Contributions Have Poured in from All Classes, from All Sects: New York City and Great Hunger in Ireland

By Harvey Strum

Irish Famine Memorial, Dublin, Ireland. Getty Images.

Jewish members of congregation Shearith Israel (Remnant of Israel) met in early 1847 to donate to the Irish victims of the Great Hunger as part of a statewide and national, non-partisan and ecumenical effort to help the starving Irish. Describing the response, one newspaper observed that “Our citizens have come forward with promptitude and generosity; contributions have poured in from all classes, all sects.” [1] According to the New York State Irish and Scottish Relief Committee, based in Albany, donations collected in that city alone represented “the equally mingled contributions of Protestant and Roman Catholic, native and foreign born citizens.” [2] Most of the contributions of food, clothing, and cash Americans raised from 1846-1848 went to the Society of Friends (Quakers) in Dublin for distribution, because Americans trusted Quakers to distribute aid in a non-partisan and non-denominational manner.

In 1847, New Yorkers of all religious denominations donated first to Irish, and second to Scottish relief efforts as part of a national movement of American philanthropy. It was during this moment that the United States emerged as the leader in voluntary international philanthropy. Commenting on the remarkable ecumenical convergence of relief efforts, New York’s mayor, Philip Hone wrote in his diary, “The Catholic Churches have given nobly, and every denomination of Christians has assisted liberally in the good work: Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and Romanists are all united in the brotherhood of charity.” [3] Shearith Israel became the focal point for Jewish congregations to join in a special meeting for Irish relief. Even the children of the city gave their pennies and dimes for the Irish. Beckie Harvey, daughter of New York City Quaker leader Jacob Harvey, sold her toys to help the Irish, her father proudly boasting that “My little Becky… insisted on sending a gold piece $2.50 as her contribution and not satisfied… she put up some of her playthings for sale at 12 and a half cents a ticket, and her toys brought $30.”

Their actions were part of a wider response that emerged as word of the impact of the famine became evident, with 1.5 million dying in Ireland of a pre-famine population of 8.4 million in 1840. Thousands more died in the Highlands and western islands of Scotland, while another three million Irish and 150,000 Scots remained at risk of starvation from 1845-1854. All told, about 1.5 million Irish fled to the United States between 1845-55, with Ireland producing 46% of immigrants entering the United States; their arrival altering the ethnic and religious make-up of American cities, especially New York, Brooklyn, Albany, and Troy.

Overall, American aid in 1846-47 was a people-to-people movement, as federal, state, and local governments refused to vote public appropriations, viewing foreign aid as unconstitutional. Only one public body in the United States voted an appropriation out of public funds – the Common Council of New York City, which appropriate $5,000 to purchase over 1,000 barrels of flour for Ireland. [4] In examining the failure of government action and the ensuing public response, we should view it as an expression of American republicanism and volunteerism at its best; the people of plenty sharing their benevolence with the less fortunate in Europe. We might further view this as a moment when voluntary international philanthropy emerged as a foundational characteristic of republican society.

Responding to the Famine:

News of the famine first reached the United States during the winter of 1845-46. Fundraising began in New York, Boston, and few port cities, but it wasn’t until early 1847 that the famine conditions caught the public’s attention, and Americans rallied to the cause of the starving. Harvey and his daughter Becky were part of a much larger national response. “Never let it be said…by the historian…that America was indifferent to the present sufferings in Ireland,” New York City Congressman William Maclay proclaimed to an audience of American political leaders and residents of Washington, D.C. in February 1847. [5] Responding to the crisis, Democratic Vice President George Dallas chaired the Washington meeting that included members of the Senate, House, and Supreme Court, with New York’s own Democratic Senator Daniel Dickinson serving as one of the meeting’s vice-presidents.

Irish Famine Memorial, Battery Park. The memorial is on the Lower West Side of Manhattan and operated by the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) in conjunction with New York State. Photograph by Edward Menashy.

