Ignatius L. Donnelly - Political and Literary Career

Political and Literary Career

Donnelly entered politics and was lieutenant governor of Minnesota from 1860–1863. He was a Republican Congressman from Minnesota in the 38th, 39th, and 40th congresses, (1863–1868) and a state senator from 1874–1878. As a legislator, Donnelly advocated extending the powers of the Freedmen's Bureau to provide education for freedmen so that they could protect themselves once the bureau was withdrawn. Donnelly was also an early supporter of women's suffrage. After leaving the Minnesota State Senate during 1878, Donnelly returned to his law practice and writing.

In 1882, Donnelly published Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, his best known work. It details theories concerning the mythical lost continent of Atlantis. The book sold well, and is widely credited with initiating the theme of Atlantis as an antediluvian civilization that became such a feature of popular literature during the 20th century and contributed to the emergence of Mayanism. Donnelly suggested that Atlantis, whose story was told by Plato in the dialogues of Timaeus and Critias, had been destroyed during the same event remembered in the Bible as the Great Flood. Citing research on the ancient Maya civilization by Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg and Augustus Le Plongeon, he believed it had been the place of a common origin of ancient civilizations in Africa (especially ancient Egypt), Europe, and the Americas. He also thought that it had been the original home of an Aryan race whose red-haired, blue-eyed descendants could be found in Ireland. Donnelly's theories about the location of Atlantis as a large land mass in the Atlantic Ocean and its destruction by sinking were eventually discarded with the advent of the theory of plate tectonics in the late 1960s. However, they fueled the imagination of many individuals, among them Helena Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner, James Churchward, Edgar Cayce, and Graham Hancock. The themes in his book are echoed by the plot of the 2009 film 2012 directed by Roland Emmerich.

A year after Atlantis, he published Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel, in which he expounded his belief that the Flood, as well as the destruction of Atlantis (and the extinction of the mammoth), had been brought about by the near-collision of the earth with a massive comet. This book also sold well, and both books seem to have had an important influence on the development of Immanuel Velikovsky's controversial ideas half a century later.

In 1888, he published The Great Cryptogram in which he proposed that Shakespeare's plays had been written by Francis Bacon, an idea that was popular during the late 19th and early 20th century. He then travelled to England to arrange the English publication of his book by Sampson Low, speaking at the Oxford (and Cambridge) Union after which his thesis "Resolved, that the works of William Shakespeare were composed by Francis Bacon" was put to an unsuccessful vote. The book was a complete failure and Donnelly was discredited.

As well as writing, Donnelly made several other campaigns for public office during the 1880s. He made a losing campaign for Congress (this time as a Democrat) in 1884. In 1887, he successfully campaigned for a seat in the Minnesota State Legislature as an Independent. During this period, he was also an organizer of the Minnesota Farmers' Alliance.

In 1892, Donnelly wrote the preamble of the People's Party's Omaha Platform for the presidential campaign of that year. He was nominated for Vice President of the United States during 1900 by the People's Party. Also known as the Populist Party, the People's Party was a development of the national Farmers' Alliance, and had a platform that demanded abandonment of the gold standard (and later for free silver), abolition of national banks, a graduated income tax, direct election of senators, civil service reform, and an eight-hour day. That year, Donnelly also campaigned for governor of Minnesota, but was defeated.