Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers (born January 27, 1850 in London , † December 13, 1924 in San Antonio , Texas ) was an American union leader .
Live and act
At the age of 13, Gompers immigrated to the United States as the son of a poor Jewish family. The family came from the Netherlands , but Samuel Gompers was born in London , attended a Jewish school there and became a cigar curler. In 1864 he joined the Cigar Wrappers Union in New York City . Because of his powerful voice, he was made a reader and came into contact with socialist writings, including those of Karl Marx , Friedrich Engels and Ferdinand Lassalle .
The Swedish socialist Laurell, who saw trade unions as the independent representation of workers 'interests, soon shaped Gompers' understanding of trade union work. Although Gompers remained a socialist, he did not believe that an assertive socialist party would emerge in the USA. That is why he emphasized the political neutrality of the trade unions.
Gompers soon rose to chair his union. In 1886, at his instigation, the American Federation of Labor was formed , one of the first trade union federations in the USA. Gompers was elected president and held the post until shortly before his death, with the exception of one year.
From 1877 Gompers pushed ahead with the reorganization of his cigar wrapping union. It was structured hierarchically, the coffers replenished with higher contributions and made into an organization that reached beyond New York and as far as Canada . Many American unions took up this model shortly afterwards.
Samuel Gompers was a staunch opponent of unlimited immigration because of the wage-lowering effects of immigration. As a result, Gompers, like his American Federation of Labor, were among the most ardent supporters of legal immigration restrictions and the main driving force behind the (restrictive) immigration laws passed at the beginning of the 20th century, such as the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924 . With his essay Meat Vs. Rice. American Manhood against Coolieism from 1901, he is considered a prominent representative of the anti-Chinese movement in the United States.
literature
- John F. Oppenheimer (Red.) And a .: Lexicon of Judaism. 2nd Edition. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh u. a. 1971, ISBN 3-570-05964-2 , col. 252.
- Gompers, Samuel . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 12 : Gichtel - harmonium . London 1910, p. 230 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
Web links
- Newspaper article about Samuel Gompers in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ^ A b A. T. Lane: American Trade Unions, Mass Immigration and the Literacy Test: 1900-1917 . In: Labor History , Winter 1984, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 5-25
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gompers, Samuel |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American trade unionist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 27, 1850 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 13, 1924 |
| Place of death | San Antonio , Texas |