Rather than encouraging direct government intervention, however, the response of the committee generally agreed with President James K. Polk, who opposed appropriations for Ireland because he believed foreign aid was unconstitutional. Instead, the meeting called on Americans to establish temporary voluntary committees in each town and city for Irish and Scottish relief channeling donations of food, clothing, and money to port cities, especially New York, Boston, and New Orleans, for shipment to Ireland and Scotland. In doing so, while the federal government would make no contributions, the United States emerged as the leading nation in the nineteenth century providing voluntary aid, whether to Ireland, Crete, Russia, Scotland or New Brunswick. At the center of that effort sat New York City, which became the major port and relief center for voluntary foreign aid to the Irish and Scots. [6]

Summing up the public mood, New York City’s Finance Committee told the Dublin Quakers the following: “The Committee would fail in discharging their duty, were they to omit to assure you of the deep and wide-spread sympathy felt throughout our city and State, for the sufferings” of the Irish. [7] In fact, New Yorkers raised funds for the Irish even before the Washington appeal, having learned of the issue through private networks. For example, Jonathan Pim, one of the secretaries of the Irish Quakers, wrote to New York City Quaker leader Jacob Harvey in late 1846 asking New York Quakers to spread the news of the famine and promote subscriptions for aid. Harvey responded notifying Quakers in Philadelphia and Baltimore, and arranged for publication of the Quaker appeal in the New York City press to “bring in subscriptions from the rich and poor.” [8] Meeting with Roman Catholic Bishop John Hughes, Harvey also hoped to persuade the Irish poor to give donations, and he wanted an appeal to be made in Sunday services at the city’s Catholic churches.

To promote donations from non-Irish New Yorkers, Harvey emphasized remittances sent by the Irish poor in New York City, observing that the “Irish in America have always remitted more money, ten+ times over, than all other foreigners put together.” [9] Poor Irish men and women of New York quietly sent remittances of $5 to $25 to their relatives in Ireland. As Harvey told Pim, “recollect that the donors are working men and women, and depend on their daily labor for their daily food.” [10] And yet, over the following two years, they sent roughly $960,000 to kith and kin in Ireland. Upstate newspapers meanwhile commented on remittances sent from Buffalo, Rochester, and Albany. As the Albany Irish Relief Committee noted, Irish immigrants “in donations privately transmitted which, regarding the limited pecuniary resources from which it is given, we believe to be unequaled in the charities of [the] world.” [11] Poor Irish immigrants in city and upstate communities sent money to even poorer relatives in Ireland, and “all done quietly, regularly, and systematically, without any parade of public meetings or committees.” [12] Harvey highlighted contributions of poor Irish working men and women to encourage middle class and upper-class New Yorkers to donate to Irish relief.

In the metropolitan New York City area, Irish Americans, along with labor, Quaker, and political leaders, organized meetings in Paterson, Jersey City, Brooklyn, and New York City between November 1846 and early January 1847. The Workingmen’s Protective Association in Jersey City called a citizen’s meeting in November to devise “some plan to minister to the relief of the suffering poor of Ireland.” [13] Residents of Brooklyn met in late November for “Relief of Ireland,” including Henry A. Lees, editor of Brooklyn Advertiser. Women in Brooklyn took an active role in fundraising and demonstrated a more independent role than women anywhere else in metropolitan New York, with one observer even noting that “seats were reserved for ladies.” Mayor Francis B. Stryker served as Treasurer of Brooklyn’s Irish Relief Committee. A second Brooklyn newspaper encouraged donations: “Give Now, Wait Not! For starvation cannot wait, any more than wind or tide.” [14]

Meanwhile, a large gathering of New Yorkers met at Tammany Hall in late December chaired by Mayor Alexader Mickle. Editor Horace Greeley delivered the main speech outlining conditions in Ireland. Attendees elected a committee to collect donations, and established ward committees to blanket the city. Members of the general committee included Mayor Mickle, Horace Greeley, and three aldermen. Ward committees included Mickle, every alderman, Jacob Harvey, and prominent department store owner Alexander Stewart. This effort alone raised roughly $4,600, which Mickle promptly sent to the Dublin Quakers for distribution. Separately, at the Rose Street meeting, the city’s Quakers decided “to throw their mite to alleviate the suffering of the poor Irish” raising another $1,105. [15]

Prompted by recent reports of mass starvation brought by Hibernia and Sarah Sands, members of the New York state legislature held a public meeting in Albany for Ireland. New York’s political leaders appealed to all New Yorkers to donate food, clothing and money for Irish relief, stressing the magnitude of the crisis, common humanity, bonds of common origin with the Irish, and describing Americans as a people of plenty “living in the granary of the world,” as reasons for New Yorkers to help the Irish. [16] Modeling the national movement for relief, New York’s legislature donated $380 raised among its members, but refused to vote an appropriation for famine relief on the same constitutional grounds as President Polk. Instead, they recommended voluntary citizen participation.

