Daily Quiz for February 7, 2009

Cigar making. Samuel Gompers, labor leader and first president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), apprenticed as a cigar maker in, London, where he was born January 27, 1850. At the age of 13, Gompers arrived in America, joined the Cigarmakers’ Union in 1864 and became the union’s president in 1877. In 1881 Gompers was among the founders of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the U.S. and Canada, which was reorganized as the American Federation of Labor in 1886. He served as president of the AFL every year from its inception (except 1895) until his death in 1924. As the acknowledged leader of America’s labor movement, Gompers stressed practical demands of hours and wages and opposed theorists and radicals.