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{{Short description|American labor union leader (1850–1924)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2021}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Samuel Gompers
| image = Samuel Gompers cph.3a02952.jpg
| caption = Gompers c. 1902
| birth_name = Samuel Gumpertz
| birth_date = {{birth date|1850|1|27|mf=y}}
| birth_place = [[Spitalfields]], London, England
| death_date = {{death date and age|1924|12|13|1850|1|27}}
| death_place = [[San Antonio]], [[Texas]], U.S.
| resting_place = [[Sleepy Hollow Cemetery]]
| spouse = {{unbulleted list|{{marriage|Sophia Julian|November 17, 1867|May 9, 1920|end=d}}|Gertrude Gleaves}}
| occupation = Labor leader, cigar maker
| image_size = 
| signature = Signature of Samuel Gompers.png
}}
'''Samuel Gompers''' ({{né|'''Gumpertz'''}}; January 27, 1850{{snd}}December 13, 1924)<ref name="ONS">{{Cite web|url=https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?cite=I285n7OJcuEYnZzqjFYHfA&scan=1|title=Index entry|access-date=16 June 2020|work=FreeBMD|publisher=ONS}}</ref> was a British-born American [[cigar maker]], [[trade union|labor union]] leader and a key figure in [[labor history of the United States|American labor history]]. Gompers founded the [[American Federation of Labor]] (AFL) and served as the organization's president from 1886 to 1894, and from 1895 until his death in 1924. He promoted harmony among the different [[craft union]]s that comprised the AFL, trying to minimize jurisdictional battles. He promoted thorough organization and collective bargaining in order to secure shorter hours and higher wages, which he considered the essential first steps to emancipating labor. 

He encouraged AFL member unions to take political action to "elect their friends" and "defeat their enemies". In politics he mostly supported Democrats, and occasionally local Republicans. He led the opposition to immigration from China.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Mann|first=Arthur|date=1953|title=Gompers and the Irony of Racism|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4609631|journal=The Antioch Review|volume=13|issue=2|pages=203–214|doi=10.2307/4609631| jstor=4609631 |issn=0003-5769}}</ref> During World War I, Gompers and the AFL energetically supported the war effort, attempting to avert strikes and boost morale while raising wage rates and expanding membership. He strongly opposed the antiwar labor groups, especially the [[Industrial Workers of the World]] (IWW).

==Early life==
Gompers was born Samuel Gumpertz on January 27, 1850, in [[Spitalfields]], a working-class area in the [[East End of London]] into a Jewish family that originally hailed from [[Amsterdam]].<ref>Samuel Gompers, ''Seventy Years of Life and Labor''. 1925; vol. 1, p. 2.</ref> He was the son of Sarah (Root) and Solomon Gumpertz, a cigar maker.<ref name="ONS"/><ref>{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tKxOpAh78IsC&q=Sarah+Rood+Solomon+Gompers&pg=PA166 |title = American Social Leaders and Activists|isbn = 9781438108087|last1 = Hamilton|first1 = Neil A.|date = 2014-05-14}}</ref> At age six, Samuel was sent to the [[JFS (school)|Jewish Free School]] to receive a basic education. His education there was brief, however, and a mere three months after his tenth birthday Gompers was sent to work as an apprentice cigar maker and earn money for his impoverished family.<ref>Gompers, ''Seventy Year of Life and Labor'', vol. 1, p. 6.</ref>

Gompers continued his studies in night school, learning [[Hebrew]] and studying the [[Talmud]] - a process that he later likened to studying law.<ref>Gompers, ''Seventy Years of Life and Labor'', vol. 1, pp. 6-7.</ref> While he appreciated [[Hebrew]] in his youth, he held [[Yiddish]] in low regard.<ref>In his posthumously-published memoirs, Gompers notes, "I was taught Hebrew -— not the mongrel language spoken and written by many Jews of the present age." See: Gompers, ''Seventy Years of Life and Labor'', vol. 1, p. 6.</ref>

==Young worker at the bench==

[[File:Gompers-Samuel-1894.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Gompers as he appeared in 1894]]

Owing to dire financial straits, the Gompers family immigrated to the United States in 1863, settling in the [[Lower East Side]] of [[Manhattan]] in New York City. Gompers' father manufactured cigars at home, assisted for the first year and half by Samuel.<ref>Gompers, ''Seventy Year of Life and Labor'', vol. 1, pp. 24, 35.</ref> In his free time, the young teenager formed a debate club with his friends, gaining practical experience in public speaking and parliamentary procedure.<ref name="Gompers1-28">Gompers, ''Seventy Year of Life and Labor'', vol. 1, p. 28.</ref> The club drew Gompers into contact with other upwardly mobile young men of the city, including young [[Irish-American]] [[Peter J. McGuire]], who would later play a large role in the [[American Federation of Labor|AFL]].<ref name="Gompers1-28" />

In 1864, at age 14, Gompers joined the [[Cigar Makers' International Union|Cigar Makers Local Union No. 15]], the English-speaking union of cigar makers in New York City.<ref>Gompers, ''Seventy Years of Life and Labor'', vol. 1, p. 38.</ref>  Gompers later recounted his days as a cigar maker at the bench in detail, emphasizing the place of [[artisan|craftsmanship]] in the production process:

{{quote|"Any kind of an old loft served as a cigar shop. If there were enough windows, we had sufficient light for our work; if not, it was apparently no concern of the management. ... Cigar shops were always dusty from the tobacco stems and powdered leaves. Benches and work tables were not designed to enable the workmen to adjust bodies and arms comfortably to [the] work surface. Each workman supplied his own cutting board of [[lignum vitae]] and knife blade.

