c.1813–1882
A businesswoman and philanthropist, known as the ‘Bread Woman of New Orleans’
Margaret Gaffney was born in Carrigallen, County Leitrim, the fifth of six children. Her parents, William Gaffney and Margaret O’Rourke, were of the poor labouring class, and when Margaret was a child she, her parents and several of her siblings emigrated to Baltimore, Maryland, USA. In about 1822, Margaret’s parents and all except one of her siblings died in a yellow fever epidemic. The two siblings were separated and Margaret was reared by a kindly Welsh immigrant whom she had met on the ship on the way over. She was well cared for by her new guardian, but she never went to school and never learned to read or write.
In 1835, Margaret married an Irishman named Charles Haugherey. The couple moved south to New Orleans in Louisiana, a growing community with a vibrant mix of French, African-Americans, Irish and Germans. They lived in a slum area known as the Irish Channel, and Charles worked as a teacher. In 1836 Margaret gave birth to a daughter, Frances, but the baby died a few months later. Shortly after that, Margaret’s sickly and grieving husband left her to go back to Ireland, where he too soon died.
Alone in the world, Margaret initially survived by taking in washing. From the pittance she earned she bought two cows and started to peddle milk, donating a percentage of her tiny profits to a ramshackle local orphanage known as the Poydras Asylum, which was run by the Sisters of Charity. Margaret built up her herd to about forty cows, and by 1840 she was in a position to help the Sisters financially to move their orphanage into a new building. There was a chronic shortage of food at the orphanage, so Margaret developed what she called her ‘mendicant technique’ for getting provisions for the children: she hitched herself to a cart and toured the shops begging for meat and vegetables that could be spared.
As well as running the dairy and begging for food, in the 1840s Margaret also worked in the St Charles Hotel in New Orleans, but her position there was essentially a cover to help her with her fund-raising activities. She would make friends with the well-to-do guests and then touch them for a donation to one of her causes, which included a fund for a new church, St Teresa’s, and one for famine relief in her native Ireland.
New Orleans in the mid-nineteenth century was a lively but dangerous place, subject to periodic flooding from the great Mississippi River and rife with disease. In one of the bigger floods, Margaret piloted her own raft in order to reach and relieve stranded families. New Orleans was also prone to devastating outbreaks of yellow fever, or Black Jack as it was known. In 1852–1853 a particularly bad epidemic hit New Orleans, creating the need for a new orphanage. Margaret and the Sisters founded an establishment specifically for babies, named St Vincent’s Asylum.
In the late 1850s Margaret sold the dairy business and bought shares in a failing bakery called D’Aquin’s Bakery. When Mr D’Aquin retired soon afterwards, the other shareholders elected Margaret president of the company, largely as a courtesy. However, she took her position seriously and, against much opposition, insisted on updating the bakery to become the first steam-powered operation in the city.
Margaret’s Steam and Mechanical Bakery prospered and she was able to buy a couple of foodstores, which grew to become one of the largest chains in the South. Meanwhile much of the bakery’s produce was given free to charity, thus Margaret acquired her nickname: the Bread Woman of New Orleans.
During the American Civil War, Margaret continued to turn a healthy profit and used what influence she had to mediate between southern supporters of the Confederacy and northern supporters of the Union, which maintained a garrison in New Orleans until 1876. She widened her charitable interests to include adults, helping to build St Elizabeth’s House of Industry for Young Women, and a home for the aged and infirm. During yet another yellow fever epidemic in 1878, the now-ageing Margaret personally visited and assisted the families of victims. Famous in her own lifetime, she was depicted in the newspapers as a local ‘character’.
Margaret Haugherey amassed a considerable fortune, most of which she spent supporting her various charitable institutions. These institutions ranged across the racial and religious divide, and Margaret’s will included bequests to the Widows’ and Orphans’ Jewish Home, the Seventh Street Protestant Orphanage and the German Catholic Asylum, among others. In 1884 New Orleans named Margaret Place after her and erected a statue in her honour – one of the first monuments to a woman in the whole of the United States. Since 1958, New Orleans has also honoured 9 February as Margaret Haugherey Day.