Alpine, John R. (1863-1947), was born in Maine and worked as a gas fitter in Everett, Mass., and then Boston, where he was president of United Association of Journeymen Plumbers, Gas Fitters, Steam Fitters, and Steam Fitters' Helpers of the United States and Canada 175 (1904-5) and of the Boston Building Trades Council (1905). Alpine served as special organizer, vice-president (1904-6), and president (1906-19) of the international union and as an AFL vice-president (1909-19). During World War I he was appointed to the Cantonment Adjustment Commission that supervised labor relations on military construction jobs. He lived in Chicago from 1906 until 1920, when he moved to New York City, where he was employed by the Grinnell Co. as assistant to the president for labor relations. In 1931 President Herbert Hoover appointed him assistant secretary of labor in charge of the Federal Unemployment Service.

Appleton, William Archibald (1859-1940), was born in Nottingham, England, where he worked as a lacemaker. Moving to London, he served as secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Operative Lacemakers (1896-1907), secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions (1907-38), and president of the International Federation of Trade Unions (1919-20).

Barnes, John Mahlon (1866-1934), was born in Lancaster, Pa., and became a member of the KOL in the 1880s. He joined the Cigar Makers' International Union of America in 1887, serving as secretary of local 100 of Philadelphia (1891-93, 1897-1900) and local 165 of Philadelphia (1903-4), and was elected a vice-president of the Pennsylvania State Federation of Labor in 1902. He joined the Socialist Labor party in 1891 and was corresponding secretary of the Philadelphia Central Committee and an organizer for the party's Philadelphia American branch in the 1890s. A founder of the Socialist Party of America in 1901, he was secretary of its Philadelphia branch and the Pennsylvania representative on its national executive committee in the early years of the decade. He served as the party's national secretary from 1905 until 1911 and as its campaign manager in 1912 and 1924.

Baroff, Abraham (1870-1932), was born in Russia and immigrated to the United States around 1890, obtaining work in the women's garment industry in New York City. He was a leader of the 1909-10 shirtwaist and dress makers' strike in New York City and was a founder of International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union 25 (Ladies' Waist and Dress Makers) of New York City, serving for several years as its manager. Baroff became a vice-president of the Ladies' Garment Workers and a member of the union's general executive board in 1914, and he served as the union's secretary-treasurer from 1915 until 1929.

Baumeister, Albert (1882-1953), a resident of Berlin and a waiter by trade, served as secretary (1908-13) of the Internationale Union der gastwirtschaftlichen Angestellten (the International Union of Restaurant Employees) and was later the editor of the Internationale Rundschau der Arbeit (International Review of Labor). (Photo)

Beeks, Gertrude Brackenridge (1867-1950) was secretary of the executive committee of the Committee on Labor and secretary of the National Civic Federation executive council. In September 1917 she married Ralph Easley.

Berger, Victor Luitpold (1860-1929), was born in Nieder-Rehbach, Austria, and attended the universities of Vienna and Budapest before immigrating to the United States in 1878. He lived in Bridgeport, Conn., for two years, working as a boiler mender, metal polisher, and salesman, and then moved to Milwaukee where he taught German in the public school system. In 1892 he resigned and bought the Milwaukee Volkszeitung. He changed its name to Wisconsin Vorwärts in 1893 and edited the paper (later the Vorwärts) until 1911. In 1897 he helped form the Social Democracy of America and in 1898 the Social Democratic Party of the United States, which became the Socialist Party of America in 1901. He served on the party's national executive committee from 1901 until 1923. He edited the weekly Social Democratic Herald from 1901 to 1913 and the daily Milwaukee Leader from 1911 until his death. In 1910 he was elected alderman-at-large for Milwaukee and later that year was elected a congressman, serving from 1911 to 1913. After his reelection to Congress in 1918, he was found guilty of conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment in early 1919. He was released on bail pending review of the case, but Congress refused to seat him. Reelected in 1919, he was again denied his congressional seat. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Berger's conviction in 1921, and he was elected to Congress again the following year, serving from 1923 to 1929. (Photo)

Bohm, Ernest (1860-1936), was born in New York, worked as a compositor, clerk, and manager of a cloak operators' union early in his career, and became secretary of the Excelsior Labor Club of the KOL in 1881 and corresponding secretary of the New York City Central Labor Union in 1882. During the 1880s and 1890s he was active in the organization of the brewery workers, serving briefly in 1888 as an editor of the Brauer Zeitung, the official journal of the National Union of the United Brewery Workmen of the United States. He was later secretary of Brewery Workmen's local 31 (Ale and Porter Brewers) and of the New York City Brewery Workmen's local executive board. He supported Henry George's 1886 mayoral campaign and in 1887 participated in founding the United Labor party and served as secretary of the Progressive Labor party. Bohm was a member of the Socialist Labor party and, from 1896 to 1898, secretary of the executive board of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance. He served as secretary of the Central Labor Federation of New York City (1889-99) and of the Central Federated Union (CFU) of New York City (by 1913, the CFU of Greater New York and Vicinity) from 1899 to 1921. From 1919 to 1921 he was secretary of the New York City National Labor party (from 1920, the Farmer-Labor party), and from 1921 until his death he was a leader of AFL Bookkeepers', Stenographers', and Accountants' Union 12,646, holding several positions, including the presidency.

Boyce, Edward (1862?-1941), born in Ireland, came to the United States about 1882 and worked on railroads in Wisconsin and Colorado before becoming a miner. He was a member of the Leadville (Colo.) Miners' Union, which was affiliated with the KOL, from 1884 to 1886. Moving to Idaho in 1887, he joined the newly formed Wardner Miners' Union in 1888 and was its corresponding secretary until 1892. Boyce was active in the 1892 Coeur d'Alene strike and, as a consequence, served a six-month jail term for contempt of court. After his release in 1893, he was elected president of the Coeur d'Alene Executive Miners' Union, holding that post until 1895. He was a founder in 1893 of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM); he was its general organizer (1895), president (1896-1902), and the editor of its official journal, the Miners' Magazine (1900-1902). He also served as a Populist in the Idaho state senate from 1894 to 1896. In 1898 he was a founder of the Western Labor Union. He declined renomination as WFM president in 1902 and in 1909 moved to Portland, Ore. There he engaged in the mining business and was vice-president (1920-29) and president (1930-41) of the Portland Hotel Co.

Burns, John Elliott (1858-1943), a British machinist and a leader of the 1889 London dockers' strike, joined the Amalgamated Society of Engineers in 1879. He was a member of the Social Democratic Federation from 1884 to 1889, the year he was elected to the London County Council. In 1892 he was elected to Parliament as an Independent Labour candidate, and he was reelected until 1918 (beginning in 1895 as a Liberal/Labour candidate). He was one of the fraternal delegates from the TUC to the 1894 AFL convention in Denver, and in 1895 SG helped him set up a speaking tour of American cities to promote the principles of trade unionism. In 1906 Burns became a cabinet member in the ruling Liberal government; he resigned his post in 1914, however, in protest against Britain's entry into World War I. (Photo)

Cohn, Fannia Mary (1885-1962) served as a vice-president of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union from 1916 to 1925 and as executive secretary of the union's Educational Department from 1918 to 1962. In 1921 she was a founder of the Workers' Education Bureau.

Darrow, Clarence Seward (1857-1938), son of a furniture maker, was born in Ohio and was admitted to the bar there in 1878. He moved to Chicago in 1887 where he continued to practice law. In association with his law partner John Altgeld, Darrow played an active role in Democratic reform politics, and they worked together in an attempt to secure amnesty for the Haymarket defendants in 1887. In 1889 Darrow was named special assessment attorney for Chicago and in 1890 became corporation counsel to the city. His defense of Eugene Debs and other American Railway Union strike leaders launched his career as a labor lawyer, and for two decades his major practice was in this field. His clients included William Haywood in 1906-7 and the McNamara brothers in 1911, and he was chief counsel for the miners in the arbitration of the 1902 coal strike. Darrow served as a Democrat in the Illinois legislature in 1903. He retired in 1926, although he continued to accept a few cases, and he remained active in national politics, speaking throughout the country on behalf of Democratic party tickets. (Photo)

Debs, Eugene Victor (1855-1926), born in Terre Haute, Ind., entered railroad work as an engine-house laborer and became a locomotive fireman. Elected secretary of Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen 16 of Terre Haute in 1875, he became grand secretary and treasurer of the Locomotive Firemen and editor of the union's official journal in 1880. Debs resigned as an officer of the brotherhood in 1892 to begin building a single union for all railway workers and resigned the editorship of the journal in 1894. He founded the American Railway Union in 1893, led it in the successful 1894 Great Northern Railroad strike, but was imprisoned for six months in 1895 for his role as president of the union during the Pullman strike. After leaving prison he turned his energies to political activity. In 1896 he supported the People's party campaign, in 1897 he founded the Social Democracy of America, a socialist communitarian movement, and in 1898 he was a founder of the Social Democratic Party of the United States, an organization committed to socialist electoral activity. Debs served on the party's executive committee and in 1900 polled a hundred thousand votes as the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic party and a wing of the Socialist Labor party led by Morris Hillquit. In 1901 he was a founder of the Socialist Party of America, and he ran for president as its candidate in 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920. In 1905 Debs participated in founding the Industrial Workers of the World, a revolutionary syndicalist industrial union that he hoped would function as the economic arm of the Socialist party; he left the IWW three years later. During World War I, he was prosecuted under the Espionage Act and sentenced to ten years in prison. SG supported the campaign for clemency that culminated in a presidential pardon in 1921. (Photo)

DeLeon, Daniel (1852-1914), was the leading figure in the Socialist Labor party from 1891 until his death. Born in Curaçao, he was educated in Germany in the late 1860s and studied medicine in Amsterdam until 1872 without completing his course of study. Between 1872 and 1874 he immigrated to the United States, and he worked as a schoolteacher in Westchester, N.Y., until he entered the Columbia College School of Law in 1876. He earned his law degree in 1878 and practiced in Brownsville, Tex., until 1882 and in New York City from 1882 until at least 1884. From 1883 to 1889 he was a lecturer at the Columbia College School of Political Science and was active in reform and radical movements. He supported the mugwump campaign of 1884 against the Republican presidential candidacy of James Blaine, worked in Henry George's 1886 mayoral campaign, was a member of KOL Local Assembly 1563 from 1888, and participated in the utopian socialist Nationalist movement from 1889 to 1890, when he joined the Socialist Labor party. He ran for governor of New York on the party's ticket in 1891.

