UI Press | Samuel Gompers | The Samuel Gompers Papers, Vol. 1: The Making of a Union Leader, 1850-86

The Samuel Gompers Papers, Vol. 1

The Making of a Union Leader, 1850-86

Samuel Gompers (1850-1924) was president of the American Federation of Labor for almost four decades and an active leader in the labor movement for more than five. This complex and enormously energetic man has belied easy characterizations of him from friend and foe alike. But none denies his influence upon the watershed period of the American labor movement.

Drawn from more than a half-million pages of documents, The Gompers Papers explore not only Gompers himself, but also the interplay of ideology and self-interest, power and personality, that marked his era. The series offers rich, multilevel perspective on the formative years of the modern labor movement, as well as on the Populist and Progressive era of American social history. Together these volumes reveal the ethnic, racial, and ideological tensions of a democratic society in the midst of revolutionary technological change.

"This collection belongs on the shelf of anyone teaching American labor history, but it also should prove useful to scholars with related interests."--Illinois Historical Journal

Stuart B. Kaufman is a member of the history faculty at the University of Maryland, the sponsoring institution of The Samuel Gompers Papers, and author of Samuel Gompers and the Origins of the American Federation of Labor, 1848-1896. Peter J. Albert, a member of the history faculty at the University of Maryland, is co-editor of the series Perspectives of the American Revolution; Elizabeth Fones-Wolf has published a number of articles in the field of labor history; Dolores Janiewski, a member of the history faculty at the University of Idaho, is the author of Sisterhood Denied: Race, Gender, and Class in a New South Community; David E. Carl is a member of the history faculty at Pace University in New York City. Grace Palladino and Dorothee Schneider are members of the history faculty at the University of Maryland.