Here’s a Pair of 1867 Check Documents Signed by Pioneer Trade Unionist Leader in America

JAMES McSHANE

(1826 – 1873)

·       RADICAL IRISH ANTI-IMMIGRANT TRADE UNIONIST AND CHARTIST FROM PHILADELPHIA, OPPOSING POLICIES PERCEIVED AS DETRIMENTAL TO WORKERS' RIGHTS, ENTITLEMENTS and CONDITIONS,

·       CIVIL WAR UNION PRIVATE IN “F” Co., 15^th PENNSYLVANIA INFANTRY – THE “MILITIA OF 1862,” CALLED UP TO REPEL ROBERT E. LEE'S INVASION DURING THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN, and

·       TRADESMAN – REPRESENTING LADIES’ SHOEMAKERS

Exiled Chartists arriving in America in the 1840s and 1850s became key organizers in the nascent American labor and trade union movements, bringing militant tactics and a strong sense of class consciousness.

The checks are dated in Dec. 1867, bear US Internal Revenue stamps and an attractive vignette of the façade of the “Harrisburg National Bank.” Both documents are made payable to himself and thus signed twice by McShane on the face of each check.

JAMES McSHANE

Birth: 1826, Ireland

Death: 25 Feb 1873 (aged 46–47), Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, USA

Burial: Saint Anne's Catholic Parish Cemetery, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

 EXCERPT FROM “WORKING PEOPLE OF PHILADELPHIA, 1800–1850,”

CHAPTER 8 - VARIETIES OF RADICALISM

United but unable to improve conditions through strikes, old and new radicals scheduled a meeting in 1847 to discuss "certain measures which would tend materially to their happiness and prosperity." The ensuing Trades' Convention brought out many delegates who had just gone through the disasterous strikes and were determined to find an alternative. They shelved standouts but not their radicalism and mused over several schemes that would guarantee workers the full product of their labor. There was virtual unanimity in favor of cooperation, and several resolutions outlining alternative methods of collective endeavor were put forth. After some debate, the delegates opted for protective unions, which were then being formed in other urban centers.67 Such unions began with consumer cooperatives that raised the capital for productive ventures in light consumer goods. The Convention thus sponsored a grocery store in the winter of 1848-1849, and then branched out into cooperative workshops specializing in shoes, clothing, and hats. But this cooperationist scheme was cut short. Financial difficulties, deepened by the recession of 1849, destroyed two stores and eventually claimed the rest.68 The Convention is noteworthy because of the occupations and cultural identities of its delegates. Organizers looked forward to uniting workers in all trades and subcultures. Advertisements in the press beckoned "operatives in the different mechanical arts" and included a special invitation to the hand loom weavers.69 Old radicals of all nationalities responded to the call. Germans in the Northern Liberties, who had recently come together under the German Workingmen's Union, resolved to "act in concert" with the "Ameri can Laboring classes" and sent several deputies, among them the boot and shoemakers T. C. Liebrich and Lewis Mahlke.

Yorkshire-born tailor John Shedden, an ardent cooperationist who would turn up in the International Workingmen's Association in the late 1860s, attended its convention in Philadelphia along with Irish radicals (and presumably ex Varieties of Radicalism Chartists) James McShane and Peter Mcllroy. Native-born delegates included Joseph D. Miller, longtime leader of the Association of Journeymen Tailors, and William Hunter, current president of the United Brotherhood of Tailors.

The Convention thus cast a fairly narrow net. Traditionalist and loom weavers, indifferent to unionism in general and increasingly circumspect of radicalism, were conspicuous by their absence. So were radical revivalists outside the sweated trades. New radical printers and building craftsmen persisted in looking upon immigrants and financiers as greater threats to their well-being than employers. 

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