As E-Sylum readers know, one of my collecting interests is Labor Exchange notes. Recently I added a couple Reading, PA notes to my collection and decided to spend some time doing an Internet search to learn a little more about these late 19th-century U.S. notes.

I learned that this incarnation of the labor exchange was founded in 1889 by Giovanni Battista DeBernardi of Independence, Missouri, and the Panic of 1893 spurred a great deal of interest in it. Some 325 locals of the Labor Exchange were scattered across the country, doing business in at least thirty-three states and claiming some fifteen thousand members. Only a subset of these were active enough to actually issue labor exchange notes.

I discovered an entry in the American Numismatic Society DONUM catalog for a 1998 article by Steve Whitfield, and ANS librarian Elizabeth Hahn kindly scanned a copy for me. I emailed Steve, an E-Sylum readers, for more information and learned that information on the labor exchange notes would be included in the upcoming Neil Shafer book on emergency scrip issues of 1893 to 1915.

Next I checked in with Neil Shafer, who writes:

Now I can't wait to finally see the book! We'll all look forward to its publication next year.