With the lackluster response by state government when responding to the latest news from Ireland, a group of prominent and affluent New Yorkers, including Jacob Harvey, Myndeert Van Schaick, Philip Hone, John Jay, Theodore Sedgwick, and Moses Grinnell redoubled their efforts for famine relief. Meetings held on 27 January and 7 February solicited donations from businesses, merchants, bankers, and wealthy New Yorkers. Van Schaick, a Democratic politician, successful businessman, and transplanted Albanian, opened his own subscription list to solicit contributions from the city’s elite. On 12 February gathering at the Prime’s Building “attended by the right sort of folks” on Wall Street, attendees pledged another $9,000. [17]

Other New Yorkers agreed to forgo lavish dinners and send money to Ireland. According to Philip Hone, two of his friends dispersed “with two sumptuous dinners,” worth three hundred and sixty dollars, to furnish an additional fifty barrels of wheat flour for Ireland. [18] Two others, Moses Ginnell and Willaim Wetmore, joined Hone as members of the general standing committee of the reorganized New York Irish Relief Committee, and actively participated in the Help Ireland movement. Responding to appeals in the press, “a most respectable and earnest audience” attended a public meeting at United Church of Christ Tabernacle on 15 February, presided over by Myndert Van Schaick, who became chairman of the New York committee. Audience members pledged $20,000; the gathering receiving widespread coverage in the New York press with accounts appearing in newspapers across the country. [19]

Private groups like this Committee proved instrumental in organizing philanthropic efforts. Report from New York’s Irish Relief Committee, 1848, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008646191.

While men usually dominated relief efforts, at least some Brooklyn women carved out a role for women in public philanthropy. One such group, led by Anna M. Heffernan, organized the Ladies’ Irish Relief Association of Brooklyn attracting prominent non-Irish women to the cause. They held regular meetings form February to May and posted advertisements in the New York press to solicit donations. Members held a public tea party and festival in March at the Lyceum to raise funds. Women and men in Brooklyn sent two Brooklyn ships, Anna Maria and Patrick Henry, for Ireland carrying corn, biscuits, rye, wheat, and beans to help the Irish. As the Brooklyn Irish Relief Committee noted: “on behalf of the citizens of Brooklyn, we have shipped to your address…for distribution to the famishing poor” in hope “our mite may arrive in time to alleviate the miseries of a few of the many sufferers of your devoted countrymen.” [20]

Meanwhile, Sunday, 27 February, was set aside as a day to raise funds at churches. Thirteen Catholic churches in New York donated over $10,000 while Catholic congregations in Harlem, Brooklyn, and Williamsburg raised $200, $2,353, and $278, respectively. At the Church of the Nativity on Second Avenue, poorly paid female domestics contributed $400 at one service even though their “wages are little more than sufficient to supply their own wants.” [21] Every Protestant denomination contributed – Episcopalian, Baptist, Methodist, Unitarian, Lutheran, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Universalist, Quaker, Dutch Reformed, German Reformed, and Congregationalist. As one example, Rev. Dr. Taylor of the Episcopal Grace Church raised enough money to purchase 373 barrels of cornmeal. Shearith Israel on Crosby Street held a special meeting for Irish relief. Religious leader Jacques Judah Lyons told his audience “a nation in distress, a nation is starving.” [22] Members of a second Jewish congregation, B’nai Jeshurun donated. As the General Committee concluded: “from all denominations of Christians and from the Jewish Synagogues came cheerful and, in some cases, very liberal gifts.” [23] This reflected the ecumenical nature of famine relief.