DeLeon became editor of the party's official journal, the People, in 1891 and continued in that post until shortly before his death. In 1891 he was elected a delegate to KOL District Assembly 49, and he played a prominent role in the KOL until 1895, when he launched an alternative labor federation, the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance. He was active in the Industrial Workers of the World from 1905 to 1908, when he broke with that organization after a struggle with its syndicalist faction. Although DeLeon's supporters withdrew and set up a second IWW in Detroit, he discouraged the establishment of the new organization and was never active in it. (Photo)

Duffy, Frank (1861-1955), was born in County Monaghan, Ireland. At the age of two he immigrated with his family to England, and in 1881 he came to the United States, settling in New York City. There he joined United Order of American Carpenters and Joiners 2 and served as the first president of the order's executive council for Greater New York. In 1888, when the order merged with the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America to form the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Duffy became a member of Carpenters' local 478. He served as president of the local's executive council (1888-1901) and as its business agent (1896-98), and for four terms was financial secretary of the brotherhood's New York district council. He was an organizer for the Carpenters in 1896 and four years later was elected to the union's executive board. Duffy served the brotherhood as secretary-treasurer (1901-2), secretary (1903-48), and editor of the union's official journal (1901-41). He moved to Philadelphia in 1901 and then to Indianapolis in 1902 when the union changed the location of its headquarters. Duffy served as an AFL vice-president from 1914 to 1939. He was also a board member of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education (1912-20), served on the Indiana State Board of Education (1915-19), and was a member of the American labor mission to the 1919 Paris peace conference.

Duncan, James (1857-1928), was born in Scotland and immigrated to the United States in 1880. He joined the Granite Cutters' National Union of the United States of America in 1881 and during the early 1880s served as an officer of the union's locals in New York, Philadelphia, Richmond, and, finally, Baltimore, where he settled in 1884. He served as Maryland state organizer for the Granite Cutters, organizer for the AFL, and president of the Baltimore Federation of Labor (1890-92, 1897). Duncan was an officer of the Granite Cutters (from 1905, the Granite Cutters' International Association of America) from 1895 to 1923 (secretary, 1895-1905, secretary-treasurer, 1905-12, and president, 1912-23) and edited the union's official journal from 1895 to 1928. He served as an AFL vice-president (1895-1928) and was acting president of the Federation during President John McBride's illness in 1895. He was also a member of the National Civic Federation Industrial Department (1901-2) and executive committee (1903 to at least 1923). President Woodrow Wilson appointed him envoy extraordinary to Russia in 1917 and a member of the American labor mission to the 1919 Paris peace conference.(Photo)

Easley, Ralph Montgomery (1856-1939), was born in Browning, Pa., founded a daily newspaper in Hutchinson, Kans., and then moved to Chicago to work as a reporter and columnist for the Chicago Inter Ocean. In 1893 he helped organize the Chicago Civic Federation, leaving the Inter Ocean to serve as its secretary. He resigned from that position in 1900 and moved to New York City to organize the National Civic Federation, bringing together prominent representatives of business, labor, and the public in cooperative reform efforts and in the settlement of labor disputes. Easley served as secretary of the National Civic Federation (1900-1903) and as chairman of its executive council (1904-39). In his later years he increasingly devoted himself to opposing radical labor organizations and social movements. (Photo)

Engel, George (1836-87), a printer born in Cassel, Germany, immigrated to the United States in 1873, moved to Chicago in 1874, and was a member of the International Workingmen's Association, the SLP, and, after 1883, the anarchist International Working People's Association, or Black International. He wrote for the Anarchist. Engel was convicted of murder in connection with the Haymarket incident and was hanged on Nov. 11, 1887.

Fischer, Adolph (1858?-87), a compositor born in Bremen, Germany, immigrated to the United States about 1871. He worked in Little Rock, Ark., and St. Louis, Mo., before coming to Chicago in 1883 where he was employed by the Chicagoer Arbeiter-Zeitung. Fischer was convicted of murder in connection with the Haymarket incident and was hanged on Nov. 11, 1887.

Fitzpatrick, John J. (1871?-1946), was born in Athlone, Ireland, and, after the death of his parents, was brought to Chicago by his uncle. He worked in the Chicago stockyards and in a brass foundry and then took up horseshoeing and blacksmithing, joining Journeymen Horseshoers' National Union of the United States (from 1892, International Union of Journeymen Horseshoers of the United States and Canada) 4 of Chicago in 1886, and serving as the local's vice-president, treasurer, business agent, and president. Around 1921 he joined the International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, Drop Forgers, and Helpers 122. Fitzpatrick was an executive committee member (1899-1900), organizer (1902-4?), and president (1900-1901, 1906-46) of the Chicago Federation of Labor and an AFL salaried organizer (1903-23). He played a major role in the 1917 meatpackers' organizing campaign and the 1919 steelworkers organizing campaign, ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Chicago on the Labor party ticket in 1919, and served on the National Recovery Administration Regional Labor Board (1933-35).

Flood, Emmet T. (1874-1942), was born in Illinois and worked as a teamster in Chicago, where he joined International Brotherhood of Teamsters 715 (Department Store Drivers). He served as an AFL salaried organizer from 1904 to 1925, organizing, among others, a nurses' and attendants' union in Illinois state hospitals. Flood retired from the labor movement after SG's death and worked in the trucking business.

Foster, William Z. (1881-1961), born in Taunton, Mass., was a member of the Socialist Party of America from 1901 to 1909, joined the United Wage Workers' Party of Washington in 1909, and became a member of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1910, participating in the Spokane free-speech campaign. He then traveled to Europe, where he became a convert to the strategy of "boring from within" existing trade unions. After unsuccessfully contesting the AFL's right to represent the American labor movement at the 1911 meeting of the International Secretariat in Budapest, he returned to the United States and settled in Chicago. He left the IWW in 1912, joined the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America, and subsequently organized the Syndicalist League of North America and the International Trade Union Educational League. Between 1917 and 1919 he led AFL organizing campaigns in the packinghouse and steel industries, and in 1920 he founded the Trade Union Educational League. The following year he went to Moscow and, upon his return, joined the American Communist party. He was the party's candidate for president in 1924, 1928, and 1932 and served as the party's longtime chairman (1930?-44, 1945-57) and chairman emeritus (1957-61). He died in Moscow, where he had gone for medical care.

Frey, John Philip (1871-1957), was born in Mankato, Minn., and moved to Montreal in 1878, where he lived until the age of fourteen. He worked in a Montreal printing shop and on a farm and lumber camp in Upper Ontario before moving with his family to Worcester, Mass., in 1887. After finding work first as an errand boy and then in a grocery, he apprenticed at the age of sixteen as a molder. In 1896 he helped organize Iron Molders' Union of North America 5; he served as the local's president until 1900 and as vice-president of the Molders from 1900 to 1903. Frey moved to Bellevue, Ky., in 1903 after he was appointed editor of the union's official journal, which was published in Cincinnati; about 1909 he moved to Norwood, Ohio. He served as editor of the journal until 1927 and was president of the Ohio State Federation of Labor from 1924 to 1928. Frey moved to Washington, D.C., to serve as secretary-treasurer (1927-34) and president (1934-50) of the AFL Metal Trades Department.

Furuseth, Andrew (1854-1938), was born in Furuseth, Norway and went to sea in 1873. He immigrated to California in 1880, making his home in San Francisco, and in 1885 he joined the Coast Seamen's Union, serving as secretary from 1887 to 1889. He later served as secretary of the Sailors' Union of the Pacific (1891-92, 1892-1936), president of the International Seamen's Union of America (1897-99, 1908-38), and as a legislative representative in Washington, D.C., for the AFL (1895-1902) and for the Seamen. (Photo)

Garretson, Austin Bruce (1856-1931), was born in Winterset, Iowa, and in 1884 joined Order of Railway Conductors of America 53 of Denison, Tex. He served the order as grand senior conductor (1887-88, 1891-99), assistant grand chief conductor (1888-89, 1899-1906), grand chief conductor (1906-7), and president (1907-19). From 1912 through 1915 he served on the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations.

George, Henry (1839-97), a Philadelphia-born journalist, labor reformer, and anti-monopolist, began his newspaper career in 1860 as a printer and then worked as an editor for several San Francisco papers. George published Progress and Poverty, his most influential work, in 1879 and The Irish Land Question in 1881, and subsequently served in the British Isles as correspondent for the Irish World. In 1886 he ran second as the liberal and labor candidate in a three-way contest for mayor of New York City against Theodore Roosevelt and the victorious Abram S. Hewitt. His supporters gave serious consideration to a presidential race in 1888, but their hopes were dashed by his disappointing showing in the 1887 campaign for secretary of state of New York. In the campaign's aftermath supporters launched the single-tax movement, based on George's tax reform theories. George meanwhile continued his writing, edited the Standard from 1887 to 1890, undertook several speaking tours, and traveled extensively. In 1897, against medical advice, he again ran for mayor of New York City; he died four days before the election. (Photo)

Germer, Adolph F. (1881-1966), was born in Germany, immigrated to the United States in 1888, and began working as a miner in Illinois at the age of eleven. He served as vice-president (1907) and secretary-treasurer (1908-12) of the Belleville subdistrict of United Mine Workers of America District 12 (Illinois) and then as an organizer for the international union (1913-14). Germer was national secretary (1916-19) and national organizer of the Socialist Party of America, and in 1919 he was convicted under the Espionage Act for obstructing the draft during World War I. He was sentenced to twenty years in prison, but in 1921 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction. Germer later worked in the California oil fields as an organizer for the Oil Field, Gas Well, and Refinery Workers' Union (1923-25), edited the Rockford (Ill.) Labor News (1931-35?), and was active in the Committee for Industrial Organization and the CIO (1935-55).

Goldman, Emma (1869-1940), was born in Kovno, Russia, and immigrated to the United States in 1885. She settled in Rochester, N.Y., where she worked in a clothing factory and was married briefly. She first became interested in anarchism after the execution of the Haymarket defendants in 1887. She moved to New York City in 1889 where she met anarchist leader Johann Most and her long-time collaborator, Alexander Berkman, and became active in the anarchist movement and in union organizing in the clothing industry. After addressing a mass meeting of unemployed workers in 1893, she was arrested and sentenced to a year in prison for inciting to riot. In 1895 she traveled abroad and studied nursing and midwifery in Austria. She returned to the United States in 1896 and for the next few years lectured throughout the country. In 1906 she founded an anarchist journal, Mother Earth, which she published until 1918 when it was suppressed by the government. She was jailed for fifteen days in 1916 for lecturing on birth control and for two years in 1917 for opposing conscription. Goldman's sole claim to American citizenship rested on her earlier marriage, and when the government successfully challenged her former husband's citizenship in 1909, she lost hers at the same time. In December 1919 the government deported her to the Soviet Union. After she broke with the Bolsheviks in 1921, she lived in various European cities before settling in Canada in 1926. She continued to lecture and write prolifically until her death. (Photo)

Gompers, Abraham Julian (1876-1903), was the son of SG and Sophia Julian Gompers; he worked in New York City in the clothing industry as a cutter. In 1901, after he contracted tuberculosis, his parents sent him to convalesce at the Denver home of Max Morris, secretary and treasurer of the Retail Clerks' International Protective Association. Abraham worked briefly for the association before his death.

Gompers, Gertrude Annersly Gleaves (1881-1953), was born in Stafford-shire, England, immigrated with her family to Trenton, N.J., in 1895, and by 1905 was working as a piano teacher in Philadelphia. She married Louis Neuscheler (b. 1868), a furniture dealer, and by 1920 the two were living in New York City. After divorcing Neuscheler in 1921, she married SG and moved to Washington, D.C. She returned to New York City in 1925 after SG's death and resumed teaching piano. She was later employed by the Works Progress Administration and, in 1940, worked as an organizer for the Five and Ten Cent Store Committee of the United Retail and Wholesale Employes. (Photo)

Gompers, Henry Julian (1874-1938), a son of SG and Sophia Julian Gompers, was the AFL's first office boy (1887) and later became a granite cutter. About 1914 he moved from New York City to Washington, D.C., where he ran Gompers' Monumental Works. He and his wife, Bessie Phillips Gompers, had four children: Sophia, Samuel, Alexander, and Louis.