The tobacco leaf was prepared by strippers who drew the leaves from the heavy stem and put them into pads of about fifty. The leaves had to be handled carefully to prevent tearing. The craftsmanship of the cigarmaker was shown in his ability to utilize wrappers to the best advantage to shave off the unusable to a hairbreadth, to roll so as to cover holes in the leaf and to use both hands so as to make a perfectly shaped and rolled product. These things a good cigarmaker learned to do more or less mechanically, which left us free to think, talk, listen, or sing. I loved the freedom of that work, for I had earned the mind-freedom that accompanied skill as a craftsman. I was eager to learn from discussion and reading or to pour out my feelings in song."<ref>Gompers, ''Seventy Years of Life and Labor'', vol. 1, pp. 44-45.</ref>}}

The day after his seventeenth birthday he married his co-worker, sixteen-year-old Sophia Julian.<ref>Gompers, ''Seventy Year of Life and Labor'', vol. 1, pp. 35-36.</ref> Together they had many children, but only six survived infancy.

In 1873, Gompers moved to the cigar maker [[David Hirsch & Company]], a "high-class shop where only the most skilled workmen were employed".<ref>Gompers, ''Seventy Year of Life and Labor'', vol. 1, p. 68.</ref> Gompers later called this change of employers "one of the most important changes in my life", for at Hirsch's—a union shop operated by an émigré German [[socialism|socialist]]—Gompers came into contact with an array of German-speaking cigar makers—"men of keener mentality and wider thought than any I had met before", he recalled.<ref>Gompers, ''Seventy Year of Life and Labor'', vol. 1, pp. 68-69.</ref> Gompers learned German and absorbed many of the ideas of his shop mates, developing a particular admiration for the ideas of the former secretary of the [[International Workingmen's Association]], [[Karl Laurrell]].<ref>Gompers, ''Seventy Year of Life and Labor'', vol. 1, p. 70.</ref> Laurrell took Gompers under his wing, challenging his more simplistic ideas and urging Gompers to put his faith in the organized economic movement of trade unionism rather than the socialist political movement.

Gompers later recalled:

{{quote|I remember asking Laurrell whether in his opinion I ought to keep in touch with the Socialist movement. He replied, 'Go to their meetings by all means, listen to what they have to say and understand them, but do not join the Party.' I never did, though it was my habit to attend their Saturday evening meetings. There were often good speakers present and the discussions were stimulating.

Time and again, under the lure of new ideas, I went to Laurrell with glowing enthusiasm. Laurrell would gently say, 'Study your union card, Sam, and if the idea doesn't square with that, it ain't true.' My trade union card came to be my standard in all new problems.<ref>Gompers, ''Seventy Year of Life and Labor'', vol. 1, pp. 74-75.</ref>}}

Gompers complained that the socialist movement had been captured by [[Ferdinand Lassalle|Lassallean]] advocates of "political party action" rather than the "militant economic program of Marx".<ref>Gompers, ''Seventy Year of Life and Labor'', vol. 1, p. 84.</ref> He warned delegates to the 1900 annual convention that when men became enthusiastic about socialism, "they usually lost interest in their union".<ref>Stuart Bruce Kaufman, Peter J. Albert and Grace Palladino, eds. ''The Samuel Gompers Papers'' (1996) vol 5 p 284</ref>

==Cigar Makers' International Union career==
{{more citations needed|section|date=January 2018}}<!--only one citation in here-->
Gompers was elected president of Cigar Makers' International Union Local 144 in 1875.

As was the case with other unions of the day, the Cigar Maker's Union nearly collapsed in the [[financial crisis]] of 1873-77, in which unemployment skyrocketed and ready availability of desperate workers willing to labor for subsistence wages put pressure upon the gains in wages and the shortening of hours achieved in union shops. Gompers and his friend [[Adolph Strasser]] used Local 144 as a base to rebuild the Cigar Makers' Union, introducing a high dues structure and implementing programs to pay out-of-work benefits, sick benefits, and death benefits for union members in good standing.

Gompers told the workers they needed to organize because wage reductions were almost a daily occurrence. He believed that the capitalists were only interested in profits, "and the time has come when we must assert our rights as workingmen. Every one present has the sad experience, that we are powerless in an isolated condition, while the capitalists are united; therefore, it is the duty of every Cigar Maker to join the organization". "One of the main objects of the organization", he concluded, "is the elevation of the lowest paid worker to the standard of the highest, and in time we may secure for every person in the trade an existence worthy of human beings."<ref>Mandel, ''Samuel Gompers: A Biography'', 1963, p. 22.</ref>

He was elected second vice president of the Cigar Makers' International Union in 1886 when he was 36 and first vice president in 1896. Despite the commitment of time and energy entailed by his place as head of the [[American Federation of Labor]], Gompers remained first vice president of the Cigar Makers until his death in December 1924.

