Mayor Andrew McShane records

Collection

Identifier: CA-AA-McShane

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The McShane papers are primarily correspondence, with a small amount of additional miscellaneous materials, proclamations, speeches, and a report from the Orleans Parish Demonstration Agent. Some of the major subjects represented in the McShane papers are: early plans for an auditorium in the city; an American Legion convention; opposition to local activities in connection with the National Beauty Pagaent in Atlantic City, NJ; the extension of Dauphine Street through the Jackson Barracks property; the Elks' Home fire; Fort Macomb; the presentation of the city flag to the municipality of Orleans, France; and early plans for a Lake Pontchartrain causeway.

Dates

Creation: 1920-1925

Creator

Office of the Mayor (Organization)
McShane, Andrew (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Available to registered researchers by appointment.

Conditions Governing Access

Materials Request Guidelines

Conditions Governing Use

Reproduction or use of materials is prohibited without the permission of the City Archives & Special Collections. Please review the Archives' Permission to Publish note.

Biographical / Historical

Andrew J. McShane was born in New Orleans in 1865. His father died early, and at a young age, McShane went to work for hide dealers Fitzpatrick and Hall, later succeeded by H.F. Hall and Co. By age 14, he was a travelling salesman for the firm; at 19, he became a partner and at 21, he bought the company.

McShane served as a member of the Board of Fire Commissioners from 1896-1904 and in 1912, ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the Commission Council as the reform candidate of the Good Government League. In July 1920 McShane was nominated as candidate for Mayor by the Orleans Democratic Association, a loosely knit organization of reform minded citizens and dissatisfied members of the Regular Democratic Organization, dedicated to unseating three-term mayor Martin Behrman. In a hard-fought race, McShane defeated Behrman by a margin of less than 1500 votes.

McShane's administration organized an efficient garbage collection system, initiated the system of one-way streets still in use today, re-equipped and reorganized the public works department, set the city's finances in order, and improved the condition of city streets. The spirit of reform, however, was short-lived, and Behrman was able to regain the mayoralty in 1925. McShane retired from public life following his defeat.

Extent

2 Cubic Feet (2 cartons)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Arrangement

The papers seem to have been kept together as a unit over the years and were not dispersed into the "Official Vertical File" and other places to the extent that other pre-1936 mayoral papers were. Unfortunately, there is no documentation on previous attempts to arrange and describe these papers. It is not known, for example, who wrote various subject designations on the face of the letters; nor is it known why some papers of other agencies of city government were retained with McShane's own papers. Because of these uncertainties, and in order to conform to arrangement of other mayoral papers of the pre-1936 era, all previous filing notes were ignored in favor of a system of arrangement by the names of the correspondents.

Thus, file folders were created for all government agencies represented, for important individuals or organizations, and for correspondents represented by four or more letters, regardless of their significance. All other letters were placed into miscellaneous folders according to the first letter of the last name of individuals or of the corporate name of businesses or organizations. Letters from individuals on letterhead were filed according to the names of individuals if the letters were judged to be more personal than corporate in nature.

Related Materials

Letterbooks with copies of outgoing correspondence have been preserved with the Office of the Mayor records. Request the volumes by the dates associated with each individual mayor for more information, as well as additional records from that mayor's tenure.