Gompers, Rose (1872-99) was the daughter of SG and Sophia Julian Gompers. She married Samuel Mitchell, a U.S. postal employee and a member of the Letter Carriers' Union, about 1890. They lived in New York City and had two children, Henrietta and Ethel.

Gompers, Sadie Julian (also given as Julia; 1883-1918), the younger daughter of SG and Sophia Julian Gompers, was born in New York City. After the family's move to Washington, D.C., she studied voice and then for a time sang in vaudeville and on the concert stage. She died of pneumonia during the World War I influenza epidemic. (Photo)

Gompers, Samuel Julian (1868-1946), was a son of SG and Sophia Julian Gompers. Born in New York City, he left school at the age of fourteen to work in a New York City print shop. He moved to Washington, D.C., about 1887 and worked as a printer in the Government Printing Office, a compositor in the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, and a clerk in the U.S. Census Office. He was a member of the Association of Union Printers and the Columbia Typographical Union (International Typographical Union 101). In 1913 he became chief of the Division of Publications and Supplies of the U.S. Department of Labor, and in 1918 he became chief clerk of the Department of Labor, a position he held until 1941. Gompers and his wife, Sophia Dampf Gompers, had one child, Florence. (Photo)

Gompers, Sarah Rood (1827-98), SG's mother, was born in Amsterdam. About 1847 she came to London to live in the Gompers household and in 1849 married Solomon Gompers. She immigrated to the United States with her family in 1863; in 1872 she gave birth to her fourteenth and last child. (Photo)

Gompers, Solomon (1827-1919), SG's father,was a cigarmaker who was born in Amsterdam and immigrated to England with his family in 1845. He became a member of the cigarmakers' union there in 1848. In 1863 he immigrated to the United States with his wife Sarah and their six children. (Photo)

Gompers, Sophia Julian (1850-1920), SG's first wife, was born in London and immigrated to the United States about 1858. She was living with her father and stepmother in Brooklyn and working as a tobacco stripper in a cigar factory when she married SG in 1867. Between 1868 and 1885 she and SG had at least nine children, six of whom lived past infancy: Samuel, Rose, Henry, Abraham, Alexander, and Sadie. (Photo)

Green, William (1870-1952), was born in Coshocton, Ohio. He left school after the eighth grade and, at the age of fourteen, became a water boy for track layers on the Wheeling Railroad. At sixteen he joined his father in the coal mines. In 1888 he joined the local chapter of the National Progressive Union of Miners and Mine Laborers, which later became local 379 of the United Mine Workers of America. Green held various offices in his local--secretary, business agent, vice-president, and president--and served as president of subdistrict 6 of United Mine Workers' District 6 (Ohio; 1900-1906), as president of District 6 (1906-10), and as statistician (1911-13) and secretary-treasurer (1913-24) of the international union. In 1910 and again in 1912 he was elected to the Ohio senate. In 1914 Green became a member of the AFL Executive Council and, after SG's death in December 1924, became AFL president, an office he held until his death.

Guard, Rosa Lee (1863?-1937), was born near Charlottesville, Va., and began working as a schoolteacher at the age of fifteen. She moved to Washington, D.C., about 1897 and the next year began working as a typist at AFL headquarters, where she became chief clerk and SG's private secretary. After SG's death, she served as chief clerk to his successor, William Green. (Photo)

Hamilton, M. Grant (1864-1920), was born in Michigan and moved to Denver in the 1880s, where he joined International Typographical Union 49 and worked as a linotype operator. He later served as an AFL salaried organizer (1903-12, 1914-15, 1918-19) and as a member of the AFL Legislative Committee (1908, 1912-13, 1915-18). In 1919 Hamilton was director general of the Working Conditions Service of the U.S. Department of Labor.

Haywood, William Dudley (1869-1928), was born in Salt Lake City and at the age of fifteen began working at various mines in Utah and Nevada. He moved to Silver City, Idaho, in 1894, where, in 1896, he was a founder of Western Federation of Miners 66. Within a year he became the union's financial secretary and in 1900 its president. He was elected a member of the Western Federation of Miners' executive board in 1900 and its secretary-treasurer in 1901, moving with his family to Denver in 1901 when the federation relocated its headquarters. He also joined the Socialist Party of America in 1901. In 1905 he chaired the founding convention of the IWW. In 1906 Haywood was kidnapped by Colorado and Idaho authorities and extradited to Idaho where he was jailed on charges of conspiracy in the murder of former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg; he was acquitted the next year. While in prison, he ran unsuccessfully for governor of Colorado on the socialist ticket. Disagreements with Western Federation of Miners' president Charles Moyer led to his dismissal as the federation's secretary-treasurer in 1908. Haywood subsequently traveled as a Socialist party lecturer, served on the party's national executive committee, and edited the International Socialist Review. He played a major role in the Lawrence, Mass., textile strike of 1912, and he became IWW secretary-treasurer in 1914. In 1917 he was one of 166 members of the IWW indicted for conspiracy to interfere with the war effort. He was convicted in 1918 and sentenced to twenty years in prison. Released on bail pending appeal, Haywood fled to the Soviet Union in 1921. He died in Moscow. (Photo)

Henderson, Arthur (1863-1935), was born in Glasgow, moved with his family to Newcastle, and apprenticed there as an iron molder when he was twelve. In 1883 he joined the Friendly Society of Iron Founders (from 1920, the National Union of Foundry Workers), soon becoming secretary of his local and, in 1892, a district delegate. He served as the union's general organizer from 1902 until 1911 and as its honorary president from 1913 until his death. Henderson also occupied many political offices, both local and national, beginning in the early 1890s. Between 1893 and 1903 he served successively on the Newcastle City Council, the Durham County Council, the Darlington Town Council, and as mayor of Darlington. He served as a Labour member of Parliament, with brief interruptions, from 1903 until his death, and he was general secretary of the Labour party from 1912 to 1934. In addition, he served under Herbert Asquith as president of the Board of Education (1915-16) and paymaster-general (1916) and under David Lloyd George as a member of the War Cabinet (1916-17), resigning because of the government's opposition to his intended participation in the international socialist conference scheduled to meet in Stockholm in August 1917. He later served as home secretary (1924) and foreign secretary (1929-31). In 1934 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work as president of the League of Nations disarmament conference in Geneva.

Hillmann, Carl (1841-97), a typesetter and an active member of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA)in Germany, was born in Saxony. A follower of Karl Marx, he supported the Marxist wing of the German socialist movement, the Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei (Social Democratic Workingmen's Party, or SDAP). In 1871 he published a brief history of the IWA, Die Internationale Arbeiterassociation, 1864-1871, and in 1873 he published Praktische Emanzipationswinke, which appeared in May 1873 in four installments in Der Volkstaat, the IWA/SDAP paper. After becoming editor of the Suddeutsche Volkszeitung in 1874, he was imprisoned for a short time on charges of violating imperial press laws. Imprisoned again in 1875, he was still in jail in Rottenburg when he completed Die Organisation der Massen. Upon his release he returned to Hamburg where he was employed an an editor of the Gerichtszeitung, a local party paper. After the government put an end to the paper, Hillmann was exiled from Hamburg in 1881, along with over seventy others. After an unsuccessful effort to resume publication of the paper, Hillmann renounced socialism in 1882 but continued to work as a journalist.

Hillquit, Morris (1869-1933), was born in Riga, Latvia, and immigrated to the United States with his family in 1886, settling in New York City. He joined the Socialist Labor party in 1887 or 1888 and was part of a faction that broke with Daniel DeLeon's leadership in 1899. Two years later he participated in the formation of the Socialist Party of America. Hillquit emerged as a leading figure in the Socialist party and served as a member of its national executive committee (1907-12, 1916-19, 1922-33) and as party chairman (1929-33).

In 1888 Hillquit helped found the United Hebrew Trades and was its first corresponding secretary. He graduated from the law school of the University of the City of New York in 1893 and subsequently developed a successful law practice that included serving for many years as counsel to the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (1914-33). He was also a director, trustee, and lecturer at the Rand School and the author of a number of works on socialism. Hillquit twice ran unsuccessfully on the Socialist party ticket for mayor of New York City (1917, 1932) and was five times a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives (1906, 1908, 1916, 1918, 1920). (Photo)

Holmes, David (1843-1906), was president of the Amalgamated Weavers' Association (1884-1906) and a member of the Parliamentary Committee of the TUC (1892-1900, 1902-3). (Photo)

Huber, William D. (1852-1925), was born in Waterloo, N.Y., where he attended public school and served a four-year apprenticeship as a carpenter. He worked as a foreman for six years in Canisteo, N.Y., later moving to New York City and in 1892 to Yonkers, N.Y. He was a founder of United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America 726 in 1894, serving as its president for six terms as well as holding all of the local's other offices at various times. Huber served as vice-president (1898-99) and president (1899-1913) of the Carpenters and as an AFL vice-president (1906-13). As the brotherhood's president, he moved to Philadelphia and, following the union's change of headquarters in 1902, to Indianapolis, where he was a member of local 75. He was also a member of the National Civic Federation executive committee (1903-4, 1906-12). On retiring from the presidency of the Carpenters, he was appointed a traveling representative for the union.

Hutcheson, William Levi (1874-1953), was born near Saginaw, Mich., and became a shipyard carpenter's apprentice at age fourteen. He subsequently worked as a dairy farmer, a farm laborer, a well digger, and a miner before finding employment as a carpenter in Midland, Mich., where he helped organize and served as president of United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America 1164. Soon fired for his union activities, Hutcheson returned to Saginaw, becoming a member of Carpenters' local 334 and serving as its business agent for several years. He served as vice-president (1913-15) and president (1915-52) of the Carpenters and was a member of the War Labor Conference Board (1918) and the National War Labor Board (1918-19). Hutcheson became an AFL vice-president in 1935 but resigned the following year.  Reelected vice-president in 1939, he held that position from 1940 until 1953.