==Leading the AFL==

Gompers helped found the [[Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions]] in 1881 as a coalition of like-minded unions. In 1886 it reorganized into the [[American Federation of Labor]], with Gompers as president. With the exception of the year 1895, he would remain president of the organization until his death.

[[File:Lafollette-and-gompers-240919.jpg|thumb|right|220px|Shortly before his death, Gompers ''(right)'' sat down with 1924 independent presidential hopeful, [[Robert M. La Follette]]]]

Under Gompers's tutelage, the AFL coalition gradually gained strength, undermining the position previously held by the [[Knights of Labor]], which as a result, had almost vanished by 1900. He was nearly jailed in 1911 for publishing, with [[John Mitchell (United Mine Workers)|John Mitchell]], a boycott list, but the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] overturned the sentence in ''[[Gompers v. Buck's Stove and Range Co.]]''.

===Immigration and foreign affairs===
Gompers, who had ties with the Cuban cigar workers in the U.S., called for American intervention in Cuba; he supported the resulting war with Spain in 1898. After the war, however, he joined the [[American Anti-Imperialist League|Anti-Imperialist League]] to oppose President [[William McKinley]]'s plan to annex the Philippines. Mandel (1963) argues that his anti-imperialism was based on opportunistic fears of threats to labor's status from low-paid offshore workers and was founded on a sense of racial superiority to the peoples of the Philippines.<ref>Mandel, ''Gompers'' pp 201-204</ref>

By the 1890s, Gompers was planning an international federation of labor, starting with the expansion of AFL affiliates in Canada, especially Ontario. He helped the Canadian [[Trades and Labour Congress of Canada|Trades and Labour Congress]] with money and organizers, and by 1902, the AFL dominated the Canadian union movement.<ref>Robert H. Babcock, ''Gompers in Canada: A Study in American Continentalism before the First World War'' (1974)</ref>

Gompers, like most labor leaders, opposed unrestricted immigration from Europe because of the fear that it might lower wages of domestic union workers. He strongly opposed all immigration from Asia because it lowered wages and, in his judgement, represented an alien culture that could not be assimilated easily into that of the U.S.<ref>Alexander Saxton, ''The indispensable enemy: Labor and the anti-Chinese movement in California'' (1971).</ref> Gompers bragged that  the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (FOTLU), later renamed the American Federation of Labor (AFL), "was the first national organization which demanded the exclusion of [[coolie]]s from the United States".<ref name="Arnesen2007">{{cite book|author=Eric Arnesen|title=Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working-class History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zEWsZ81Bd3YC&pg=PA241|year=2007|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-415-96826-3|pages=241–}}</ref>  He and the AFL strongly supported the [[Chinese Exclusion Act]] of 1882 that banned the immigration of Chinese, and published a pamphlet entitled "Some reasons for Chinese exclusion. Meat vs. Rice. American Manhood against Asiatic Coolieism. Which shall survive?" in 1901.<ref>{{cite book |title=From Canton Restaurant to Panda Express: A History of Chinese Food in the United States |first=Haiming |last=Liu |publisher = Rutgers UP |pages=37–38 |year=2015 |isbn=9780813574752}}</ref> The AFL was instrumental in passing immigration restriction laws from the 1890s to the 1920s, such as the 1921 [[Emergency Quota Act]] and the [[Immigration Act of 1924]] signed into law by President [[Calvin Coolidge]]. At least one study concludes that the link between the AFL and the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]] rested in large part on immigration issues, as the owners of large corporations wanted more immigration for cheaper labor and thus supported the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]].<ref>Mink, ''Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development: Union, Party, and State, 1875–1920'', 1986.</ref> Other scholars have seriously questioned this conclusion, arguing it oversimplifies the politics and unity of labor leaders and the major parties. As one reviewer argued in ''[[Journal of American History|The Journal of American History]]'', major Republican leaders, such as President [[William McKinley]] and [[United States Senate|Senator]] [[Mark Hanna]], made pro-labor statements, many unions supported their own independent labor parties (or the [[Socialist Party of America|Socialist Party]]), and unity within the AFL was never so extensive as claimed.<ref>Asher, "Review: Gwendolyn Mink, ''Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development: Union, Party, and State, 1875–1920,''" ''Journal of American History'', March 1988.</ref>

[[File:Wallace-Gompers.jpg|thumb|right|Gompers poses with American officers for a photograph in front of an Italian villa, 1918]]

During World War I Gompers was a strong supporter of the war effort. He was appointed by President [[Woodrow Wilson|Wilson]] to the Council of National Defense, where he chaired the Labor Advisory Board. He attended the [[Paris Peace Conference, 1919|Paris Peace Conference]] in 1919 as an official advisor on labor issues.<ref>Frank L. Grubbs, ''The Struggle for Labor Loyalty: Gompers, the A. F. of L., and the Pacifists, 1917–1920''. (1968).</ref> Despite his support for the war, he later supported amnesty for [[political prisoner]]s who were convicted under Wartime Emergency Acts.<ref name="Kennedy2000">{{Cite journal|last=Kennedy|first=Kathleen|date=January 2000|title=In the Shadow of Gompers: Lucy Robins and the Politics of Amnesty, 1918–1922|journal=Peace & Change|volume=25|issue=1|pages=28, 41|doi=10.1111/0149-0508.00140}}</ref> He worked with [[Lucy Robins Lang]], who became the executive secretary of the amnesty committee.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/29171054/abilene_daily_chronicle/|title=Free Disloyalists|date=9 October 1920|work=The Abilene Daily Chronicle|access-date=8 March 2019|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> Lang and Gompers also became friends.<ref name="Kennedy2000" />

