Garretson, Austin Bruce (1856-1931), was born in Winterset, Iowa, and in 1884 joined Order of Railway Conductors of America 53 of Denison, Tex. He served the order as grand senior conductor (1887-88, 1891-99), assistant grand chief conductor (1888-89, 1899-1906), grand chief conductor (1906-7), and president (1907-19). From 1912 through 1915 he served on the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations.

Germer, Adolph F. (1881-1966), was born in Germany, immigrated to the United States in 1888, and began working as a miner in Illinois at the age of eleven. He served as vice-president (1907) and secretary-treasurer (1908-12) of the Belleville subdistrict of United Mine Workers of America District 12 (Illinois) and then as an organizer for the international union (1913-14). Germer was national secretary (1916-19) and national organizer of the Socialist Party of America, and in 1919 he was convicted under the Espionage Act for obstructing the draft during World War I. He was sentenced to twenty years in prison, but in 1921 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction. Germer later worked in the California oil fields as an organizer for the Oil Field, Gas Well, and Refinery Workers' Union (1923-25), edited the Rockford (Ill.) Labor News (1931-35?), and was active in the Committee for Industrial Organization and the CIO (1935-55).

Lennon, John Brown (1850-1923), was born in Wisconsin, raised in Hannibal, Mo., and moved to Denver in 1869 where he helped organize both a local tailors' union and the Denver Trades Assembly. He later moved to New York City and then to Bloomington, Ill. He served the Tailors (from 1883, the Journeymen Tailors' National Union of the United States; and from 1889, the Journeymen Tailors' Union of America) as president (1884-85), as a member of the executive board (1885-87), and as secretary and editor of the union's official journal (1887-1910). He was treasurer of the AFL from 1891 to 1917 and served on the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations (1913-15) and the Board of Mediators of the U.S. Department of Labor (1917).

McDonald, Duncan (b. 1873), was born in Ohio and later moved to Illinois. He began working at the age of eleven and in 1898 joined the United Mine Workers of America. McDonald served on the executive board of United Mine Workers District 12 (Illinois; 1904-8), on the executive board of the United Mine Workers (1908-9), as president (1909-10) and secretary-treasurer (1910-17) of District 12, and as president (1919-20) of the Illinois State Federation of Labor. He was active for many years as a socialist in Illinois and, from 1914 to 1920, in the cooperative movement. He served on the executive committee of the National Labor party (from 1920, the Farmer-Labor party), and from 1925 until at least 1935 he ran an art and book store in Springfield, Ill.

O'Connell, James (1858-1936), born in Minersville, Pa., learned his trade as a machinist's apprentice and worked as a railroad machinist. He served as a lobbyist for the KOL in Harrisburg, Pa., in 1889 and 1891. Joining National Association of Machinists 113 of Oil City, Pa., around 1890, he became a member of the Machinists' executive board in 1891 and later served the Machinists (from 1901, the International Association of Machinists) as grand master machinist (1893-99) and president (1899-1911). He moved to Chicago in 1896. O'Connell served as an AFL vice-president (1896-1918) and president of the AFL Metal Trades Department (1911-34). He was also a member of the National Civic Federation executive committee (1901, 1903-10) and Industrial Department (1901-2), the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations (1913-15), and the Committee on Labor of the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense (1917).

O'Sullivan, Michael, a member of Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers' International Alliance 12 of Pittsburgh and an organizer for the international union, served as president of the Sheet Metal Workers (1905-13) and as vice-president of the AFL Building Trades Department (1908-13).

Starr, Ellen Gates (1859-1940) was a founder of Hull House in 1889 and the Chicago Women's Trade Union League in 1904. The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America recognized her support of its 1915 strike in Chicago by making her an honorary member of the union for life. In 1916 she ran unsuccessfully for city alderman on the ticket of the Social Party of America.

Trautmann, William Ernest (b. 1869), born in New Zealand, was apparently expelled from Germany under the antisocialist laws and immigrated to the United States in 1892. Settling in Springfield, Mass., he became a member of National Union of the United Brewery Workmen of the United States (NUUBW) 99 and was elected editor of the NUUBW journal, the Brauer-Zeitung, in 1900; he held the position until 1905. He moved to Cincinnati in 1900 and there was active in the Socialist Party of America (SPA) and served as an SPA national committeeman. In 1905 he was a cofounder of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and served as IWW secretary-treasurer (1905-8) and general organizer (1908-12). In 1913 he joined a rival Detroit-based IWW associated with Daniel DeLeon, serving as organizer in 1914

Walsh, Francis Patrick (1864-1939), a Kansas City, Mo., attorney, was chairman of the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations (1913-15) and of the Committee on Industrial Relations (1915-18). He served on the Kansas City Tenement Commission (1906-8), as attorney for the Kansas City Board of Public Welfare (1908-14), and as president of the Kansas City Board of Civil Service (1911-13), and in 1918 was cochairman, with former President William Howard Taft, of the National War Labor Board.

Organizations

The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America was organized in New York City in December 1914 by a seceding faction of the United Garment Workers of America.

The National Civic Federation was organized in 1900 to "provide for a thorough discussion of questions of national import affecting either the foreign or domestic policy of the United States, to aid in the crystallization of the most enlightened public sentiment thereto, and, when desirable, to promote necessary legislation in accordance therewith," as its constitution stated. Initially, the NCF focused on the mediation of industrial disputes, but it gradually expanded its activities, creating a broad range of departments to deal with matters including trade agreements, industrial economics, industrial welfare, women, workmen's compensation, and social insurance.