Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers was the founding president of the American Federation of Labor, serving from 1886 until his death in 1924.
He shaped American labor organizing around "bread and butter" unionism—practical gains in wages, hours, and working conditions rather than radical political transformation.
His name appears in discussions of labor history and union strategy: Gompers believed in working within the capitalist system.
- laborStrenuous effort; also childbirth
- labor movementOrganized effort for worker rights
- unionJoining into one
- trade unionWorkers' collective for negotiations
- AFLHistoric football league
cigar · workers · strike · collective bargaining · collective action · wages · fair wages · federation · organizer · craft · hours · movement · immigrant · Gilded Age · socialist · president · skilled · trade
- labor historyAFL-CIO, workers, labor movement, CIO, laborers
- Labor Movementlabor leaders, union organizers, union leaders, labor activists, labor movement
- labor unionsunion dues, trade union, union membership, labor union, union shops
- Progressive EraTheodore Roosevelt, progressivism, Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, trust busting
Samuel GompersAndrew Carnegie
Scottish-American steel magnate
John D. Rockefeller · J.P. Morgan · strikebreakers · captains of industry · robber barons