Early Life and Education
Donnelly was the son of an Irish immigrant, Philip Carrol Donnelly, who had settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On June 29, 1826, Philip married Catherine Gavin, a 2nd generation American of Irish ancestry.
After starting as a peddler, Philip studied medicine at the Philadelphia College of Medicine. He later contracted typhus from a patient and died at age 31, leaving his wife with five children.
Catherine provided for her children by operating a pawn shop. Ignatius, her youngest son, was admitted to the prestigious Central High School, the second oldest public high school in the United States. There he studied under the presidency of John S. Hart, excelling primarily in literature.
Donnelly then decided to become a lawyer, and became a clerk for Benjamin Brewster, later Attorney-General of the United States. He was admitted to the bar in 1852. In 1855, he married Katherine McCaffrey, with whom he had three children. In 1855, he resigned his clerkship, entered politics and participated in communal home building schemes.
Becoming the object of rumors of financial scandal, he moved to the Minnesota Territory in 1857, where he settled in Dakota County. Together with several partners, Donnelly initiated a utopian community called Nininger City. However, the Panic of 1857 doomed the attempt at a cooperative farm and community and left Donnelly deeply in debt.
Read more about this topic: Ignatius L. Donnelly
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“I believe that if we are to survive as a planet, we must teach this next generation to handle their own conflicts assertively and nonviolently. If in their early years our children learn to listen to all sides of the story, use their heads and then their mouths, and come up with a plan and share, then, when they become our leaders, and some of them will, they will have the tools to handle global problems and conflict.”
—Barbara Coloroso (20th century)
“The closer a man approaches tragedy the more intense is his concentration of emotion upon the fixed point of his commitment, which is to say the closer he approaches what in life we call fanaticism.”
—Arthur Miller (b. 1915)
“There must be a profound recognition that parents are the first teachers and that education begins before formal schooling and is deeply rooted in the values, traditions, and norms of family and culture.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)