Samuel Gompers

At the age of seventeen he married sixteen year old Sophia Julian who was his co-worker. His first child was born after a year. Although the couple had a number of children in quick succession, six of the infants survived.

His health started deteriorating from February 1923 after he was hospitalised with severe influenza. This was followed by various other ailments including bronchitis, diabetes, congestive heart failure and uraemia.

On December 6, 1924, he collapsed in the middle of a meeting of ‘Pan-American Federation of Labour’ in the Mexico City. As per his desire he was boarded on a special train to reach America.

Samuel Gompers was born on January 27, 1850, in London to Solomon and Sarah Gompers. His family was originally from Amsterdam and lived in England for a few years.

At the age of six he was enrolled in a Jewish Free school to receive basic elementary education. His school life was short-lived as at the age of ten he had to leave school to work and support his family. His first job was of an apprentice with a shoe maker. Thereafter he worked with his father in the latter’s cigar making business.

He joined night schools to continue his studies and took lessons on Hebrew. He learned Talmud, a process which he later recollected as similar to studying law.

In 1863, his family moved to the U.S. and settled in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in New York. As the family expanded to eleven members, he again started working as a cigar maker.

In New York, his father manufactured cigars at home and he helped his father for the first one and a half year in cigar making.

He formed a debate club along with his friends, which helped him gain practical experience in speaking in public and on parliamentary procedures. He met numerous high class young men of New York through the club including Peter J. McGuire a young Irish-American who later made immense contribution to the ‘American Federation of Labour’.

In 1864, he and his father joined an English speaking union of cigar makers, the ‘Cigarmaker’s Local Union No. 15’ in New York and became an active member.

In 1873 he joined ‘David Hirsch & Company’, a high class cigar maker shop operated by an émigré German socialist. He later considered this job change as one of the most significant changes of his life.

At ‘David Hirsch & Company’, he came across various German cigar makers. He was deeply interested about their ideas and was especially enthusiastic about the ideas of Karl Laurrell, former secretary of ‘International Workingmen's Association’.

A bronze monument by sculptor Robert Aitken was built in the ‘Gompers Square, Massachusetts Avenue, Washington D.C to honour him.

Local unions of Chicago contributed money and their time to build his life-size statue, the first of its kind of any labour leader in Chicago, which was unveiled on September 3, 2007.

A class of U.S. Navy destroyer tenders and a U.S. Navy support ship have been named after him.

A public housing development located at the Lower East Side of New York is named after him as the ‘Samuel Gompers Houses’.