Labor organizations have contributed significantly to the history of American social welfare.  The entries below describe various elements of the history of American labor, including the Knights of Labor, Mother Jones, and the labor priest Monsignor George Higgins.

  • AFL-CIOIn December of 1886, the same year the Knights of Labor was dealt its fatal blow at Haymarket Square, Samuel Gompers met with the leaders of other craft unions to form the American Federation of Labor. The A.F. of L. was a loose grouping of smaller craft unions, such as the masons' union, the hat makers' union and cigar makers' union. Samuel Gompers quickly learned that the issues that workers cared about most deeply were personal. They wanted higher wages and better working conditions. These "bread and butter" issues would always unite the labor class. Gompers was a committed capitalist and saw no need for a radical restructuring of America. By keeping it simple, unions could avoid the pitfalls that had weakened the National Labor Union and the Knights of Labor.
  • AFL-CIO & Community ServiceThe American trade union movement has always proclaimed that it does not wish to advance at the expense of other segments of the population, and a statement such as made by President Meany helps to counter chargers by labor's enemies that trade unions are interested only in themselves, their officers and members. With the realization of a merger, with the trade union movement representing a membership of 15,000,000 members, employers, newspapers, legislators, radio and television commentators will be ready and willing to point out any so-called misbehavior on the part of labor in maintaining and promoting its rights in the economic and legislative fields.
  • American Labor Party: 1936The present political conflict is not between two parties, nor between two sections of the country. The conflict is between two camps, which are opposed to each other and are fighting for a major stake that concerns us all, everywhere. On the one side are the nation's Tories, the reactionaries of all stripes and kinds, the manipulators of other people's labor, determined to hold on to their unjustly obtained privileges and advantages and seeking to extend them further. On the other side are the people of the United States, the overwhelming majority of the population of our great and rich country, demanding the right to work and live under standards of economic decency and security.
  • Higgins, Monsignor GeorgeHis early writing focused on the idea of “economic citizenship” which suggested that having a job was the pathway to having a voice. Fr. Higgins contended that labor unions were a necessary expression of economic citizenship as well as collective bargaining, and he often drew from Catholic Social Teaching documents, especially encyclicals Rerum Novarum and Populo et Progressio, to support his statements.
  • Jones, Mary Harris 'Mother' Norton, Virginia was the site of ‘Mother’ Jones’ first coalmine strike in 1891. She held her meeting on the highway since the Dietz mining company had threatened most of the establishments favorable for her assembly. Despite her efforts to avoid troubles, she ended up getting arrested anyhow. In her autobiography, Jones recalls that paying a related $25 fine may have saved her life. Many in the town believed there was a plot to place her in jail and secretly kill her if she had not paid the amount due.
  • Knights of LaborThe Union Pacific Railroad had cut wages, yet through the aggressive leadership of Joseph R. Buchanan the original wages were restored. Buchanan reproduced the success in a number of other railroad strike incidents, all of which became associated nationally with the Knights of Labor despite their mostly local nature. The Knights of Labor had an explicitly anti-strike mentality, but the local autonomy of assemblies had allowed their name to become known as a powerful and assertive group, including financially, which could create sensational successes in assertive worker action. This hyped image was reinforced when local Knights called for help in an effort against notorious and unscrupulous railroad financier Jay Gould.
  • National Women's Trade Union League Women working in factories often faced terrible working conditions and low wages. During the Progressive Era, working-class women, alone and in concert with middle-class women, fought to raise wages and improve working conditions. The National Women's Trade Union League of America (NWTUL) was established in Boston, MA in 1903, at the convention of the American Federation of Labor. It was organized as a coalition of working-class women, professional reformers, and women from wealthy and prominent families. Its purpose was to "assist in the organization of women wage workers into trade unions and thereby to help them secure conditions necessary for healthful and efficient work and to obtain a just reward for such work."