Iglesias Pantín, Santiago (1872-1939), was born in La Coruña, Spain, where he attended local schools and in 1884 apprenticed as a cabinetmaker. After working briefly in Cuba he returned to Spain in 1886. In 1888 he moved to Havana where he took part in the independence movement led by José Martí, served as secretary of the Circolo de Trabajadores (Workmen's Circle) from 1888 to 1895, and edited the newspaper La Alarma in 1895. He fled to Puerto Rico in 1896 following the suppression of the Cuban labor movement and Gen. Valieriano Weyler's order for his arrest. In Puerto Rico he was a founder and editor of several labor journals: Ensayo Obrero (1897-98), Porvenir Social (1898-1900), Union Obrera (1902-6), and Justicia (1914-25). In 1899 he helped organize the Federación Libre de los Trabajadores de Puerto Rico (Free Federation of the Workers of Puerto Rico), serving as its president from 1900 to 1933. He was also a founder in 1899 of the Partido Obrero Socialista de Puerto Rico (Socialist Labor Party of Puerto Rico), reorganized in 1915 as the Partido Socialista de Puerto Rico (Socialist Party of Puerto Rico). Moving to Brooklyn in 1900, he worked at his trade and joined United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America 309. He returned to Puerto Rico the next year as AFL salaried organizer for Puerto Rico and Cuba, a post he held until 1933. He also served as a Partido Socialista member of the Puerto Rican senate (1917-33), secretary of the Pan-American Federation of Labor (1925-33), and Coalitionist resident commissioner from Puerto Rico in the U.S. House of Representatives (1933-39). (Photo)

Jones, Mary Harris "Mother" (1830-1930), was born in County Cork, Ireland, and grew up in Toronto, where her father worked as a railroad construction laborer after immigrating. Employed first as a teacher in Monroe, Mich., and then as a dressmaker in Chicago, she resumed teaching in Memphis, where she was married in 1861. Jones lost her husband and four children to a yellow fever epidemic in 1867, and soon after moved to Chicago where she took up dressmaking again. Losing her business in the Chicago fire in 1871, she became active in the KOL and, during the railroad strike of 1877, went to Pittsburgh to assist the strikers. From that time on, she labored as an organizer, working particularly with miners but also on behalf of child laborers and a wide range of others, including textile, streetcar, and steelworkers. She remained active in labor affairs into her nineties. (Photo)

Kreyling, David J. (1859-1938), a Missouri native, apprenticed as a cigarmaker at the age of twelve. He was a charter member of Cigar Makers' International Union 44 of St. Louis, serving as its president in 1897, and a founder of the St. Louis Central Trades and Labor Union in 1887, serving as its president (1895-1900) and secretary-organizer (1901-33). He also helped organize the Missouri State Federation of Labor in 1891 and was its first president, serving from 1891 to 1892.

Laurell, Carl Ferdinand (1844-1922), a cigarmaker, was born in Sweden where he served as secretary of the Scandinavian section of the International Workingmen's Association until forced into exile. After working in Hamburg, Germany, for several years, he immigrated to the United States in 1871 and became active in the New York City labor movement. He became SG's mentor during the 1870s and subsequently remained close to him as a member of the United Cigarmakers and the Cigar Makers' International Union.

Legien, Carl (1861-1920), was born in Marienburg, Prussia, and raised at an orphanage in nearby Thorn. He apprenticed to a woodcarver at the age of fourteen. After three years of compulsory military service and two years as a. traveling journeyman, Legien settled in Hamburg and joined the local union of woodcarvers in 1886. He was elected president of the Vereinigung der Drechsler Deutschlands (Union of German Woodcarvers) at its founding in 1887. In 1890 he stepped down from this office to become secretary of the newly founded Generalkommission der Gewerkschaften Deutschlands (General Commission of German Trade Unions). He led this organization (from 1919, the Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund [General German Federation of Trade Unions]) until his death and edited its official journal, the Correspondenzblatt, from 1891 to 1900. A member of the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party of Germany), Legien served as a socialist deputy in the Reichstag from 1893 to 1898 and from 1903 until his death. He was instrumental in integrating the concerns of the German union movement into the political program of the Sozialdemokratische Partei. Legien helped inaugurate the meetings of the International Secretariat of the National Centers of Trade Unions in 1901 and served as secretary of this organization (from 1913, the International Federation of Trade Unions) from 1903 to 1919. (Photo)

Lennon, John Brown (1850-1923), was born in Wisconsin, raised in Hannibal, Mo., and moved to Denver in 1869 where he helped organize both a local tailors' union and the Denver Trades Assembly. He later moved to New York City and then to Bloomington, Ill. He served the Tailors (from 1883, the Journeymen Tailors' National Union of the United States; and from 1889, the Journeymen Tailors' Union of America) as president (1884-85), as a member of the executive board (1885-87), and as secretary and editor of the union's official journal (1887-1910). He was treasurer of the AFL from 1891 to 1917, served on the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations (1913-15), and was a Commissioner of Conciliation for the U.S. Department of Labor from 1918 through at least 1920.

Lewis, John Llewellyn (1880-1969), born in Cleveland, Iowa, was a founding member and secretary in 1901 of United Mine Workers of America 1933 of Chariton, Iowa. After traveling in the West, where he worked as a coal and hardrock miner, he returned to Iowa in 1905, resuming work in the mines and starting an unsuccessful grain and feed distribution business. In 1908 Lewis moved to Illinois, where he served as president of United Mine Workers' local 1475 of Panama (1909?-11?) and as legislative agent for United Mine Workers' District 12 (Illinois; 1909-11). He was a salaried organizer for the AFL from 1911 to 1917, when he was named chief statistician for the United Mine Workers. He was appointed acting vice-president of the union in 1917 and was elected to that post in 1918. Named acting president of the union in 1919, he was elected to that office in 1920 and held the position until he retired in 1960. Lewis served as a member of the AFL Executive Council in 1935 but resigned toward the end of that year. He founded the Committee for Industrial Organization in 1935 and served as its chairman until 1938, and he was a founder of the CIO in 1938, serving as its president from 1938 to 1940. (Photo)

Lynch, James, one of the founders of the Amalgamated Trades and Labor Union of New York and Vicinity (ATLU), its president and later its treasurer, was a New York City carpenter, and a member of the Economic and Sociological Club. He headed the ATLU's special committee appointed to work with the Cigar Makers' International Union in its campaign for a tenement-house bill. During the early 1880s Lynch served as the New York City walking delegate for the United Order of American Carpenters and Joiners and was a delegate to its Grand Council.

McBride, John (1854-1917), the only person to defeat SG for the presidency of the AFL, presided over the formation of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and was its second president. The son of an Ohio miner, he was elected president of the Ohio Miners' Protective Union in 1877 and master workman of KOL District Assembly 38 in 1880, and served as president of the Ohio Miners' Amalgamated Association from 1882 to 1889. In 1885 he was a founder and first president of the National Federation of Miners and Mine Laborers and in 1886 presided over the founding convention of the AFL, declining the Federation's nomination for president. He served as president of the National Progressive Union of Miners and Mine Laborers in 1889 and was a leader in merging that union with KOL National Trade Assembly 135 in 1890 to form the UMWA. He became president of the UMWA in 1892 and served until 1895.

McBride served as a Democrat in the Ohio legislature from 1884 to 1888, was commissioner of the Ohio Bureau of Labor Statistics from 1890 to 1891, and later became active in the populist movement. He was elected president of the AFL over SG in 1894, and narrowly lost to SG the next year. McBride purchased the Columbus Record in 1896, and subsequently pursued various occupations including editor, saloonkeeper, and federal labor conciliator. (Photo)

McCarthy, Frank H. (1864?-1932), was born in England, immigrated as a child to the United States, and lived in Bangor, Maine, until 1876 when he moved to Boston. He joined Cigar Makers' International Union 97 of Boston in 1883 and was its president in 1890. McCarthy served as president of the Boston Central Labor Union (1891-92), as president of the Massachusetts State Federation of Labor (1900?-1902), and as an AFL salaried organizer from 1903 until his death. (Photo)

McDonald, Duncan (b. 1873), was born in Ohio and later moved to Illinois. He began working at the age of eleven and in 1898 joined the United Mine Workers of America. McDonald served on the executive board of United Mine Workers District 12 (Illinois; 1904-8), on the executive board of the United Mine Workers (1908-9), as president (1909-10) and secretary-treasurer (1910-17) of District 12, and as president (1919-20) of the Illinois State Federation of Labor. He was active for many years as a socialist in Illinois and, from 1914 to 1920, in the cooperative movement. He served on the executive committee of the National Labor party (from 1920, the Farmer-Labor party), and from 1925 until at least 1935 he ran an art and book store in Springfield, Ill.

McDonnell, Joseph Patrick (1847-1906), born in Ireland and active in the Fenian movement, joined the International Workingmen's Association (IWA) after moving to London in 1868 and served as Irish secretary of the IWA's General Council. He immigrated to New York City in 1872 and began editing the Labor Standard, journal of the Workingmen's Party of the United States (WPUS), in 1876. He moved the paper to Boston in 1877 and Paterson, N.J., in 1878. He was a founder of the International Labor Union and, in 1883, helped organize the New Jersey Federation of Trades and Labor Unions (FTLU); he served as the FTLU's chairman until 1897. In 1884 he was a founder of the Paterson Trades Assembly. He became New Jersey's first factory inspector in 1884 and, in 1892, was appointed to the New Jersey Board of Arbitration. McDonnell continued to publish the Labor Standard until his death.

McGrady, Edward Francis (1872-1960), was a member of International Printing Pressmen's and Assistants' Union of North America 3 (Web Pressmen) of Boston. Vice-president of the Massachusetts State Federation of Labor (1919-20), he also served as a member of the AFL Legislative Committee (1920-33). He was appointed assistant secretary of labor in 1933 and served until 1937 when he joined the Radio Corporation of America as director (and later vice-president) of labor relations (1937-51).

McGregor, Hugh (1840-1911), was an English-born jeweler. He served as a volunteer with Garibaldi's army and immigrated to the United States in 1865. During the 1870s he was a member of the International Workingmen's Association and a founder and active organizer of the Social Democratic Workingmen's Party of North America. He served as secretary of its New York City branch in 1875 and its Philadelphia branch in 1876, returning to New York City in the spring of that year to edit the new English-language journal of the party, the Socialist. A participant in the Economic and Sociological Club, he apparently left the socialist movement and became active in a small circle of New York City positivists. During the late 1880s he served as SG's secretary, directing the AFL office during the president's absence. He helped organize seamen on the Atlantic coast and between 1890 and 1892 served as secretary of the International Amalgamated Sailors' and Firemen's Union. He later worked as a clerk in the AFL's Washington, D.C., office and then took up cigarmaking.

McGuire, Peter James (1852-1906), was born in New York City, became a member of a carpenters' union there in 1872, and joined the International Workingmen's Association. In 1874 he helped organize the Social Democratic Workingmen's Party of North America and was elected to its executive board; that year he also joined the KOL. During the late 1870s McGuire traveled widely, organizing and campaigning on behalf of the Workingmen's Party of the United States and the Socialist Labor party (SLP). After living for a time in New Haven, Conn., he moved to St. Louis in 1878 and the following year was instrumental in establishing the Missouri Bureau of Labor Statistics, to which he was appointed deputy commissioner. He resigned in 1880 to campaign for the SLP and for the Greenback-Labor party. In 1881 he was elected secretary of the St. Louis Trades Assembly and participated in founding the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. He served the Carpenters (from 1888, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America) as secretary (1881-95) and secretary-treasurer (1895-1901). McGuire moved to New York City in 1882, was a founder of the New York City Central Labor Union, and became a member of KOL Local Assembly 1562--the Brooklyn "Spread the Light" Club. He later moved to Philadelphia. He served as secretary of the AFL from 1886 to 1889 and as an AFL vice-president from 1890 to 1900. (Photo)

McMahon, Thomas F. (1870?-1944), was born in County Monaghan, Ireland, and attended school until 1885 when he immigrated with his family to the United States. First employed as a harness boy in a textile mill in Westerly, R.I., and then trained as a woolen weaver and finisher, McMahon had joined the KOL by 1887. By 1901 he was a member of United Textile Workers of America 505 (Cloth Folders) of Providence, R.I., and he served the local as business agent from 1904 until 1912. McMahon served as an organizer for the Textile Workers from 1912 to 1917, and as an AFL salaried organizer from 1914 to 1915. Elected international vice-president in 1917, McMahon assumed the presidency in 1921 after John Golden's death, and served until 1937 when he was appointed chief of the Rhode Island Department of Labor, a position he held until 1939. He subsequently served as a national representative for the Textile Workers' Organizing Committee.

