Labor leader Samuel Gompers: 1904 ca.
The president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) is shown in a portrait photograph circa 1904.
Gompers began his union career in 1864 sympathetic to socialism and rose through the ranks of the cigar makers union to become its vice president.
As late as 1893 he wrote, “Why should the wealth of the country be stored in banks and elevators while the idle workman wanders homeless about the streets and the idle loafers who hoard the gold only to spend it on riotous living are rolling about in fine carriages from which they look out on peaceful meetings and call them riots?” according to Erik Larsen.
He helped found the predecessor organization to the American Federation of Labor in 1881 and in 1886 became president of the newly formed AFL.
He led the organization away from socialism and toward an accommodation with capitalism and largely defeated his socialist enemies within the AFL by 1895.
By this time the AFL had also largely supplanted the Knights of Labor, an organization during the late 1880s and early 1890s had vast membership and influence.
He was defeated as president of the AFL by populist mine workers leader John McBride, but regained the presidency the following year.
During World War I, he supported the war effort while the left wing of the labor movement including the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and most of the Socialist Party opposed it.
He was responsible for erecting the AFL building at 9th and Massachusetts Ave. NW that still stands today and has been incorporated into the Marriott hotel on the site.
Gompers brand of unionism emphasized skilled workers organized into craft unions. This philosophy would be challenged first by the IWW and later by the Congress of Industrial Organization that sought to organize workers on a broader scale.
Gompers was born January 27, 1850 and died December 13, 1924.
For more information and related images, see www.flickr.com/gp/washington_area_spark/946Q67
Photo by C. Frederiksen. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-102762 (b&w film copy neg.)
Labor leader Samuel Gompers: 1904 ca.
The president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) is shown in a portrait photograph circa 1904.
Gompers began his union career in 1864 sympathetic to socialism and rose through the ranks of the cigar makers union to become its vice president.
As late as 1893 he wrote, “Why should the wealth of the country be stored in banks and elevators while the idle workman wanders homeless about the streets and the idle loafers who hoard the gold only to spend it on riotous living are rolling about in fine carriages from which they look out on peaceful meetings and call them riots?” according to Erik Larsen.
He helped found the predecessor organization to the American Federation of Labor in 1881 and in 1886 became president of the newly formed AFL.
He led the organization away from socialism and toward an accommodation with capitalism and largely defeated his socialist enemies within the AFL by 1895.
By this time the AFL had also largely supplanted the Knights of Labor, an organization during the late 1880s and early 1890s had vast membership and influence.
He was defeated as president of the AFL by populist mine workers leader John McBride, but regained the presidency the following year.
During World War I, he supported the war effort while the left wing of the labor movement including the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and most of the Socialist Party opposed it.
He was responsible for erecting the AFL building at 9th and Massachusetts Ave. NW that still stands today and has been incorporated into the Marriott hotel on the site.
Gompers brand of unionism emphasized skilled workers organized into craft unions. This philosophy would be challenged first by the IWW and later by the Congress of Industrial Organization that sought to organize workers on a broader scale.
Gompers was born January 27, 1850 and died December 13, 1924.
For more information and related images, see www.flickr.com/gp/washington_area_spark/946Q67
Photo by C. Frederiksen. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-102762 (b&w film copy neg.)