Ignatius donnelly influence

Ignatius Donnelly was the most widely known Minnesotan of the nineteenth century. As a writer, orator, and social thinker, he enjoyed fame in the U.S.

and overseas. As a politician he was the nation’s most articulate spokesman for Midwestern populism. Though the highest office he held was that of U.S. congressman, he shaped Minnesota politics for more than thirty years.

Donnelly was born into an Irish Catholic family in Philadelphia in 1831. He was christened Ignatius Loyola. He later dropped his middle name along with the Catholic faith.

Ignatius donnelly influence theory

Trained in a prestigious law office, he was swept up in the land boom of the 1850s. In 1857 he moved to Minnesota.

In partnership with John Nininger, Donnelly promoted a town site on the Mississippi River north of Hastings. The “city” of Nininger became a sym