From the mid-1880s until the early 1920s Samuel Gompers dominated organized labor in America. As the longtime president of the American Federation of Labor (AF of L), he played a major role in creating the first enduring national labor organization, an achievement even more remarkable given the considerable challenges facing such efforts during that era. In this short overview of his life and times Harold Livesay credits Gompers's success in his efforts to his pragmatic approach to the problem, one that, unlike those of many of his contemporaries, sought to create a labor movement that conformed to contemporary society rather than seeking to remake it according to a utopian ideal.

As Livesay explains, Gompers came to this conclusion after years as a laborer and union activist. Born in London, he learned the trade of cigar making before emigrating to the United States with his family. As a member of the cigar makers union, Gompers flirted with socialism but was steered away from it by Karl Laurrell, a former Marxist whose cynicism about the movement rubbed off on his young protégé. Nevertheless, Gompers advocated a more inclusive vision of unionism then he would pursue later in his career, encouraging unions to accept workers of all skill levels as well as women and African Americans into their ranks.

What limited Gompers's advancement of these views was his belief in local control. At a time when many labor organizers pursued the chimera of a nationwide union of laborers, Gompers preferred to create a national association of local unions. A firm believer in the "federation" in the AF of L's name, he accepted their autonomy as necessary for their flexibility of action in response to their particular circumstances. While this contributed to the AF of L's success, it came at the price of limiting their scope mainly to craft-dominated trades, where workers were less endangered by industrialization than their counterparts in industries where automation led to the replacement of highly skilled craftsmen with unskilled laborers. Because he did not threaten the ability of manufacturers to control their labor force, Gompers was tolerated by the leaders of the new industrial order, with the benefits brought by unions restricted to a skilled minority of the American workforce.

Livesay describes the events of Gompers life in a narrative rich with analytical insights. A business historian rather than a specialist in labor history, his situation of Gompers's activities within the context of the broader currents of the Gilded Age American economy is a particular strength of his book, one that helps to explain both his subject's achievements and the limitations he faced. Though the work is dated and marred by a few errors, this book nonetheless remains a first-rate introduction to the famous labor leader, one whose life reveals the possibilities and constraints American workers faced during a transformative era in their nation's history.

For a biography of a 19th century union leader, I'm finding this to be a surprisingly relevant book. Take this passage, for example:

In other ways Gompers exhibited the enduring American faith in mobility. His whole program of economic improvement aimed at elevating the living conditions of American workers to the point where they enjoyed the same amenities as the country's middle class. He believed too in upward mobility from generation to generation: "Children of employees should be kept from factories, workhouses, and mines." This would enable them to stay in school, and, through education, "our children should be superior to the present generation." He tried to follow this policy within his own family. "[We] wanted our children to have opportunities denied us, and sent the to school as long as we could."

This faith in mobility is being sorely tested today to be sure, yet what struck me is Gompers' evident passion to have his children avoid following his path into industry. It may be an exaggeration, but it seems different nowadays, with the idea of wanting children to do better replaced by the idea of industrial laborers wanting their children to follow them into the factories and mines. When did that change? Was it when the first goal was achieved and those workers attained middle-class status after World War II? The 1960s, when parents resented the choices their children made? Or was it even more recently than that? I feel as though there was a divergence here that could shed some light on many of the political and social issues we face today, only I can't quite pinpoint where it was.

This is the first of my labor history reads for Labor Day, and even though it's a short book I'm already learning a lot from it. What I've found most interesting so far is Livesay's explanation of the role Ferdinand Laurrell played in Gompers' intellectual development. I didn't know that Gompers, the orthodox/conservative labor leader, had flirted with socialism. Laurrell was the reason why I didn't know this, as he steered Gompers away from that early on. It shed some light on a question that I've long grappled with: what makes one person a zealous ideologue and another a cautious pragmatist? Are the differences about how people are "wired" from the start or is it about a key point in their lives when they adopt the blinders of belief or season everything with skepticism? Livesay doesn't address, let alone answer, this for me, but his description of Gompers's course does give me further food for thought.