Marquette League
From 1904 to 1991 the Marquette League served as a Roman Catholic fund-raising organization in the United States that supported Catholic missions and schools among Native Americans in the United States. History Rev. Henry Ganss of Lancaster, Pennsylvania founded the League in New York City, in May 1904, and two months later, it received a Papal blessing from Pius X. Ganss was a fundraiser for the ‘’Preservation Society’’ of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, and he founded the League as a fundraising auxiliary of the Preservation Society. However, the Preservation Society ceased in 1922 while the League continued to thrive. In collaboration with the Bureau, the League distributed the funds and in-kind donations it raised for missions, mission schools and students. It built new missions and satellite chapels and maintained them with supplies; it trained and maintained catechists; and it provided scholarships to students and clothing to the needy. The League had a lay directorate of 25 members, chosen at first from among local councils of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. To further its work, it established branch organizations in several northeastern U.S. cities, including Baltimore and Washington, D.C. It charged an annual membership fee of $2.00 and