Famous Labor Leaders Flashcards
American journalist who wrote, “Fight Like Hell”
Kim Kelly
Kim was born into a working class, union family.
Wrote, “No Shortcuts”
Jane McAlevey
(1926-1993) Mexican-American folk hero and symbol of hope who organized a union of farm workers.
César Estrada Chávez
(1902-1986) A Methodist minister, and labor union activist, and AFL-CIO leader who helped create Social Security and Medicare.
Nelson Hale Cruikshank
Cruikshank was the director of the Department of Social Security at the ALF-CIO
Apostle of industrial unionism who helped found the American Railway Union (1894), the Socialist Party of America (1901) and the Industrial Workers of the World (1905).
Eugene Victor Debs
(1928 – 2023) An American trade union leader who served as Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations from 1979 to 1995. He was considered one of the most influential leaders of the post-World War II American trade union movement.
Thomas Reilly Donahue
Legal strategist for the union movement and former secretary of labor, Supreme Court justice and ambassador to the United Nations.
Arthur Joseph Goldberg
First and longest-serving president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
Samuel Gompers
Former AFL president who moved the federation toward “social reform unionism.”
William Green
Songwriter, itinerant laborer, union organizer—and martyr.
Joe Hill
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America founder who invented trade unionism as we know it today.
Sidney Hillman
“The most dangerous woman in America.”
Mother Jones
AFL-CIO president from 1979 to 1995 who had a profound effect on world affairs.
Lane Kirkland
(1880 - 1969) President of the Mine Workers (UMWA) and founding president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).
John L. Lewis
Grew up in a mining family in Iowa. Lewis’ family was RLDS.
Social reformer dedicated to workers’ rights and racial justice.
Lucy Randolph Mason
(1852-1906) The “father” of Labor Day and May Day who championed the need for a national labor federation.
Peter J. McGuire
The builder of the modern AFL-CIO.
George Meany
CIO president who helped transform the industrial union movement into a stable and powerful organization.
Philip Murray
Committed labor secretary and first woman in a presidential Cabinet position.
Frances Perkins
Eloquent and effective advocate for the rights of workers, women and consumers. Born in Provo, Utah in 1906.
Esther Eggertsen Peterson
Organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and fought discrimination in national defense.
A. Philip Randolph
Longtime president of the UAW and was considered the model of a reform-minded, liberal trade unionist.
Walter Reuther
Brilliant theorist, tactician and organizer and first head of the A. Philip Randolph Institute.
Bayard Rustin
“Freedom is never granted: It is won. Justice is never given: It is exacted. Freedom and justice must be struggled for by the oppressed of all lands and races.”
A. Philip Randolph
