Joseph Banigan

     In 2008, Scott Molloy wrote a book called Irish Titan, Irish Toilers:  Joseph Banigan and Nineteenth Century New England Labor.  Joseph Banigan was my great, great, great, great uncle.  He was the first Irish-Catholic millionaire in Rhode Island at a time when the Irish were looked down upon and discriminated against.  He came from humble beginnings but still became president of the United States Rubber company. 

     In 1847, a potato famine refugee named Joseph Banigan settled in Rhode Island.  Banigan went to public elementary school for one year.  Then, at nineteen years old in 1848, he started working at the New England Screw Company.  After working there for several years, he served a three year apprenticeship in the jewelry business from 1857-1860.  Banigan liked to experiment with different things.  During his apprenticeship, he invented a corkscrew machine that intertwined gold with coral and shells for inlaid jewelry.  Manufacturers found his invention very useful and many of them used it to produce jewelry products.  Banigan most likely made a good bit of money from this machine and also made a lot of professional friends, who later invested in the rubber industry where Banigan made his millions. 

At the beginning of the Civil War, Banigan worked at Bourn’s Providence Rubber company, where he met the man who would become his father-in-law.  He worked there for a while, as well as helping to build a rubber factory in Jamaica Plain.  Then he decided to start working on his own.  He started a company called the Woonsocket Rubber Company. 

     To make a pair of shoes with rubber, unprocessed rubber “cakes”, that came from the Amazon forest where many native people gathered the sap or gum of wild trees, soaked in big pots of hot water outside the factory.  The mixing room was a place where chemicals broke down the natural state of the gum rubber into rubber that could make shoes and other things.  Making processed rubber was very hard and sometimes dangerous work.  Banigan was very generous with his workers.  He made sure that the workers knew how to put out fires. There were hydrants, hoses and pumps at each door, in case of any emergency.  Banigan also made sure that there were lots of fire escapes on his buildings even though the state of Rhode Island did not require it.  If there was an injured worker, Banigan would pay for the doctor.  If, on the rare occasion, a worker would be killed, Banigan would give the widowed wife $1,000 as well as pay for funeral charges.         

        Banigan was a very charitable person, he gave lots of his wealth to organizations and he was respected for that.  He started a Rhode Island orphanage for children, a home for elderly people, and a home for working girls.  He supported many colleges including Brown University and some Catholic colleges.  In all these cases, he made sure that every person, no matter what race, class or religion was accepted.  This was very rare at this time because there was a lot of discrimination. 

      In history books, we read about all these amazing people who did all these good deeds.  It’s hard to believe that one of these great people was my ancestor,  my great, great grandmother’s uncle.