Scope and Content Note
The records of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) consist of letterpress books of the correspondence of Samuel Gompers and William Green, presidents of the organization, and by other officials including James Duncan, Gabriel Edmonston, Frank Keyes Foster, and John McBride. The collection is arranged, filed, and numbered as received. Volumes 251, 310, and 313 were not received by the Library. Each volume contains an index of correspondents.
The records span the years 1883-1925 and relate to the formation of local unions, meetings, charters, bylaws, ethics, publicity, arbitration, the political principles of the AFL, communism, socialism, the anthracite coal strikes of 1897 and 1902, fund-raising, boycotts, the United Mine Workers, the American Railway Union, the International Association of Machinists, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and the American Federationist, magazine of the AFL. Correspondents include Susan B. Anthony, Grover Cleveland, William Hugh Johnston, John L. Lewis, L. J. McGruder, P. J. McGuire, John Mitchell, John Morrison, Herman Robinson, Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), Daniel Joseph Tobin, Henry White, and Woodrow Wilson.