Famine

Advertisement for Grinnell's line of packet ships sailing from Ireland to New York.

1850 · réf. 183852 — New York: Bowman Grinnell & Co. c. 1850s. Fleeing to a new life in America An advertising poster assuring American patrons that Bowman Grinnell & Co. could be trusted to relocate their relatives from Ireland in comfort. The advertisement lists the addresses of the company's agents the names of their ships and the procedures for emigrating from Ireland. Throughout the Great Famine of 1845 to 1852 many companies took advantage of emigrants' desperation to force them to travel in overcrowded and understocked vessels and coffin ships or to scam them out of their money. As printed on this item "Bowman Grinnell & Co. have seen and witnessed with feelings of regret for a long time that something was necessary for the protection of the Irish people in the United States sending their remittances to their friends in Ireland. from the numberless disappointments they have lately met with and in many instances the heartless frauds that have been practiced on them by parties professing to bring them out on ships over which they had no control or with which they had no connexion". Bowman Grinnell & Co. was formed in the 1850s by William Bowman and Robert Minturn Grinnell of the Grinnell Minturn & Co. shipping line owners of the famous Flying Cloud clipper ship. It claims that their ships listed with their captains' names were fast well-ventilated and comfortably furnished that their drafts could be cashed anywhere in Ireland and that baggage would be transported for free. Single sheet 444 x 265 mm printed in red black and blue on one side only vignettes. Ink number on verso 19th-century pencil inscription on lower right corner. Sometime folded loss on lower left corner barely affecting printed area light toning and soiling especially on verso: a very good copy of an ephemeral item. unknown