McNamara, James Barnabas (1882-1941), was born in Ohio and in 1901 joined International Typographical Union 3 of Cincinnati. In April 1911 he was arrested in connection with the 1910 dynamiting of the Los Angeles Times building and charged with murder. He pleaded guilty to the murder of machinist Charles Haggerty, who was killed in the explosion, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in San Quentin prison. (Photo)

McNamara, John Joseph (1876-1941), was born in Cincinnati and became an ironworker in Cleveland, joining International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers 17 about 1899. He lived in Indianapolis while vice-president (1903-4) and secretary-treasurer (1904-11) of the Structural Iron Workers and manager (1904-11) of the union's official journal, the Bridgemen's Magazine; he was also admitted to the Indiana bar. In 1911 he pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the dynamiting of the Llewellyn Iron Works in Los Angeles and received a fifteen-year sentence. He was given an early release in 1921 for good conduct and returned to Indianapolis, where he served as financial secretary and business agent of Structural Iron Workers 22 (1922-27). In 1924 he was arrested for allegedly blackmailing and intimidating employers into hiring union members. He was convicted in 1925 but released pending appeal, and in 1932 the Indiana Supreme Court overturned his conviction. He spent most of his later life on a farm near Fortville, Ind., returning to Cincinnati shortly before his death. (Photo)

Mitchell, John (1870-1919), was born in Braidwood, Ill. He became a miner in 1882 and worked in the Illinois coalfields except for two brief sojourns in the mines of Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. He also read law for a year during the 1880s. In 1885 he joined Knights of Labor National Trade Assembly 135. A member of the Spring Valley, Ill., local of the United Mine Workers of America in the early 1890s, he was elected secretary-treasurer of the northern Illinois subdistrict of United Mine Workers' District 12 (Illinois) in 1895, became the lobbyist for District 12 in 1896, and was elected a member of the union's Illinois state executive board and appointed a national organizer in 1897. Mitchell was elected vicepresident of the United Mine Workers in 1898, became acting president later that year, and served as the union's president until 1908. He was also an AFL vice-president (1899-1913). A founder of the National Civic Federation in 1900, he served as a member of its executive committee (1901, 1903-10), Industrial Department (1901-2), and executive council (1904-10). He was later a member of the New York State Workmen's Compensation Commission (1914-15) and chair of the New York State Industrial Commission (1915-19). (Photo)

Moffitt, John A. (1865-1942), born in Newark, N.J., moved to Orange, N.J., at the age of twenty-one. There he worked as a hatter and served as business agent of the Orange local of the National Hat Makers' Association of the United States. He was a cofounder in 1896 of the United Hatters of North America and served as its vice-president (1896-98), president (1898-1911), and editor of its official journal (1898-1911). Moffitt was a member of the AFL Legislative Committee (1903, 1912-13) and helped draft the law establishing the U.S. Department of Labor in 1913. From that year until his death he served as a commissioner of conciliation for the department; he worked briefly during World War I as conciliator in railroad disputes for the U.S. Treasury Department. He practiced law in Washington, D.C., beginning in the mid-1920s.

Mooney, Thomas Joseph (1882-1942), was born in Chicago and lived in Washington, Ind., until the age of ten, when his father died; his mother then moved the family to Holyoke, Mass. Mooney went to work at the age of fourteen and soon apprenticed as a foundryman. He moved to East Cambridge, Mass., and around 1902 joined the Core Makers' International Union of America; from 1903 he was a member of the Iron Molders' Union of North America. In 1908 Mooney moved to California, living first in Stockton and then in San Francisco. He became a socialist, participated in the 1908 presidential campaign of Eugene Debs, attended the 1910 International Socialist Congress in Copenhagen, and briefly joined the Industrial Workers of the World. In 1911 he was a founder of the Revolt, a weekly socialist newspaper in San Francisco. Mooney was arrested in December 1913 after the electrical workers' strike against the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and was tried three times for illegal possession of explosives. The first two trials ended with hung juries; the third resulted in an acquittal. He was arrested again after a bomb exploded during a San Francisco Preparedness Day parade on July 22, 1916, killing ten and injuring forty. He was convicted of first-degree murder in 1917--on what was later shown to have been perjured testimony by a key prosecution witness--and sentenced to death. After widespread protests and the personal intervention of President Woodrow Wilson, his sentence was commuted in 1918 to life imprisonment. He was pardoned by the governor of California in 1938. (Photo)

Morris, Max (1866-1909), was born in Mobile, Ala., and moved to Breckenridge, Colo., in 1880. He worked as a retail clerk in Glenwood Springs and Leadville, Colo., organized a clerks' union in Cripple Creek, Colo., and, on settling in Denver around 1890, organized the Denver Retail Clerks' Union. A member of Denver local 7 of the Retail Clerks' National Protective Association of America (from 1899, the Retail Clerks' International Protective Association), he became secretary-treasurer of the national union in 1896, serving until 1909. He edited the union's journal, the Retail Clerks' National (later International) Advocate from around 1899 to 1909. Morris was an AFL vice-president from 1899 to 1909. He served as a member of the Colorado House of Representatives as a People's party delegate (1899-1900) and as a Democrat (1901-4), and for many years he served on the board of managers of the National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives in Denver.

Morrison, Frank (1859-1949), was born in Frankton, Ont. In 1865, his family moved to Walkerton, Ont., where he became a printer. Beginning about 1883, he worked at his trade in Madison, Wis. In 1886 he moved to Chicago, where he joined International Typographical Union 16. From 1893 to 1894 he studied law at Lake Forest University, becoming a member of the Illinois bar in 1895. The following year he was elected secretary of the AFL, serving in that post from 1897 to 1935 and as AFL secretary-treasurer from 1936 until his retirement in 1939. During World War I Morrison chaired the wages and hours subcommittee of the Committee on Labor of the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense. (Photo)

Most, Johann (1846-1906), a prominent anarchist born in Augsburg, Bavaria, was a bookbinder, editor, and amateur actor. He was elected as a Social Democrat to the German Reichstag in 1874 and 1877. During his second term German authorities arrested him for his anti-government pronouncements, exiling him in 1878. He moved to London, where he published Die Freiheit, and in 1879 he abandoned socialism for anarchism. In 1881 British authorities arrested him for his article applauding the assassination of Czar Alexander II, expelling him in 1882. He then came to the United States where he continued to publish Die Freiheit and in 1883 organized the American Federation of the International Working People's Association--the Black International--patterned after the London organization of the same name. Most made extensive speaking tours of the United States during the next two decades and served several jail terms for his activities and writings. (Image)

Moyer, Charles H. (1866-1929), was born in Iowa and moved to Montana in 1882. In the 1890s he worked as a miner in the Black Hills, living in Deadwood, S.Dak., and serving as president of Western Federation of Miners 2 of Deadwood from 1894 to 1896. He was a member of the Western Federation of Miners' executive board from 1899 to 1902, was appointed general agent and organizer in 1901, and served the union (from 1916, the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers) as president from 1902 to 1926. Moyer was a founder of the IWW in 1905 and served briefly as a member of its executive board. In 1906 he was kidnapped by Colorado and Idaho authorities and extradited to Idaho, where he was jailed on charges of conspiracy in the murder of former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg. After his codefendants William Haywood and George Pettibone were tried and acquitted in 1907 and 1908, charges against him were dropped. Moyer lived in Denver from around the turn of the century until at least 1926 and spent his final years in Pomona, Calif. (Photo)

Nelson, Oscar Fred (1884-1943), was born and lived his entire life in Chicago. He began working as a newsboy when he was nine, left school at thirteen to work full-time in a department store, and became a post office clerk at eighteen, joining AFL Post Office Clerks' Union 8703, which in 1906 became local 1 of the National Federation of Post Office Clerks. He served as president of the local from 1907 to 1910, as president of the Post Office Clerks from 1910 to 1913, as editor of the Union Postal Clerk, the union's official journal, from 1913 to 1917, and as vice-president of the Chicago Federation of Labor from 1910 to 1935. Nelson was chief factory inspector for the state of Illinois from 1913 to 1917 and a commissioner of conciliation for the U.S. Department of Labor from 1917 to 1922. Admitted to the Illinois bar in 1922, he served as a member of the Chicago City Council from 1923 to 1935 and as a superior court judge for Cook County from 1935 until his death.

Nestor, Agnes (1880-1948), was born in Grand Rapids, Mich., and in 1897 moved to Chicago, where she worked in a glove factory and joined Glove Workers' Union of America 1, chartered by the AFL as Glove Makers' Union 9039 in 1901. In 1902 she helped organize Glove Workers' Union of America 2, which consisted of women workers. It became International Glove Workers' Union of America (IGWUA) 18 after the founding of the IGWUA later that year. Nestor was president of the local from 1902 until 1906. She served the IGWUA as vice-president (1903-6, 1915-38), secretary-treasurer (1906-13), president (1913-15), and director of research and education (1939-48). During World War I, Nestor served on the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense and on the secretary of labor's advisory committee to establish a war labor advisory bureau. She was a member (1907-48) of the Women's Trade Union League and president (1913-48) of its Chicago branch. (Photo)

O'Connell, James (1858-1936), born in Minersville, Pa., learned his trade as a machinist's apprentice and worked as a railroad machinist. He served as a lobbyist for the KOL in Harrisburg, Pa., in 1889 and 1891. Joining National Association of Machinists 113 of Oil City, Pa., around 1890, he became a member of the Machinists' executive board in 1891 and later served the Machinists (from 1901, the International Association of Machinists) as grand master machinist (1893-99) and president (1899-1911). He moved to Chicago in 1896. O'Connell served as an AFL vice-president (1896-1918) and president of the AFL Metal Trades Department (1911-34). He was also a member of the National Civic Federation executive committee (1901, 1903-10) and Industrial Department (1901-2), the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations (1913-15), and the Committee on Labor of the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense (1917).

O'Sullivan, Mary Kenney (1864-1943), the first AFL national organizer for women, was born in Hannibal, Mo. She apprenticed to a dressmaker but eventually became forewoman in a printing and binding company. In the late 1880s she moved to Chicago where she worked in local binderies and became active in AFL Ladies' Federal Labor Union (FLU) 2703. She served as that FLU's delegate to the Trade and Labor Assembly of Chicago and organized women binders into the Chicago Bindery Workers' Union. In 1892 Kenney served for five months as an AFL organizer for women workers, concentrating her efforts in New York and Massachusetts. Returning to Chicago, she continued to organize women and successfully lobbied for a state factory law regulating the employment of women and children. After its passage, she became a deputy to Chief Inspector Florence Kelley.

