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Birthday of Samuel Gompers (1850-1924)
January 27
Gompers began work as a boy of 10; his family emigrated to the United States when he was 13. At an early age he recognized the needs of workers and explored ways to meet those needs. He wrote, "Our mission has been the protection of the wage-worker, now; to increase his wages; to cut hours off the long workday, which was killing him; to improve the safety and the sanitary conditions of the workshop; to free him from the tyrannies, petty or otherwise, which served to make his existence a slavery."
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