===Philosophy===

During a severe period of national economic recession in the early 1890s, labor unrest was at its height. A volatile situation in Chicago in August 1893 caused the city's then mayor, [[Carter Harrison, Sr.|Carter Henry Harrison]], to warn that the preponderance of the unemployed would lead to riots that would "shake the country", unless Congress interceded. In late August 1893, Gompers addressed 25,000 unemployed workers who had massed on the shore of Lake Michigan. As reported in the ''Chicago Tribune'' on August 31, Gompers inveighed against the controllers of capital and the titans of industry and finance. "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?"<ref>Larson, Erik, "Devil In The White City, Crown Publishers, 2003, p. 315</ref> Workers were also consumers, he asserted, and cuts to their wages would hurt not only their personal well-being but the economy as a whole. "When workers' wages are reduced, they necessarily use less, consume less, because of their reduced purchasing power", he wrote. "Only those who ignorantly or grabbingly believe in their avarice that business can prosper with wage reductions have yet to learn the lesson of industrial life and progress."<ref>Gompers, Samuel. "Remarks of Mr. Gompers to Newspaper Men in His Office." April 4, 1923. Reel 118, The American Federation of Labor Records: The Samuel Gompers Era [1877–1937]. George Meany Memorial AFL-CIO Archive, Special Collections, Hornbake Library, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland.  September 14, 2015.</ref>

Gompers began his labor career familiar with, and sympathetic to, [[Georgism]]<ref name="University of Illinois Press">{{cite book|last1=Gompers|first1=Samuel|title=The Samuel Gompers Papers: The making of a union leader, 1850-86, Volume 1|date=1986|publisher=University of Illinois Press|pages=431–432|isbn=9780252011375|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W5ZapJXvCtgC|access-date=31 August 2014}}</ref> and the precepts of socialism,<ref>A Pictorial History of American Labor, William Cahn, 1972, page 139.</ref> but [[Labor federation competition in the United States#FOOTALU becomes the American Federation of Labor|gradually adopted a more conservative approach to labor relations]]. Labor Historian Melvyn Dubofsky has written, "By 1896 Gompers and the AFL were moving to make their peace with Capitalism and the American system ... Although the AFL had once preached the inevitability of class conflict and the need to abolish '[[wage slavery]]', it slowly and almost imperceptibly began to proclaim the virtues of class harmony and the possibilities of a more benevolent Capitalism."<ref>Melvyn Dubofsky, 'Big Bill' Haywood, 1987, page 17.</ref> For example, Alex Heron attributes the following quote to Gompers: "The greatest crime an employer can perpetrate on his employees is to fail to operate at a profit".<ref>Heron, Professor A (1954) ''Reasonable Goals In Industrial Relations'', Stanford University Press, https://books.google.com/books?id=rC6iAAAAIAAJ</ref> Gompers began to take a neutral stance in politics after the failure of the efforts to elect [[Henry George]] as mayor of New York, but Gompers remained a [[Single Tax]] Georgist later in life.<ref name="University of Illinois Press"/>

Gompers's philosophy of labor unions centered on economic ends for workers, such as higher wages, shorter hours, and safe working conditions so that they could enjoy an "American" standard of living—a decent home, decent food and clothing, and money enough to educate their children.<ref>Bernard Mandel, "Gompers and Business Unionism, 1873-90". ''Business History Review'' 28:3 (September 1954)</ref> He thought economic organization was the most direct way to achieve these improvements, but he did encourage union members to participate in politics and to vote with their economic interests in mind.

Gompers's trade union philosophy and his devotion to collective bargaining with business [[Labor federation competition in the United States#The AFL declines to support rival federations|proved to be too conservative]] for more radical leaders, such as [[Ed Boyce]], president of the [[Western Federation of Miners]] (WFM), and, later, WFM secretary-treasurer [[Bill Haywood]]. In 1905, Haywood and the WFM helped to establish the [[Industrial Workers of the World]] (IWW), whose members were known as Wobblies, with the goal of organizing the entire working class. The IWW's long-term goal was to supplant capitalism with a workers' commonwealth.<ref>Melvyn Dubofsky, ''[[We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World]]''. (2000)</ref> Nonetheless, when government abuses against the leaders of the WFM seemed too egregious, Gompers relented and [[Labor federation competition in the United States#Gompers lends support to WFM leaders|offered assistance]].<ref>Peter Carlson, ''Roughneck, The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood'', 1983, page 97.</ref>

Gompers and his AFL unions vigorously fought the IWW in the U.S. and in Latin America, viewing them as a disruptive dual union that tried harder to destroy capitalism than to help workers. He cooperated with widespread government arrests of union leaders for the IWW's militant opposition to the World War. He said, "the IWW's ... are exactly what the Bolsheviki are in Russia, and we have seen what the IWW Bolsheviki in Russia have done for the working people."<ref>Charles W. Toth, "Samuel Gompers, Communism, and the Pan American Federation of Labor", ''The Americas'' (1967): 273-278. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/980470 in JSTOR]</ref>