In 1894 Kenney married John O'Sullivan. They lived in Boston, and over the years she wrote articles for the Boston Globe on women, trade unions, and labor issues. She continued to organize women workers with the support of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union and also helped found and served as executive secretary of the Union for Industrial Progress, a group studying factory conditions. At the 1903 AFL convention she was one of the founders of the Woman's Trade Union League (from 1907, the National Women's Trade Union League [NWTUL]), serving as its first secretary (1903) and later as its vice-president (1907-9); she resigned from the NWTUL in 1912. In 1914 she became a factory inspector for the Massachusetts Department of Labor and Industries, holding that post until her retirement in 1934. (Photo)

O'Sullivan, John F. (1857-1902), a Boston journalist and labor organizer, was born in Charlestown, Mass. He wrote on labor for the Boston Labor Leader and Boston Herald before joining the Boston Globe in 1890 as a reporter and labor editor. In the late 1880s he became active in organizing sailors, serving as treasurer of the Boston sailors' union. He was president of the International Amalgamated Sailors' and Firemen's Union from 1889 to 1891 and of the Atlantic Coast Seamen's Union from its founding in 1891 until his death. He was active in the Boston Central Labor Union and served two terms as its president in the early 1890s. He was also active in the Massachusetts Federation of Labor as a member of the legislative committee. In 1894 he married Mary Kenney. O'Sullivan was secretary of Newspaper Writers' Union 1 of Boston from 1896 until his death and served the International Typographical Union as an organizer and as a vice-president (1897-1902).

O'Sullivan, Michael, a member of Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers' International Alliance 12 of Pittsburgh and an organizer for the international union, served as president of the Sheet Metal Workers (1905-13) and as vice-president of the AFL Building Trades Department (1908-13).

Parsons, Albert R. (1848-87), a Confederate army veteran from Montgomery, Ala., moved to Chicago after the war, working as a printer and joining International Typographical Union 16 and the KOL. He was active in the Workingmen's Party of the United States and the SLP. The SLP nominated him for the presidency of the United States in 1879, but he declined because he was underage. Parsons was a leader of the eight-hour movement and a founder and leader of the American affiliate of the anarchist International Working People's Association and edited its organ, the Alarm. He was convicted of murder in connection with the Haymarket incident and was hanged on Nov. 11, 1887.

Perkins, George William (1856-1934), was born in Massachusetts and in 1880 joined Cigar Makers' International Union 68 of Albany, N.Y. He served as a vice-president of the international union from 1885 to 1891, as acting president for six months in 1888 and 1889, and was elected president of the Cigar Makers in 1891, an office that he held for the next thirty-five years. In 1918 Perkins was appointed to the AFL's Commission on Reconstruction and represented the American labor movement at the International Federation of Trade Unions conference in Zurich. He became the president of the AFL Union Label Trades Department in 1928, serving until his death. (Photo)

Pierce, Jefferson Davis (1864-1913), born in Connecticut, worked as a cigarmaker in Worcester, Mass. He joined the Cigar Makers' International Union in 1888 and served Cigar Makers' local 92 as vice-president (1892) and president (1891, 1893-1900). He was also vice-president (1891) and president (1892-93, 1895, 1898-1900) of the Worcester Central Labor Union and vice-president (1893-95) and president (1895-99) of the Massachusetts State Federation of Labor. Pierce was an AFL salaried organizer from about 1900 until his death and served on the AFL Legislative Committee in 1906, 1908, and 1912. (Photo)

Powderly, Terence Vincent (1849-1924), general master workman of the KOL, was born in Carbondale, Pa. Apprenticed as a machinist, he moved to Scranton and joined the International Machinists and Blacksmiths of North America in 1871, becoming president of his local and an organizer in Pennsylvania. After being dismissed and blacklisted for his labor activities, Powderly joined the KOL in Philadelphia in 1876 and shortly afterward founded a local assembly of machinists and was elected its master workman. In 1877 he helped organize KOL District Assembly 5 (number changed to 16 in 1878) and was elected corresponding secretary. He was elected mayor of Scranton on the Greenback-Labor ticket in 1878 and served three consecutive two-year terms. At the same time he played an important role in calling the first General Assembly of the KOL in 1878, where he was chosen grand worthy foreman, the KOL's second highest office. The September 1879 General Assembly elected him grand master workman, and he continued to hold the Order's leading position (title changed to general master workman in 1883) until 1893. Active in the secret Irish nationalist society Clan na Gael, Powderly was elected to the Central Council of the American Land League in 1880 and was its vice-president in 1881. He became an ardent advocate of land reform and temperance and, as master workman, favored the organization of workers into mixed locals rather than craft unions, recommended that they avoid strikes, encouraged producers' cooperatives, and espoused political reform.

In 1894 Powderly was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar, and in 1897 President William McKinley, for whom he had campaigned, appointed him U.S. commissioner general of immigration. President Theodore Roosevelt removed him from this position in 1902 but in 1906 appointed him special representative of the Department of Commerce and Labor to study European immigration problems. Powderly was chief of the Division of Information in the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization from 1907 until his death. (Photo)

Richmond, Daniel Webster (1863-1927?), was born and educated in Chicago and worked there variously as a watchman, policeman, laborer, railway clerk, streetcar conductor, and salesman. Richmond helped organize railway clerks into directly-affiliated AFL local unions and served as president (1903-4) and secretary (1904-5) of the short-lived International Association of Railway Clerks. From about 1912 to 1920 he was an organizer for the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks (from 1919, the Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship Clerks, Freight Handlers, Express and Station Employes). Around 1920 Richmond moved to Topeka, Kans., where he worked as a salesman and laborer and, from 1923 until at least 1925, served as president of International Hod Carriers', Building and Common Laborers' Union of America 142.

Roberts, William Clark (1857-1940), a member of International Typographical Union 16 of Chicago, served on the AFL Legislative Committee from 1919 to 1939.

Sanial, Lucien Delabarre (1836-1927), a French-born journalist, came to the United States in 1863 as a war correspondent for Le Temps. A prominent leader of the SLP, he drafted the party's platform in 1889, edited two of its journals, the Workmen's Advocate (1889-91) and the People (1891), and ran for mayor of New York on the SLP ticket in 1894. Around 1902 Sanial left the SLP; he later joined the Socialist Party of America, remaining an active member until breaking with the party in 1917 over its opposition to World War I. Sanial spoke at the founding convention of the American Alliance for Labor and Democracy in 1917.

Sherman, Charles O. (1859-1922), was born in New York state where he worked on the railroads as a fireman and engineer. His involvement in the Pullman strike in 1894 led to his being blacklisted, so he began to work in the metal trades, where he helped organize the United Metal Workers' International Union of America and served as that union's secretary (1900-1905). He also served as an AFL organizer and was a member of the Socialist Party of America (SPA). Sherman was a founder of the IWW in 1905 and served as its president until leaving the organization in 1906. He continued to be active in the SPA and during the last few years of his life worked as an organizer for the United Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes and Railway Shop Laborers.

Skemp, Joseph C. (1863-1932), was born in England and immigrated to the United States in 1882, settling in San Francisco. In 1899 he joined local 19 of the Brotherhood of Painters and Decorators of America. Skemp served the brotherhood as vice-president (1902-4) and secretary-treasurer (1904-22). After his retirement, he lived in Los Gatos, Calif., where he ran a small fruit ranch.

Sovereign, James Richard (b. 1854), was born in Grant Co., Wis., and grew up on a farm in Illinois. After working in the Midwest as a cattle driver and a bridge and tunnel construction worker, he became a marble cutter in 1874. He joined the KOL in 1881 and in the 1880s was active in the Knights as a labor journalist and lecturer. He served as the Iowa commissioner of labor statistics from 1890 to 1894, was a representative of the Iowa state assembly to the KOL General Assembly in the early 1890s, and was elected general master workman in 1893, serving until 1897. After leaving Iowa in 1894, he moved to Sulphur Springs, Ark., and engaged in fruit farming. He took an active part in the populist movement, serving on the national executive committee of the People's party in 1896 and helping run the party's Chicago branch headquarters during the 1896 presidential campaign. From October 1898 through September 1899 Sovereign managed and edited the Idaho State Tribune, the official journal of the Western Federation of Miners, which was published in Wallace, Idaho.

Spencer, William J. (1867-1933), was born in Hamilton, Ont., where he apprenticed as a plumber. He immigrated to New York about 1894 and joined United Association of Journeymen Plumbers, Gas Fitters, Steam Fitters, and Steam Fitters' Helpers of the United States and Canada 36 of Buffalo. Spencer served as secretary-treasurer (1897-1900) and general organizer (1900-1904) of the Plumbers, was a vice-president of the AFL (1904-5), secretary-treasurer of the Structural Building Trades Alliance (1903-8), and secretary-treasurer of the AFL Building Trades Department (1908-24, 1927-33). He lived in Dayton, Ohio, from about 1902 until 1912, when he moved to Washington, D.C., and became a member of Plumbers, local 5. (Photo)

Spies, August Vincent Theodore (1855-87), born in Landesberg, Germany, came to the United States in 1872 and moved to Chicago in 1873, joining the SLP and the KOL. He was a founder of an American affiliate of the International Working People's Association in 1883. Spies, who became editor of the Chicagoer Arbeiter-Zeitung in 1880, was convicted of murder in connection with the Haymarket incident and was hanged on Nov. 11, 1887.

Strasser, Adolph (1843-1939), was born in Hungary and immigrated to the United States about 1872. He became a cigarmaker, helped organize New York City cigar workers excluded from membership in the CMIU, and played a leading role in the United Cigarmakers. Strasser was a member of the International Workingmen's Association and, in 1874, helped organize the Social Democratic Workingmen's Party of North America, serving as its executive secretary. He was also a founder of the Economic and Sociological Club. In 1876 he was a delegate to the unity congress that organized the Workingmen's Party of the United States, and he aligned with the trade unionist faction of the party. During 1876 and 1877 he worked to establish a central organization of New York City trade unions, and his efforts culminated in the founding of the Amalgamated Trades and Labor Union of New York and Vicinity in the summer of 1877. Strasser was elected vice-president of the CMIU in 1876 and president in 1877 and successfully promoted the reorganization of the union in the late 1870s and early 1880s. After retiring as president in 1891, he continued to work for the CMIU as an organizer, auditor, and troubleshooter. In addition, he served as an AFL lecturer, an AFL legislative representative (1895), and AFL arbitrator of jurisdictional disputes. He ended his labor career in 1914, becoming a real estate agent in Buffalo, and in 1919 he moved to Florida.

Starr, Ellen Gates (1859-1940), was a founder of Hull House in 1889 and the Chicago Women's Trade Union League in 1904. The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America recognized her support of its 1915 strike in Chicago by making her an honorary member of the union for life. In 1916 she ran unsuccessfully for city alderman on the ticket of the Social Party of America.

