John Mitchell
President,
United Mine Workers of America
1870-1919
John Mitchell was born to
one of the many poor Irish families that had immigrated to Illinois to work
in the coal fields. His is a story of a man who rose from a boy laborer in the
mines to become the president of the United Mine Workers of America, from which
position he led the coal miners through one of the most significant strikes
and victories in the history of labor.
Orphaned at the age of
six, he soon entered the mines to help support his many siblings and step mother.
At the age of fifteen he joined the Knights of Labor, and in 1890 at the age
of nineteen, he joined the newly formed United Mine Workers of America.
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In the late nineteenth
century, labor unions were reinventing themselves to be more inclusive
of the changing work force, but his was not accomplished without considerable
internal friction. In southern Illinois where Mitchell did much of his
early organizing, the Irish population from which he had come was quite
resentful of the newest group of immigrants: the Germans, Poles and other
European peoples. One of Mitchell's great accomplishments as a labor leader
was to bridge language and cultural gaps and, with the help of local leaders
and the clergy, include these new workers in the U.M.W.A.
Mitchell became vice-president
of the union in 1897, and president in 1898 when the then-president left
the union to become President McKinley's Secretary of Labor. Under Mitchell's
leadership, the ranks of the union swelled from 34,000 to 300,000 members,
largely due to his efforts organizing the miners in the anthracite* fields
in that region was ended when President Theodore Roosevelt forced the
hostile mine owners and operators to come to the table with Mitchell and
the U.M.W.A. Mitchell acquired a favorable and long-lasting contract for
his workers that included such concessions from the mine operators as
the eight-hour day and a guaranteed minimum wage.
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In the years following Mitchell's
presidency, he would fall from favor largely as a result of his membership in
the National Civic Federation and his belief in this organization's principles.
These principles were based upon the organization's relatively conservative
program of "class collaboration" in which the benevolence of capital coupled
with a moderate union, was assumed to bring about a greater good for all. Despite
accusations of radicalism in his earlier days as union president, Mitchell always
sought a peaceful reconciliation to capital-labor disputes, and dedicated his
life to creating a strong and ethnically diverse labor union.
Mitchell made his home
in Spring Valley, Illinois.
*Anthracite is an extremely
hard and clean-burning coal, differing from the softer and less pure bituminous
coal found in other regions.
Sources:
Gluck, Elsie. John Mitchell.
New York: John Dya, 1929.
Madison, Charles A., American
Labor Leader: Personalities and Forces in the Labor Movement. New York:
Frederick Unger Publishing Co., 1962.
"Mitchell, John"
Biographical Dictionary of American Labor. ed. Gary M. Fink. Westport, CT,:
Greenwood Press, 1984.