Gompers led the anti-Socialist faction inside the AFL, losing to Socialists only once, in 1894. He argued that socialists believed workers and unions could never co-exist with business interests and wanted to use the labor unions to advance their more radical political causes. By 1920 Gompers had largely marginalized Socialist influence to a few unions, notably coal miners and the needle trades.<ref>John H.M. Laslett, ''Labor and the left: a study of socialist and radical influences in the American labor movement, 1881–1924'' (1970)</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Daniel Bell|title=Marxian Socialism in the United States|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XXM5z8ja3XUC&pg=PA41|year=1996|publisher=Cornell University Press|pages=41–43, 63|isbn=0801483093}}</ref>

===Freemason===

Gompers was a leading [[Freemason]], reaching the 32º in the [[Scottish Rite]] Valley of Washington D.C. in 1906. In 1920 he wrote, "In my Masonic life, I have visited lodges in many lands, and I have learned that Freemasonry in many countries, particularly in Latin countries, is the principal means whereby freedom of conscience, of thought, and expression is preserved."<ref>{{cite book|title=The Masonic Year|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2F40AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA59|year=1921|publisher=Masonic History Company|pages=58–59}}</ref>

==Death and legacy==
[[File:TIMEMagazine1Oct1923.jpg|thumb|right|''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' cover, October 1, 1923]]
[[File:Samuel Gompers Gravesite.JPG|thumb|Gompers' grave site]]

Gompers' health went into serious decline starting in February 1923, when a serious bout of [[influenza]] sent him to the hospital, sidelining him from work for six weeks.<ref name=SGP12-xx>Peter J. Albert and Grace Palladino, "Introduction" to ''The Samuel Gompers Papers: Volume 12: The Last Years, 1922–24''. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010; p. xx.</ref> No sooner had he recovered from the influenza, than he was stricken by a case of [[bronchitis]] that laid him low again.<ref name=SGP12-xx /> By June 1924 Gompers, who suffered from [[diabetes]], could no longer walk without assistance, and he was hospitalized again, this time suffering from [[heart failure|congestive heart failure]] and [[uremia]].<ref name=SGP12-xx /> 

He collapsed in Mexico City on Saturday, December 6, 1924, while attending a meeting of the [[Pan-American Federation of Labor]]. It was recognized that his condition was critical and that he might not survive for long. Gompers expressed the desire to die on American soil and he was placed aboard a special train that sped toward the border.<ref>"End Comes On Home Soil", Associated Press, December 14, 1924.</ref> He died in [[San Antonio]], Texas. Gompers was buried at the [[Sleepy Hollow Cemetery]] in [[Sleepy Hollow, New York]]. Gompers is buried only a few yards away from industrialist [[Andrew Carnegie]], another important figure of industry in the [[Gilded Age]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://sleepyhollowcemetery.org/wpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/sleepy-hollow-cemetery-map.pdf|title=Sleepy Hollow Cemetery Map|year=2009|publisher=Sleepy Hollow Cemetery Historic Fund|access-date=19 April 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110209080936/http://sleepyhollowcemetery.org/wpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/sleepy-hollow-cemetery-map.pdf|archive-date=9 February 2011}}</ref> 

Gompers inspired later generations of labor leaders, such as [[George Meany]], who paid tribute to Gompers as a European immigrant who pioneered a distinctly American brand of unionism.<ref>June 18, 1961, entry in ''Journals of David E. Lilienthal'', 1971.</ref> [[Reuben G. Soderstrom|Reuben Soderstrom]], President of the Illinois State Federation of Labor and the Illinois AFL-CIO from 1930 to 1970, cited his 1923 encounter with Gompers as particularly formative. Gompers chided Soderstrom after the latter expressed frustration with the slow pace of progress being made in a local strike, telling him "Young man, you know you can climb the highest mountain if you've got the patience to do it one step at a time." Reuben never forgot those words, stating decades later "that philosophy had a lot to do with guiding the activities I've been engaged in."<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://www.fortygavels.com|title=Forty Gavels: The Life of Reuben Soderstrom and the Illinois AFL-CIO|last1=Soderstrom|first1=Robert|last2=Soderstrom|first2=Carl|last3=Stevens|first3=Chris|last4=Burt|first4=Andrew|publisher=CWS Publishing|year=2018|isbn=9780998257532|volume=1|location=Peoria, Illinois|pages=174}}</ref>   
[[File:1527 New Hampshire Avenue, NW.JPG|thumb|During the early 1920s, Gompers resided in this [[Dupont Circle]] home in Washington, D.C.]]

His belief led to the development of procedures for [[collective bargaining]] and contracts between labor and management that remain in use today. In practice, AFL unions were important in industrial cities, where they formed a central labor office to coordinate the actions of different AFL unions. Issues of wages and hours were the usual causes of strikes, but many strikes were assertions of jurisdiction, so that the plumbers, for example, used strikes to ensure that all major construction projects in the city used union plumbers. In this goal they were ideally supported by all the other construction unions in the AFL fold.<ref>Philip Taft, ''The A.F. of L. in the Time of Gompers'' (1957);  Mandel (1954)</ref>