Sullivan, James William (1848-1938), was born in Carlisle, Pa., began working as a printer at the age of fourteen, and moved to New York City in 1882, where he worked for the New York Times and the New York World and joined International Typographical Union 6. A strong supporter of land reform, he edited the Standard with Henry George from 1887 to 1889 and was managing editor of the Twentieth Century from 1889 to 1892. He was also a leading advocate of the initiative and referendum during these years, traveling to Switzerland in 1888 to gather information for his Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum (New York, 1892) and lecturing on the subject for the AFL in the 1890s. While in New York City Sullivan participated with SG in the Social Reform Club and the People's Institute of the New York Society for Ethical Culture, and he later worked for a time as an assistant editor of the American Federationist. He was assistant editor (1903-4) and editor (1904-6) of the Weekly Bulletin of the Clothing Trades, the official journal of the United Garment Workers of America, and he served as a member of the National Civic Federation commissions on public ownership (1906-7), social insurance in Great Britain (1914), and foreign inquiry (1919). An opponent of trade union involvement in socialist political activities, he published Socialism as an Incubus on the American Labor Movement (New York, 1909) and a report critical of English socialism (in Commission on Foreign Inquiry, National Civic Federation, The Labor Situation in Great Britain and France [New York, 1919]). During World War I Sullivan worked as SG's assistant on the Committee on Labor of the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense, and he was subsequently head of the labor and consumer division of the U.S. Food Administration.

Thorne, Florence Calvert (1877-1973), was born in Hannibal, Mo., and was educated at Oberlin College and the University of Chicago. Between 1912 and 1918 she worked as a research assistant to SG and as an editor of the American Federationist. She left the AFL in 1918 to take a position with the U.S. Department of Labor, and she served as a member of the Committee on Women in Industry of the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense. Beginning in 1919 Thorne assisted SG in preparing his memoirs, Seventy Years of Life and Labor, and from 1925 she was an administrative assistant to William Green and Matthew Woll. Between 1933 and 1953 Thorne served as the director of the AFL Research Department.

Tobin, Daniel Joseph (1875?-1955), was born in Ireland and immigrated to the United States about 1889, settling in Cambridge, Mass., in 1890. He worked in a sheet metal factory and then as a motorman for a Boston street railway company, joining a local assembly of the KOL. By the end of the decade he was working as a teamster and joined Boston local 25 of the Team Drivers' International Union, later serving as its business agent. Tobin was elected president of the Teamsters (from 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; and from 1910, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Stablemen, and Helpers) in 1907 and moved to Indianapolis; he served in that office until 1952. He was also a member of the National Civic Federation executive committee (1911-14), AFL treasurer (1918-28), and an AFL vice-president (1935-55).

Trautmann, William Ernest (b. 1869), born in New Zealand, was apparently expelled from Germany under the antisocialist laws and immigrated to the United States in 1892. Settling in Springfield, Mass., he became a member of National Union of the United Brewery Workmen of the United States (NUUBW) 99 and was elected editor of the NUUBW journal, the Brauer-Zeitung, in 1900; he held the position until 1905. He moved to Cincinnati in 1900 and there was active in the Socialist Party of America (SPA) and served as an SPA national committeeman. In 1905 he was a cofounder of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and served as IWW secretary-treasurer (1905-8) and general organizer (1908-12). In 1913 he joined a rival Detroit-based IWW, serving as organizer in 1914.

Valesh, Eva McDonald (1866-1956), a printer, journalist, and labor organizer, was born in Maine and moved to Minneapolis in 1877. She worked for the Spectator, had become a member of the International Typographical Union and the Knights of Labor by the 1880s, and headed the labor department of the St. Paul Globe, writing a series on working women for that paper in 1887 and 1888. She became the manager of the industrial department of the Minneapolis Tribune and in 1891 was a state lecturer and treasurer for the Minnesota Farmers' Alliance and a lecturer for the National Farmers' Alliance. In 1891 she married Frank Valesh, a state deputy commissioner of labor. About 1898 she moved to New York City where she worked for the New York Journal, became a member of Typographical local 6, and served as an AFL salaried organizer (1901). From 1900 to 1909 she was managing editor of the American Federationist, and she served in the women's section of the National Civic Federation in 1909. She subsequently edited the American Club Woman magazine and for about twenty-seven years was a proofreader for the New York Times prior to her retirement in 1952. (Image)

Van Etten, Ida M. (1867?-94), was born in Van Ettenville, N.Y., and moved to New York City in 1887. In 1888 she helped organize the New York Working Women's Society, was elected secretary, and for several years was a leading figure in organizing women workers in New York. She frequently lectured and published articles on the industrial status of women, and she lobbied before the New York legislature for the abolition of the sweating system and for passage of the Fassett bill providing for female factory inspectors. In 1889 she helped organize women feather workers and women cloakmakers in New York City and at the 1891 AFL convention served as secretary of a women's committee that recommended commissioning a woman organizer. She went to Europe in 1893 to gather material for a series of articles and died the following year in Paris.

Wallace, Edgar (1867-1928) was born in England, immigrated to the United States as a youth, and settled in Indiana, where he worked as a miner. He joined the United Mine Workers of America, serving as an organizer and then as editor of the United Mine Workers' Journal (1912-18). In late 1917 he enlisted in the Canadian army, and he subsequently served as a war correspondent and then traveled with SG during SG's labor mission to Europe in the fall of 1918. After the war Wallace served as a legislative representative for the United Mine Workers, as a member of the AFL Legislative Committee (1920-28), and as an AFL salaried organizer (1923-28).

Walsh, Francis Patrick (1864-1939), a Kansas City, Mo., attorney, was chairman of the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations (1913-15) and of the Committee on Industrial Relations (1915-18). He served on the Kansas City Tenement Commission (1906-8), as attorney for the Kansas City Board of Public Welfare (1908-14), and as president of the Kansas City Board of Civil Service (1911-13), and in 1918 was cochairman, with former President William Howard Taft, of the National War Labor Board. (Photo)

White, John Phillip (1870-1934), was born in Illinois and later moved with his family to Iowa, where he entered the mines at age fourteen. He served as secretary-treasurer (1899-1904) and president (1904-7, 1909-10) of United Mine Workers of America District 13 (Iowa) and as vice-president (1908) and president (1911-17) of the international union. White was later adviser to the U.S. Fuel Administration (1917-19). He died in Des Moines, Iowa.

Williams, John (b. 1865), a native of Wales, immigrated to the United States in 1891. He served as assistant secretary (1897-98), secretary-treasurer (1898-1911), and president (1911-19) of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers. Williams was later a representative of the Pacific Coast Steel Co.

Wilson, William Bauchop (1862-1934), was born in Blantyre, Scotland, and immigrated to Arnot, Pa., in 1870. The son of a coal miner, he began working in the mines at the age of nine, became a member of a local miners, union, and was later elected its secretary. Blacklisted in 1880, he worked briefly in sawmills and lumber yards in the West and then as a fireman on the Illinois Central Railroad before returning to Pennsylvania. He settled in Blossburg, where he worked in the 1880s and 1890s as a miner and check weighman in the Tioga County mines and, for a time, as a typesetter for the Blossburg Advertiser. Wilson was master workman of District 3 of Knights of Labor National Trade Assembly 135 from 1888 to 1894 and headed the Independent Order of the KOL, organized by the United Mine Workers of America, from 1894 to 1897. In 1890 he was a founder of the United Mine Workers, serving on its executive board and, during the 1890s, as president of District 2 (Central Pennsylvania). He was secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers from 1900 to 1908. Wilson was elected to Congress as a Democrat from Pennsylvania in 1906, serving from 1907 to 1913 and chairing the House Committee on Labor between 1911 and 1913. He was the first U.S. secretary of labor, serving from 1913 to 1921, and a member of the Council of National Defense. (Photo)

Wright, Chester Maynard (1883-1964), was born in Milwaukee, worked for the Milwaukee Journal, and was later editor of the New York Call (1914-16) and the Newspaper Enterprise Association of Cleveland (1917). Wright broke with the Socialist Party of America over its opposition to the entry of the United States into World War I, and during the war he served as director of the news department of the American Alliance for Labor and Democracy. He was a member of the first American labor mission to Europe in 1918 and after the war served as English-language secretary of the Pan-American Federation of Labor (1919-27), director of the AFL information and publicity service (1920 to at least 1925), and assistant editor of the American Federationist (1922 to at least 1925). Wright then worked as the editor of the International Labor News Service, and around 1933 he founded Chester M. Wright and Associates, a Washington, D.C., news service and research firm that published Chester Wright's Labor Letter until Wright retired in 1948.

Young, Charles O. (1858-1944), was born in Carthage, Mo., and moved to Seattle in 1883, where he worked as an operating engineer, joined the KOL for a time, became active in the anti-Chinese movement, and helped organize the Western Central Labor Union in 1888. By 1894 he was living in Olympia, Wash., where he was engineer in charge of the water works, and by the latter part of the decade he had moved to Tacoma, where he joined International Union of Steam Engineers 2. In 1898 Young helped organize the Washington State Labor Congress, predecessor of the Washington State Federation of Labor, and in 1899 he was an organizer of the Tacoma Central Labor Council. In 1904 he became a salaried organizer for the AFL, and he served in that capacity until his retirement around 1933.

UP

Organizations

The National Union of Brewers of the United States organized in 1886 and affiliated with the AFL as the Brewers' National Union in March 1887. Later that year it changed its name to the National Union of the United Brewery Workmen of the United States, and it became the International Union of the United Brewery Workmen of America in 1902. After a prolonged series of jurisdictional disputes the AFL revoked the union's charter in 1907; it reinstated the Brewery Workmen in 1908. In 1917 the union became the International Union of United Brewery and Soft Drink Workers of America and, in 1918, the International Union of United Brewery, Flour, Cereal, and Soft Drink Workers of America.

The International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers (from 1915, the International Association of Bridge, Structural, and Ornamental Iron Workers and Pile Drivers; and from 1917, the International Association of Bridge, Structural, and Ornamental Iron Workers) was organized in 1896 and affiliated with the AFL in 1901. It soon became involved in jurisdictional conflicts with several metal trades unions, and it was suspended from the AFL in 1902 for nonpayment of dues. After the conflict was resolved in 1903, it rejoined the Federation. It was briefly suspended again in 1917 during a conflict with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America.

The Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America was organized in 1881 and chartered by the AFL in 1887. In 1888 the Brotherhood and the United Order of American Carpenters and Joiners merged, forming the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America.

The Cigar Makers' National Union of America was organized in 1864 and changed its name to the Cigar Makers' International Union of America in 1867. It participated in the formation of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in 1881. The following year, seceding New York City locals formed the Cigarmakers' Progressive Union of America, which rejoined the International in 1886. The AFL chartered the Cigar Makers in 1887.

The National Civic Federation was organized in 1900 to "provide for a thorough discussion of questions of national import affecting either the foreign or domestic policy of the United States, to aid in the crystallization of the most enlightened public sentiment thereto, and, when desirable, to promote necessary legislation in accordance therewith," as its constitution stated. Initially, the NCF focused on the mediation of industrial disputes, but it gradually expanded its activities, creating a broad range of departments to deal with matters including trade agreements, industrial economics, industrial welfare, women, workmen's compensation, and social insurance.

The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America was organized in New York City in December 1914 by a seceding faction of the United Garment Workers of America.

The Coremakers' International Union of America was organized in 1896 and received an AFL charter the same year. It merged with the Iron Molders' Union of North America in 1903.

