Joseph Bernard Shannon was born on March 17, 1867, in St. Louis, Missouri, and moved in his youth to Girard, Kansas.

[4] Shannon and the Pendergasts were all members of the Democratic Party but frequently clashed in local elections, either directly or through supported candidates on issues such as Prohibition, the influence of saloon-owners in local politics, and the Democratic Party's nominee for Kansas City's mayoral and alderman races.

[6][7] This scheme allowed the "goats" and "rabbits" to maintain relatively equal control over the Kansas City Democrats until Shannon's faction was relegated to a minor role after Pendergast successfully urged his followers to vote against Democratic candidates that were not backed by his political machine in the 1916 Kansas City local elections; going as far as openly supporting Nonpartisan candidates for alderman and council positions.

Pendergast-backed candidates won five city council seats, with Republicans winning the remainder.

[2][9] Shannon died on March 28, 1943, in Kansas City following a heart ailment and pneumonia.