Gompers is the subject of statuary in several major American cities. A [[Samuel Gompers Memorial|bronze monument honoring Gompers]] by the sculptor [[Robert Ingersoll Aitken|Robert Aitken]] is in Gompers Square on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C. On September 3, 2007, a life-size statue of Gompers was unveiled at Gompers Park, named after the labor leader in 1929, on the northwest side of [[Chicago]]. This is the first statue of a labor leader in Chicago. Local unions throughout Chicago donated their time and money to build the monument.<ref>"Samuel Gompers Statue Unveiled", press release, Office of Ald. [[Margaret Laurino]], City of Chicago, September 3, 2007.</ref> A [[USS Samuel Gompers (AD-37)|U.S. Navy destroyer tender]] was named for Gompers. The [[Samuel Gompers Houses]], a public housing development on the [[Lower East Side]] of New York, is named in his honor.<ref name="nychapage">{{cite web|url=http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/html/developments/mangompersamuel.shtml|title=Gompers, Samuel Houses|work=NYCHA Housing Developments|publisher=New York City Housing Authority|access-date=January 16, 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091022095208/http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/html/developments/mangompersamuel.shtml|archive-date=October 22, 2009}}</ref><ref name="namesnycha">{{cite web|url=http://home.nyc.gov/html/nycha/html/about/nycha70_name.shtml|title=What's in a Name|work=About NYCHA|publisher=New York City Housing Authority|access-date=January 16, 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100519130728/http://home.nyc.gov/html/nycha/html/about/nycha70_name.shtml|archive-date=May 19, 2010}}</ref> There are schools named for Gompers in [[Philadelphia]], [[Madison, Wisconsin]], [[San Diego]], [[Phoenix, Arizona]] and [[The Bronx, New York]], a school in [[Chicago]] renamed to Jesse Owens Community Elementary, and a school in [[Detroit]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://webgui.phila.k12.pa.us/schools/g/gompers|title=Samuel Gompers – The School District of Philadelphia|website=webgui.phila.k12.pa.us|access-date=2017-05-05}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://gompers.madison.k12.wi.us/|title=Welcome to the Gompers Elementary School Site {{!}} Samuel Gompers Elementary School|website=gompers.madison.k12.wi.us|language=en|access-date=2017-05-05}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web | url=http://gompers.org/aboutus/history/| title=History – Organizational beginnings
| website=gompers.org | publisher=Gompers (school in Phoenix)
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170424232116/http://gompers.org/aboutus/history/
| archive-date=2017-04-24 | url-status=dead
}}</ref>

On 27 January 1950, the centennial of Gompers’ birth, the U. S. Post Office Department issued a 3¢ commemorative postage stamp in the Famous Americans series with his picture.<ref>''Fleetwood's Standard First Day Cover Catalog''. Cheyenne, WY: Fleetwood Publications, 1979. p. 230</ref> Gompers enjoyed listening to the services of the Episcopal [[National Cathedral]] which memorialized him on a stained glass window.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VrcIlziYI8EC&dq=%22samuel+gompers%22+%22national+cathedral%22&pg=RA2-PA33 | title=The Cathedral Age | year=1925 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j1R9AAAAMAAJ&q=%22samuel+gompers%22+%22national+cathedral%22 | title=Carpenter | last1=McGuire | first1=Peter James | last2=Duffy | first2=Frank | year=1962 }}</ref>

[[File:Samuel Gompers Memorial.JPG|thumb|Samuel Gompers Memorial near Eleventh and [[Massachusetts Avenue (Washington, D.C.)|Massachusetts Avenue]], [[Northwest, Washington, D.C.|NW]] in Washington, D.C.]]

==Works==
* ''Seventy Years of Life and Labor: An Autobiography''. In two volumes. New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., 1925. [https://archive.org/details/nby_459377 vol 2 online]; [https://archive.org/details/seventyyearsofli0000gomp vol1-2 online]
* ''Samuel Gompers Papers''. Stuart Bruce Kaufman, Peter J. Albert, and Grace Palladino (eds.) In twelve volumes. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989–2010.

