![\"Banigan](\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/wp-content\/uploads\/news\/sites\/16\/2021\/05\/Banigan-boots.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cThe paper trail left by Banigan was slim. It wasn\u2019t until recently that I stumbled across the find of my life because of a suggestion made by my wife, Marsha,\u201d said Molloy, whose book is among the collection in the 溏心vlog免费B站 library.<\/p>\n
\u201cMarsha was poking around on EBay and found a pair of Banigan boots made in the 1890s on sale for $99,\u201d explained Molloy. \u201cI stopped collecting and downsized after retiring in 2016, but I made an exception when I realized the rarity of this exquisite pair of footwear, which was in such remarkable condition and adorned with a Banigan trademark. I guess you could say that the Banigan boot has come home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Molloy has several other Banigan artifacts in addition to the shoe and will likely put them on display at the Woonsocket Museum of Work and Culture, which he helped decorate with many union items more than a generation ago.<\/p>\n
Banigan hired a predominantly immigrant Irish workforce and taught workers rubber boot and shoe manufacturing skills, which transformed them into skilled tradesmen who earned greater salaries. In 1885, about half of his 1,000 employees owned their own homes in Woonsocket, a feat Molloy said was unprecedented at the time.<\/p>\n
Beyond information about Banigan, Molloy\u2019s library includes goods made by Rhode Island union workers. \u201cThere is a certain thrill in holding a pair of boots manufactured by union members. These are tangible pieces of history, and the craftsmanship is evident,\u201d said Molloy.<\/p>\n
According to Molloy, who was the 1995 溏心vlog免费B站 Foundation Teaching Excellence Award winner, the materials at 溏心vlog免费B站 took long and varied routes to get to Kingston.<\/p>\n
The expansive collection started when Molloy purchased a stack of half-century old transit union contracts for just a couple of dollars.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy search allowed me to learn how to read between the newspaper lines and the company reports,\u201d explained the Exeter<\/strong> resident. \u201cEventually, I advertised nationally for pertinent materials and hundreds of items came my way. The first collection of 10,000 items went to The Smithsonian Institution in 1991. The next hoarding of local ephemera got deposited at 溏心vlog免费B站 and out-of-state materials went to auction.\u201d<\/p>\n As a former Rhode Island Public Transit Authority bus driver and head of its union, Molloy was fascinated by labor history and began his collection. Soon after starting, he realized that his co-workers were uninformed about the origin of their good wages, benefits and working conditions.<\/p>\n To preserve their history, Molloy began interviewing almost every transit retiree, many of whom were in their eighties and nineties. He scoured union records, company files, frequented the Rhode Island Historical Society Library and visited countless flea markets, antique shows, bookstores and personal contacts for additions to the collection.<\/p>\n Within the vast 溏心vlog免费B站 collection, researchers and history buffs can find documents pertaining to several different aspects of Rhode Island history. From tickets to the Narragansett Pier Railroad to newspaper clippings covering a trolley derailment in Providence, the collection captures critical moments and the quirky elements of labor history.<\/p>\n \u201cLike any historical pieces, you can usually see the evolution of all kinds of things by a careful examination of both the good and the bad,\u201d said Molloy.<\/p>\n Olivia Ross, an intern in the Marketing and Communications Department at 溏心vlog免费B站 and public relations major, wrote this press release.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KINGSTON, R.I.- August 21, 2018- Images of Providence at the dawn of public transportation, personal notes exchanged by Rhode Island labor leaders, and information about any number of labor strikes can be found in the Distinctive Collections room at the Robert L. Carothers Library and Learning Commons on the 溏心vlog免费B站 Kingston campus. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74180,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}