to that left America in Spring and Summer of 1847. Citizens of Chicago and other communities in Illinois joined in this voluntary national effort to aid Irish and Scots. As William Cushman, Treasurer of Irish Relief Committee of Ottawa, Lazalle County, observed: Be kind enough to receive this small pittance as an assurance that will always be your friends in adversity to extent of our means, and if you should have misfortune to lose another crop, part of ours ... is at your command, free to poor.' News of potato blight in first reached United States during winter of 1845-46, and limited efforts to raise funds began in Boston, New York, and a few other port cities. When word arrived in summer of 1846 of good potential crops limited interest in aiding quickly evaporated. Then, in fall of 1846, situation turned bleak and relief organizations in Ireland, Scotland, and England solicited contributions. The Society of Friends (Quakers) established a Central Relief Committee in Dublin in November 1846. American relief committees, like those in Chicago, Galena, Ottawa, and Springfield channeled relief primarily through Dublin committee. Often, Irish immigrants sent funds directly by mail to family members or contributed to Catholic churches, which sent aid to via New York Bishop John Hughes. Again, as William Cushman noted in Illinois, we have many of your countrymen here who have contributed largely to relieve their relatives remaining in your country; scarcely a mail leaves but what has taken some contributions for two months past.2 In Chicago, Charles McDonnell reported that in February 1847 he forwarded $500 to Ireland, the remittances of Irish laborers to their suffering friends at home.' The Chicago Journal praised Irish laborers for contributing what they could to aid their brethren in Ireland. Bishop William Quarter, of Chicago, first Irish born bishop of Garden City, also noted that several who have near relatives in have sent remittances to their relief. Many of Catholics of this Diocese have done so.4 Some of funds were sent by individuals to while other parishioners forwarded funds through Catholic clergy in Chicago, as Catholics in other cities, like Boston and New York, did to aid starving Ireland. Initially, American reaction developed slowly because press focused on Mexican-American War (1846-48), and newspapers did not devote much attention to distress in until arrival of Arcadia at Boston with news about famine in November 1846. As Chicago Western Herald reported in December: From accounts continue to be most distressing... They are starving. Frantic looking women and children . . . quite feeble from starvation.5 Readers in other parts of Illinois read similar accounts. For example, a story in Galena Northwestern Gazette included a reprint of a letter from County Roscommon, Ireland. Ireland is visited from north to south, from east to west, with a most direful famine: poor are living in many parts on cabbages and salt, and many of them dying on highroads, in fields, and in towns, of Irish cholera.6 Reports appeared in press throughout United States about desperate situation in Ireland. News of distress led to public meetings in East Coast cities, like Brooklyn, New York, Philadelphia and Boston, but most of fundraising came from Irish communities or from Quakers reacting to an appeal from Dublin Committee. …

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.