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| The Samuel Gompers Papers, Volume 13
ISBN: 9780252094606
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / University of Illinois Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: Labor unions.; Labor movement.; BUSINESS & ECONOMICS; RELIGION; BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY; Labor movement; Labor unions;
Samuel Gompers (1850-1924) devoted his life to improving the conditions of American workers through better wages, shorter workdays, and safer workplaces, achieved through common effort, democratic organization, and practical action. His objective was betterment, or, as he often said, "more." His moral vision was grounded in a commitment to social justice and a passion for service. A cigar maker by trade, he became the American Federation of Labor's first president in 1886 and, except for one year, remained its president until his death, guiding it through prosperity and recession, war and peacetime. By the time Gompers died, the AFL was a major force on the national scene and had claimed over four million members. Gompers was a tireless writer and impassioned speaker, and he left behind an immense archive of articles and editorials, addresses and testimony before a variety of audiences, and extensive correspondence with allies and adversaries alike. His correspondents included trade unionists and political leaders, reformers and radicals, captains of industry defending their positions, and workers asking for help or advice. The twelve volumes of The Samuel Gompers Papers, edited by Stuart B. Kaufman, Peter J. Albert, and Grace Palladino, for the first time make Gompers' wide-ranging and complex documentary legacy accessible to scholars, students, historians, and serious readers in the labor movement and among the public at large. This invaluable comprehensive index provides a key to the Gompers volumes. It not only allows quick reference to individual documents but permits scholars to see at a glance the contours and emphases in subject matter and locate the substantive annotations of key individuals and unions, strikes and lockouts, conferences and meetings, and legislation and key concepts in the history of the Gompers era.
Samuel Gompers, January 26, 1850 - December 13, 1924 Samuel Gompers was born on january 26, 1924 in London, England. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker at the age of ten, but soon became a cigar maker when his family emigrated to New York in 1863. By 1885, Gompers was an expert cigar maker, and was hired by a large cigar shop. Gompers was highly respected by his fellow employees at the cigar shop, and they eventually elected him as President of the Cigar Makers Union Local 144. In 1881, Gompers was sent as a delegate to a conference of other unions. There the various unions created a confederation called the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Councils. Gompers became a sort of a leader for the Federation, but the union was weak and ineffective. The organization was reconstituted in 1886 as the American Federation of Labor with Gompers as the President. He held this position for 38 years, till the day he died. Four years after the reconstitution, the AFL represented 250,000 workers. In two more years, the number rose to over one million. At the conclusion of World War I, Gompers attended the Versailles Treaty negotiations, where he was instrumental in creating the International Labor Organization under the League of Nations. He supported trade unionism in Mexico and even attended the inauguration of Mexico's reform President Calles. He also attended the Congress of the Pan-American Federation of Labor. It was at this Congress where Gompers collapsed and was rushed to a San Antonio, Texas hospital where he died on December 13, 1924. (Bowker Author Biography) |