===Other books and pamphlets===
* ''Address of Samuel Gompers, Before the Arbitration Conference, Held at Chicago, Ill. Dec. 17, 1900, Under the Auspices of the National Civic Federation''. Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, 1901.
* {{cite book |last1=Gompers |first1=Samuel |author-link1=Samuel Gompers |last2=Gutstadt |first2=Herman |date=1902 |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/002701816 |title=Meat vs. rice; American manhhod against Asiatic coolieism, which shall survive? |publisher=American Federation of Labor printed as Senate document 137 (1902); reprinted with intro. and appendices by Asiatic Exclusion League, 1908 |website=HathiTrust Digital Library }}
* ''Organized Labor: Its Struggles, Its Enemies and Fool Friends''.  Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, n.d. [1904].
* ''Essence of Labor's Contention on the Injunction Abuse''. Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, 1908.
* ''Speech Delivered October 13, 1908, at Dayton, Ohio''. Denver: Carson-Harper, n.d. [1908].
* ''Justice Wright's Denial of Free Speech and Free Press''. Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, 1909.
* [https://archive.org/details/laborineuropean00gompgoog ''Labor in Europe and America: Personal Observations from an American Viewpoint of Life and Conditions of Working Men in Great Britain, France, Holland, Germany, Italy, ... [etc.&#93;''.] New York: Harper Brothers, 1910.
* ''The McNamara Case; Also, an Appeal for Funds to Secure a Fair and Impartial Trial''. n.c. [Washington, D.C.]: McNamara Ways and Means Committee, n.d. [1911].
* [https://archive.org/details/investigationta00gompgoog ''Investigation of Taylor System of Shop Management: Hearings before...''] Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1911.
* ''The American Labor Movement: Its Makeup, Achievements and Aspirations''. Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, n.d. [1914].
* ''The Attitude of the American Federation of Labor toward Industrial Education''. New York: C.S. Nathan, n.d. [1914].
* ''The Essence of the Clayton Law''. Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, n.d. [1914].
* [https://archive.org/details/doubleedgeoflabo00hilliala ''The Double Edge of Labor's Sword: Discussion and Testimony on socialism and Trade-Unionism before the Commission on Industrial Relations'']. With [[Morris Hillquit]] and [[Max S. Hayes]]. Chicago: Socialist Party National Office, 1914.
* ''Labor and Antitrust Legislation: The Facts, Theory and Argument: A Brief and Appeal''. Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, 1914.
* ''The Workers and the Eight-Hour Workday; And, the Shorter Workday: Its Philosophy''. Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, n.d. [1915].
* [https://archive.org/details/preparednessforn00gomp ''Preparedness for National Defense: An Address Delivered before the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the National Civic Federation on January 18, 1916, at Washington...''] Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1916.
* ''America's Fight for the Preservation of Democracy: An Address Delivered by Samuel Gompers at Minneapolis, Minn.: And the Declaration of Principles''. n.c. [Washington, D.C.]: American Alliance for Labor and Democracy, 1917.
* ''Address by Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor: Under the Auspices of the National Security League at Chicago, September 14, 1917''. New York: National Security League, 1917.
* [https://archive.org/details/shouldpoliticall00gompiala ''Should a Political Labor Party be Formed? An address by Samuel Gompers... to a labor conference held at New York city, December 9, 1918'']. Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, 1918.
* ''Labour and the War: Speeches Delivered in the Canadian House of Commons, April 26, 1918, and Before the Canadian Club, Ottawa, April 27, 1918''. Ottawa: [government publication], 1918.
* [https://archive.org/details/americanlaboran00gompgoog ''American Labor and the War'']. New York: G. H. Doran, 1919.
* [https://archive.org/details/cu31924069587388 ''Labor and the Common Welfare'']. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1919.
* ''Labor and the Employer''. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1920.
* ''Collective Bargaining: Labor's Proposal to Insure Greater Industrial Peace: With Questions and Answers Explaining the Principle''. Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, 1920.
* [https://archive.org/details/debatebetweensam00gomprich ''Debate between Samuel Gompers and Henry J. Allen at Carnegie Hall, New York, May 28, 1920'']. With Harry Justin Allen. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1920.
* [Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, ''The Eight-Hour Workday: Its Inauguration, Enforcement, and Influences'']. Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, n.d. [1920].
* ''Labor's Protest against a Rampant Tragedy''. Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, 1920.
* ''Samuel Gompers on the Kansas Court of Industrial Relations Law: "Laws to make strikes unlawful will not prevent them."'' Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, 1920.
* ''Letters to a Bishop: Correspondence between Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, and Bishop William A. Quayle, of the Methodist Episcopal Church''. Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, 1920.
* ''The Union Shop and Its Antithesis''. Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, 1920.
* ''The Truth about Soviet Russia and Bolshevism''. Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, n.d. [1920].
* [https://archive.org/details/outtheirownmout00wallgoog ''Out of Their Own Mouths: A Revelation and an Indictment of Sovietism'']. With [[William English Walling]]. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1921.
* ''The Fundamental Issues: Present Industrial Controversies an Expression of Vital Conflict between Industry and Finance''. New York: New York Times, 1922.
* ''Correspondence between Mr. Newton D. Baker, President of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce and Mr. Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor''. With [[Newton D. Baker]]. Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, 1923.
* ''Address of Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor: Before the Convention of the United Hatters of North America, New York City, April 16, 1923''. Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, n.d. [1923].

===Articles===
* "The Limitations of Conciliation and Arbitration", ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'', vol. 20 (July 1902), pp.&nbsp;29–34. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1009960 in JSTOR]
* "Organized Labor's Attitude toward Child Labor", ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'', vol. 27 (March 1906), pp.&nbsp;79–83. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1010793 in JSTOR]
* "Attitude of Labor towards Government Regulation of Industry", ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'', vol. 32 (July 1908), pp.&nbsp;75–81. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1011047 in JSTOR]
* "Free Speech and the Injunction Order", ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'', vol. 36, no. 2 (September 1910), pp.&nbsp;1–10. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1011701 in JSTOR]
* "European War Influences upon American Industry and Labor", ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'', vol. 61, (September 1915), pp.&nbsp;4–10. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1012991 in JSTOR]
* "Labor Standards after the War", ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'', vol. 81 (January 1919), pp.&nbsp;182–186. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1014433 in JSTOR]
* "The Development and Accessibility of Production Records Essential to Intelligent and Just Determination of Wage-Rates", ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'', vol. 100 (March 1922), pp.&nbsp;54–55. [http://ann.sagepub.com/content/100/1/54.short in JSTOR]


