The Samuel Gompers Papers collects, annotates, and makes available primary sources of American labor history. Founded by Stuart Kaufman in 1974, the project has published two microfilm series of union records and eleven volumes of Gompers’ papers. The nation’s leading trade unionist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Samuel Gompers was president of the American Federation of Labor from 1886 until he died in 1924. “If there is any truth at all in democracy, if democracy has any real justification,” he said, “it is as thoroughly justified in our industrial life as it ever was in our political life.” The Gompers Papers website is a repository of documents, bibliographies, and research related to Samuel Gompers and US Labor History.