Workingmen, as well as the prosperous merchants, gave what they could. Printers from the New York Express, clerks at the department store of A. J. Stewart, journeymen lithographers, workmen of Moses Baldwin, hands at the Brown and Co.’s bindery, and workmen at G.B. Miller and Co. all donated. Workers at the Brooklyn Navy Yard combined their day’s wages to donate $650. As a New Orleans newspaper concluded: “This is a poor man’s mite.” [24] Even children sent in their pennies (like Becky Harvey) and the girls at Charlotte Haven’s school held a fair for Irish relief raising $287. Boys at the Ward School 3 sent in $1.54 in pennies. The Young Men’s Movement agreed to solicit donations and held a fundraiser on 26 February at Clinton Hall. Non-Irish groups, like the French and German benevolent societies pitched in as well. Various groups held benefits and donated the proceeds for Ireland, like the Terpsichore Association in Brooklyn, which organized a ball for Irish relief in March. Irish benevolent associations abandoned St. Patrick’s Day dinners to send the money to Ireland. The city’s musical societies gave concerts to raise funds. Members of the Christy Minstrels gave a benefit concert, and prominent New Yorkers, like Mayor Andrew Mickle and editor Horace Greeley sponsored a grand relief ball in February at Castle Garden that raised $1,400. This suggested the wide support in New York for aiding Ireland.

While a great deal of fundraising originated in New York City, the port also acted as an entrepot for aid efforts in other parts of the country. In the end, half of the relief supplies sent from the United States poured into the New York Irish Relief Committee for shipment to Ireland and Scotland. For example, Tuscaloosa, Alabama sent $350, and Chicago donated $1,700. Van Schaick reported to Dublin Quakers that a recent contribution of $170 came “from the children of the forest, our red brethren of the Choctaw nation.” [25] John Ross, leader of the Cherokee nation, sent a contribution as well for the starving Irish and Scots.

The outpouring of public support in New York and around the country forced the Polk administration to compromise. Citizens of  New York and several other port cities, like Boston and Philadelphia, petitioned Congress to act to help Ireland. Democratic Senator John Dix of New York and Whig Senator John Fairfiield of Maine proposed loaning warships to carry privately raised food to Ireland and Scotland. Volunteer crews would staff the two ships, Jamestown, and Macedonian. Robert Bennet Forbes took command of Jamestown in Boston, while George DeKay of New Jersey would assume command of Macedonian at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

The Macedonian anchored near West Point on the Hudson River, c. 1868. Prior to its wartime service, the Macedonian was one of numerous ships loaned by the federal government to help transport relief to Ireland and Scotland. Brady-Handy Collection. Prints and Photographs, Library of Congress.

While some of New York’s Committee opposed the use of these ships, believing that commercial vessels would be cheaper and faster, the New York Common Council supported DeKay’s use of federal ships, and sent aboard 1,018 barrels of cornmeal. Lodges of the city’s Independent Order of Odd Fellows purchased another 300 barrels of cornmeal for the warship. Several upstate cities, notably Troy and Utica, ignored the State Committee, and sent provisions aboard Macedonian. Captain Forbes, hearing of DeKay’s problems arranged for the New England committee to spend $24,000 to purchase 4,000 barrels of cornmeal, peas, and beans for the Macedonian. The heavy-laden warship left its berth on the Hudson on 19 June with 100 volunteer crew members, five hundred passengers, and 1,800 tons of provisions and clothing for the Irish and Scots reaching Cork, Ireland on 16 July 1847.

Meanwhile, in New York City the committee continued to send provisions and clothing. Between  February 1847 and February 1848 the committee received $171, 374 in money and $70, 630 in provisions and clothing. The last known relief shipment, sent aboard Andrew Foster, reached Dublin in June 1848.

Overall, the Irish famine led to a significant increase in poor Irish immigrants reaching New York City. By 1850, 26 percent of the city’s population were Irish as New York City became the home of the largest Irish community in the United States. By 1860, 200,000 of the city’s 8000,000 population came from Ireland and in 1880 one-third of the city’s residents were from Ireland or were children of Irish immigrants. In neighboring Brooklyn, 57,000 of the city’s population came from the Emerald Isle in 1855, and by 1860 Brooklyn had the third largest Irish community in the nation. It is likely that the concerted relief effort played a factor in their decision to come to New York city.

In 1847, the United States emerged as the leader of voluntary international philanthropy. New York City became the center for Irish relief in 1846-48 as it would be again in 1862-63 and 1879-80 when the warship Constellation left the Brooklyn Navy Yard carrying voluntarily raised supplies for the Irish. During this period, famine relief became an expression of American republicanism and volunteerism at its best, as the people of plenty shared their benevolence with the less fortunate in Europe. Voluntary international philanthropy emerged as an obligation of a republican society. It was also a rare moment where New Yorkers and Americans in general proved capable of temporarily putting aside partisanship and sectarian differences to  create a non-partisan and non-denominational movement to aid the Irish and Scots.

