The Samuel Gompers Papers

University of Maryland

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Microfilm Edition: Samuel Gompers and the American Federation of Labor

http://www.gompers.umd.edu/micro.htm

Project Web Site: https://history.umd.edu/research/projects-archives/samuel-gompers-papers

Samuel Gompers (1850 –1924) founded the American Federation of Labor and served as its president for nearly forty years, between 1886 and 1924, and the nation's leading trade unionist and labor spokesman. A cigar maker by trade, an intellectual by nature, and a skilled organizer and administrator by vocation, Gompers dedicated his life to the working class. He was an advocate of shorter hours, higher wages, safe and sanitary working conditions, and collective bargaining with employers. And he believed that strong, well-financed trade unions would humanize industry, protect workers' interests, and in the process, create opportunities for workers to educate themselves and claim a larger role in industrial society. The project published two microfilm series of union records, twelve volumes of Gompers' papers, and a cumulative index. 

Complete in 12 volumes