{{Portal|Organized labour}}

==Footnotes==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==

* [[Robert H. Babcock|Babcock, Robert H.]], ''Gompers in Canada: A Study in American Continentalism before the First World War''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974.
* Bernstein, Irving, ''The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920–1933''. 1960.
* Bernstein, Irving, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1897918 "Samuel Gompers and Free Silver, 1896"]. ''Mississippi Valley Historical Review'', vol, 29, no. 3 (December 1942).
* Buhle, Paul, ''Taking Care of Business:  Samuel Gompers, George Meany, Lane Kirkland, and the Tragedy of American Labor''. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1999. [https://archive.org/details/takingcareofbusi0000buhl online]
* Currarino, Rosanne, "The Politics of 'More': The Labor Question and the Idea of Economic Liberty in Industrial America". ''Journal of American History''. 93:1 (June 2006). [Please remove this after checking. Changed the publication year 2003->2006 Link: http://archive.oah.org/issues/issues/931/index.html the first article. IK].
* Foner, Philip S. ''History of the Labor Movement in the United States''. In 10 volumes. New York: International Publishers, 1947–1991.
* Greene, Julie. ''Pure and Simple Politics: The American Federation of Labor and Political Activism, 1881–1917''. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
* Grubbs, Jr. Frank L. ''The Struggle for Labor Loyalty: Gompers, the A. F. of L., and the Pacifists, 1917–1920''. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1968.
* Livesay, Harold C. ''Samuel Gompers and Organized Labor in America''. Boston: Addison-Wesley , 1987. [https://archive.org/details/samuelgompersorg0000live_z2l0 online]; short scholarly summary
* Laslett, John H.M. "Samuel Gompers and the Rise of American Business Unionism." in ''Labor Leaders in America'' (1987): 62-88. [https://archive.org/details/laborleadersinam00grap_0 online]

* Mandel, Bernard, ''Samuel Gompers: A Biography''. New York: Penguin Group, 1963. [https://archive.org/details/samuelgompersbio0000mand/page/n13/mode/2up online]; a major scholarly biography
* Mandel, Bernard, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3111574 "Gompers and Business Unionism, 1873–1890"]. ''Business History Review''. 28:3 (September 1954).
* Mandel, Bernard, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2715447 "Samuel Gompers and the Negro Workers, 1886–1914"]. ''Journal of Negro History''. vol. 40, no. 1 (January 1955).
* Mink, Gwendolyn, ''Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development: Union, Party, and State, 1875–1920''. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1986.
* Montgomery, David, ''The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865–1925''. New York: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1987.
* Reed, Louis, ''The Labor Philosophy of Samuel Gompers''. Columbia University Press, 1930.
* Taft, Philip, ''The A.F. of L. in the Time of Gompers''. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957. [https://archive.org/details/afoflintimeofgom0000taft online]
* Van Tine, Warren R., ''The Making of the Labor Bureaucrat: Union Leadership in the United States, 1870–1920''. 1973.
* Whittaker, William George, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3637623  "Samuel Gompers, Anti-Imperialist"]. ''Pacific Historical Review''. vol. 38, no. 4 (November 1969).

==Primary sources==
*Gompers, Samuel. ''Seventy Years of Life and Labor'' (1925, 1985 reprint); [https://archive.org/details/nby_459377 online]
*Gompers, Samuel. ''The Samuel Gompers Papers'' edited by Stuart B. Kaufman, Peter J. Albert, and Grace Palladino. (University of Illinois Press, 1986–2013). The  definitive edition of all important letters to and from Gompers. Published in 12 volumes; index in vol 13. [https://archive.org/search.php?query=title%3A%28Gompers%20PAPERS%29 partly online]. Also note The index is [http://www.history.umd.edu/Gompers/index.htm online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120923035719/http://www.history.umd.edu/Gompers/index.htm |date=September 23, 2012 }}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Samuel Gompers}}
{{Wikiquote|Samuel Gompers}}
{{wikisource author}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Samuel Gompers}}
* [http://www.history.umd.edu/Gompers/index.htm The Samuel Gompers Papers Project website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120923035719/http://www.history.umd.edu/Gompers/index.htm |date=September 23, 2012 }}, University of Maryland, College Park.—Includes index to published volumes of Gompers' papers.
* Samuel Gompers, [https://www.marxists.org/subject/mayday/articles/gompers.html Eight Hours], 1925
* Samuel Gompers, [http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/S?ammem/nfor:@field(SOURCE+@od1(Gompers,+Samuel,+1850-1924)) "Labor's Service to Freedom"]. 1918 audio recording, Library of Congress, American Memory Project.
* [https://archives.lib.umd.edu/repositories/2/resources/1370 ''Samuel Gompers Papers'' Project collection], at the [[University of Maryland Libraries|University of Maryland libraries]].

{{S-start}}
{{Succession box
| title  = [[American Federation of Labor|AF of L]] President
| before = Created
| years  = 1886–1894
| after  = [[John McBride (labor leader)|John McBride]]
}}
{{Succession box
| title  = [[American Federation of Labor|AF of L]] President
| before = [[John McBride (labor leader)|John McBride]]
| years  = 1895–1924
| after  = [[William Green (labor leader)|William Green]]
}}
{{S-ach}}
{{S-bef|before=[[J.&nbsp;P. Morgan Jr.]]}}
{{S-ttl|title=[[List of People on the Cover of Time Magazine: 1920s|Cover of ''Time'']]
| years = 1 October 1923}}
{{S-aft|after=[[H. H. Asquith]]}}
{{S-end}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gompers, Samuel}}
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