Harvey Strum is a Professor of History and Political Science at Russell Sage College in Albany, NY where he teaches courses on American history, U.S. government, American Jewish history, and genocide. He has written numerous articles on a range of topics, including recent publications on Jewish women’s organizations in Albany and New York City, and relief aid during the Great Hunger. 

[1] “Meeting of the Jewish Population of New York in Aid of Ireland,” Occident 5:1 (April 1847). 37. Shearith Israel founded in `1654 is the oldest Jewish congregation in the country. Until 1825 it was the only Jewish congregation in New York City.

[2] Charles Jenkins, Chairman, Irish Relief Committee to the Society of Friends, Dublin, 28 April 1847, Albany Committee of Irish Relief :Papers, Albany Institute of History and Art.

[3] Allan Nevins, ed.,  Diary of Philip Hone (Kraus Reprint: New York, 1981), 792.

[4] James Stowall, et al, Finance Committee to Central Relief Committee, 31 May 1847, Transactions, 244; Proceedings of the Board of Aldermen, Vol. XXII, 23 November 1845 to 10 May 1847 (New York: William C. Bryant, 1847), 351, 618, 623.

[5] Washington National Intelligencer, 12 February 1847.

[6] For general accounts of voluntary American aid, see: Christine Kinealy, Charity and the Great Hunger in Ireland: The Kindness of Strangers (London and New York: BloomsburyPublishing, 2013); Anelise Shrout, Aiding Ireland (New York: New York University Press, 2024); Merle Curti, American Philanthropy Abroad (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1963).

[7] James Stowall, et. al. Finance Committee of the Common Council of the City of New York to the Central Relief Committee, 31 May 1847. In Society of Friends. Transactions of the Society of Friends During the Famine in Ireland (Dublin: Edmund Burker, 1996 reprint of 1852 original), 244.

[8] Jacob Harvey to Jonathan Pim, 28 December 1846, Transactions, 217. Also, see Jonathan Pim to Jacob Harvey, 3 December 1846, Transactions, 216-17 and Jonathan Pim to Jacob Harvey, 3 January 1847, Folder 13, Box 6, Series II. Harvey Family Correspondence, MS 306, New-York Historical Society.

[9] Jacob Harvey to Jonathan Pim, 28  December 1846, Transactions, 217.

[10] Jacob Harvey to Jonathan Pim, 5 January 1847,  Transactions, 220.

[11] Charles Jenkins, Executive Committee, Albany, New York to Rev. Michael Slattery, Archbishop of Cashel, 17 April 1847,  Albany Committee Papers, AIHA.

[12] New York Evening Post, 21 January 1847. Harvey’s letter to the editor. Also, in Folder 25, Box 6, “Newspaper Clippings,’ Series II, Harvey Family Correspondence,  MS 306, N-YHS.

[13] Jersey City Sentinel, 1 December 1846.

[14] Ibid, 28 December 1846.

[15] New York Evening Post, 28 December 1846; New York Semi-Weekly Tribune, 6 January 1847; George Trimble and Samuel Willetts, Rose Street Meeting of Friends, to Jonathan Pim, 16 January 1847, Transactions, 233.

[16] Albany Evening Journal, 13 February 1847; “Relief for Ireland.” Broadside, 2086, 15 February 1847, Manuscripts, New York State Library, Albany.

[17] Nevins, Hone, 788; New York Mirror, 15, 17, 1847.

[18] Nevins, Hone, 790.

[19] New York Journal of Commerce, 15 February 1847; New York Evening Post 15 February 1847; General Irish Relief Committee,  Aid to Ireland: Report of the General Relief Committee of the City of New York (New York: The Committee, 1848).

[20] Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 20 February 10, 12 March. 17 April 1847; William Harris, et al, Brooklyn Irish Relief Committee to the Central Committee of the Society of Friends, 11 May 1847, Transactions, 242.

[21] Nevins, Hone, 792; New York Freeman’s Journal, 6 March 1847.

[22] “Meeting of the Jewish Population of New York in Aid of Ireland,”  Occident 5:1 (April 1847), 37. Jewish congregations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Louisiana contributed to the Irish.

 [23] Aid to Ireland, 9.

[24] New Orleans Courier, 26 February 1847.

[25] M. Van Schaick to Jonathan Pim, 19 May 1847, Transactions 147. Also, Aid to Ireland, 9.