The National Brotherhood of Electrical Workers of America was organized in 1891 and affiliated with the AFL the same year. In 1899 it became the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

In October 1888 the Socialist Labor Party's Yiddish-speaking branch 8 and Russian-speaking branch 17 in New York City met with three small Jewish unions to form the United Hebrew Trades (UHT). The new organization worked to organize Jewish workers into unions, eventually playing a prominent role in establishing the United Garment Workers of America and the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, among others. In October 1890 the UHT called a conference that created the short-lived Hebrew Labor Federation of the United States and Canada. In December 1895 it was one of the founding organizations of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance (STLA), of which it became District Alliance 2 in February 1896. Many of its constituent unions remained affiliated with the AFL, however, and in September 1897 the United Brotherhood of Cloakmakers helped form the Federated Hebrew Trades of Greater New York (FHT) in opposition to District Alliance 2. In December 1899 the UHT left the STLA and amalgamated with the FHT.

The International Ladies ' Garment Workers' Union organized and affiliated with the AFL in 1900.

The Tailors' National  Protective Union joined with members of KOL Garment Cutters' National Trade Assembly 231 in 1891 to form the United  Garment Workers of America. The new union affiliated with the AFL the same year.

The International Glove Workers' Union of America was organized in 1902 and chartered that year by the AFL.

The Granite Cutters' International Union of the United States and the British Provinces of America was formed in 1877. In 1880 it changed its name to the Granite Cutters' National Union of the United States of America and in the following year participated in the formation of the FOTLU. It joined the AFL in 1888, but left the Federation in 1890, rejoining in 1895. In 1905 it adopted the name Granite Cutters' International Association of America.

The United Hatters of North America was created in 1896 by the merger of the International Trade Association of Hat Finishers of America and the National Hat Makers' Association of the United States. It received an AFL charter the same year.

The Journeymen Horseshoers' National Union of the United States was organized in 1874. It changed its name to the International Union of Journeymen Horseshoers of the United States and Canada in 1892 and affiliated with the AFL in 1893.

The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers of the United States was organized in 1876 and in 1887 was chartered by the AFL.  In 1897 it changed its name to the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers.

The Lumber Handlers of the Great Lakes was founded in 1892 and received its AFL charter in 1893 as the National Longshoremen's Association of the United States. In 1895 it was renamed the International Longshoremen's Association. It became the International Longshoremen, Marine, and Transport Workers' Association in 1901, and the International Longshoremen's Association again in 1908.

The Order of United Machinists and Mechanical Engineers of America organized in 1888 and the following year changed its name to the National Association of Machinists. It changed its name to the International Association of Machinists in 1891 and in 1895 affiliated with the AFL.

The League for Industrial Democracy was founded as the Intercollegiate Socialist Society in 1905 and changed its name in 1921. The LID advocated the expansion of industrial democracy and encouraged the study of political, social, economic, and labor problems. Between 1960 and 1965 it was known as Students for a Democratic Society or SDS.

The National Union of Iron Molders was organized in 1859. In 1874 it became the Iron Molders' Union of North America, and in 1881 it participated in the formation of the FOTLU. It was chartered by the AFL in 1887. In 1907 it changed its name to the International Molders' Union of North America.

The United Metal Workers' International Union of America organized in 1900 and was chartered by the AFL the same year. It withdrew from the AFL in 1905.

The United Mine Workers of America was established in 1890 with the merger of the National Progressive Union of Miners and Mine Laborers and Knights of Labor National Trade Assembly 135. The new union affiliated with the AFL the same year.

The National Federation of Miners and Mine Laborers was organized in 1885. Beginning in 1886, it was involved in bitter jurisdictional disputes with KOL miners' National Trade Assembly (NTA) 135. In 1888 it merged with a faction of NTA 135 and the Miners' and Mine Laborers' Amalgamated Association of Pennsylvania to form the NationalProgressive Union of Miners and Mine Laborers (NPUMML). The NPUMML merged with the remainder of NTA 135 in 1890, creating the United Mine Workers of America.

National Trade Assembly (NTA) 135, the KOL miners' assembly, was organized in May 1886, eight months after the founding of the National Federation of Miners and Mine aborers. The two organizations competed for jurisdiction. In December 1888 a minority of NTA 135 seceded and joined the Miners Federation, which was reorganized as the National Progressive Union of Miners and Mine Laborers. NTA 135 and the Progressives united in 1890 as the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), affiliated with both the AFL and NTA 135 of the KOL. In 1894 the Knights' General Assembly excluded NTA 135 on the grounds that it was dominated and controlled by the UMWA.

The Western Federation of Miners, a regional, industrial union that claimed jurisdiction over mine, mill, and smelter workers in the hard rock mining industry, was founded in 1893 and affiliated with the AFL in July 1896. It paid no dues to the AFL after December 1896, however, and in 1898 it disaffiliated; it subsequently helped organize the Western Labor Union (renamed the American Labor Union in 1902). In 1905 it participated in the formation of the IWW, but it withdrew three years later and reaffiliated with the AFL in 1911. In 1916 it changed its name to the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers.

The American Federation of Musicians was founded in 1896 and affiliated with the AFL the same year.

The Brotherhood of Painters and Decorators of America was organized in 1887, affiliating with the AFL the same year. The union withdrew from the Federation in 1891 but reaffiliated the following year. In 1894 it split between western and eastern factions headquartered, respectively, in Lafayette, Ind., and Baltimore.  The eastern faction adopted the name Brotherhood of  Painters, Decorators, and Paperhangers of America in 1899, and the two factions merged under that name in 1900.

The founding meeting of the Pan-American Federation of Labor was held Nov. 13-16, 1918, at Laredo, Tex.

In 1890 postal clerks formed the National Association of Post Office Clerks. This organization merged with another union of postal clerks in 1899 to form the United National Association of Post Office Clerks of the United States (UNAPOC). The UNAPOC did not affiliate with the AFL. In 1906 a seceding faction of the UNAPOC formed the National Federation of Post Office Clerks (NFPOC), which was granted an AFL charter later that year. The NFPOC merged with the Brotherhood of Railway Postal Clerks to form the National Federation of Postal Employes (NFPE) in 1917. The Railway Mail Association affiliated with the AFL in late 1917, and, a few months later, NFPE members approved the transfer of the railway postal clerks to that organization. The NFPE reassumed the title NFPOC in 1919.

In 1889 representatives of KOL District Assembly 85 and the moribund International Association of Journeymen Plumbers, Steamfitters, and Gasfitters founded the United Association of Journeymen Plumbers, Gas Fitters, Steam Fitters, and Steam Fitters' Helpers of the United States and Canada. The Plumbers affiliated with the AFL in 1897. It changed its name to the United Association of Plumbers and Steam Fitters of the United States and Canada in 1913 and to the United Association of Journeymen Plumbers and Steam Fitters of the United States and Canada in 1921.

The Conductors' Union, organized in 1868, changed its name to the Conductors' Brotherhood at its first annual convention in 1869. In 1878 the union became the Order of Railway Conductors of America.

The American Railway Union was founded in early 1893. Its defeat in the Pullman strike in the summer of 1894 brought on its decline, and it disbanded in 1897.

Seamen and firemen established the International AmalgamatedSailors' and Firemen's Union, an AFL affiliate, in 1889. It dissolved in 1891 with the seamen founding the Atlantic Coast Seamen's Union (ACSU) and the firemen, the Watertenders', Pilers', and Firemen's Benevolent Association. The next year the ACSU joined with other seamen's organizations to form the National Seamen's Union of America.

In 1891 the Coast Seamen's Union and the Steamship Sailors' Union merged to form the Sailors' Union of thePacific (SUP). The following year the SUP became one of four regional sailors' unions within the newly organized National Seamen's Union of America.

The Atlantic Coast Seamen's Union (ACSU) was founded in 1891 and joined with other seamen's organizations in 1892 to form the National Seamen's Union of America (from 1895, the International Seamen's Union of America [ISUA]). The ACSU became the Sailors' Union of the Atlantic (SUA) about 1913. When the ISUA recalled its charter that year, the union changed its name to the Sailors' and Firemen's Union of the Atlantic and received a charter from the International Longshoremen's Association as local 859 (Transport Workers), but the new charter was recalled shortly thereafter on the protest of the ISUA.

The Lake Seamen's Benevolent Association of Chicago was organized in 1878 and in 1886 briefly affiliated with the KOL as Seamen's District Assembly 136. In 1892 it joined with seamen's unions from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts to form the National Seamen's Union of America , which changed its name to the International Seamen's Union of America in 1895.

The National Seamen's Union of America organized in 1892 as a federation of several regional sailors' unions including the Sailors' Union of the Pacific, the Lake Seamen's Union, the Gulf Coast Seamen's and Firemen's Union, and the Atlantic Coast Seamen's Union. The following year it affiliated with the AFL and in 1895 changed its name to the International Seamen's Union of America.

The Journeymen Tailors' National Union of the United States, composed of custom tailors, was organized in 1883 and chartered by the AFL in 1887. It changed its name in 1889 to the Journeymen Tailors' Union of America and in January 1914 to the Tailors' Industrial Union. It merged that year with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America but in 1915 seceded from the Clothing Workers and reassumed the name Journeymen Tailors' Union of America.

The National Union of Textile Workers of America was organized in 1891, affiliated with the AFL in 1896, and changed its name to the International Union of Textile Workers in 1900. The following year it merged with the American Federation of Textile Operatives and several AFL federal labor unions to form the United Textile Workers of America.

The International Shingle Weavers' Union of America was organized and affiliated with the AFL in 1903. In 1913 the union changed its name to the International Union of Shingle Weavers, Sawmill Workers, and Woodsmen, and in 1914 to the International Union of Timberworkers. The union reorganized under its original name in 1916, amalgamated with the International Union of Timber Workers in 1918, and disbanded in 1923.

The Tin, Sheet Iron, and Cornice Workers' International Association organized in 1888 and affiliated with the AFL the following year. Its charter was recalled in 1896. The union reorganized in 1897 as the Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers' International Association, which was chartered by the AFL in 1899. In 1903 it merged with the Sheet Metal Workers' National Alliance, a secessionist group that had broken away from the union in 1902, to form the AmalgamatedSheet Metal Workers' International Alliance. In 1907 the international amalgamated with the Coppersmiths' International Union and, in 1924, it absorbed the chandelier, brass, and metal workers and adopted the name Sheet Metal Workers' International Association.

In 1898 several team drivers' locals combined to form the Team Drivers' International Union, which received an AFL charter in 1899. Seceding Chicago locals organized the Teamsters' National Union in 1901, but in 1903 the two unions merged to form the International Brotherhood of  Teamsters. In 1910 it changed its name to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Stablemen, and Helpers.

William Z. Foster organized the Trade Union Educational League in November 1920 as an independent network of militant unionists dedicated to reorganizing the labor movement along industrial lines. The following year, after the Red International of Labor Unions (Profintern) endorsed the concept of "boring from within" existing trade unions, the League became the American section of the Red International and the instrument of Communist activity in the labor movement. In 1929 it was replaced by a new organization, the Trade Union Unity League.

The National Typographical Union was organized in 1852 by a group of locals that had held national conventions in 1850 and 1851 under the name Journeymen Printers of the United States. In 1869 it adopted the name International Typographical Union. Although Typographical Union members participated in forming the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in 1881 and in organizing the AFL in 1886, the union did not affiliate with the Federation until 1888.

The Women's Protective and Provident League was founded in 1874 to foster trade unionism among women. In 1889 the name was changed to the Women's Trade Union and Provident League and, in 1891, to the Women's Trade Union League.

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