Germer, Adolph

Organizer for the United Mine Workers and later, the CIO.

From the description of Oral history interview with Adolph Germer, 1960. (Wayne State University, Archives of Labor & Urban). WorldCat record id: 32321347

Mr. Germer was born in Welan, Germany In 1881 and came to the United States in 1888. His father was a miner, and Adolph went to work in the coal mines of Staunton, Illinois, when he was eleven years old. He joined the United Mine Workers of America in 1894 and held various offices; among them the United Mine Workers representative to the World Miners Congress in Amsterdam in 1912. He participated in the Colorado strike in 1913.

He joined the Socialist Party in 1900, and was its national secretary from 1916 to 1919. He was arrested, tried and convicted of subversion in the famous trial of 1918. With Eugene V. Debs and Victor L. Berger he wrote the Socialist Party report on the West Virginia Coal Strike in 1913.

In 1933 he joined the Oil Field, Gas Well and Refinery Workers and became an international organizer He participated in the formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and was on its staff as an organizer. He was its delegate to the World Federation of Trade Unions meeting in Prague in 1947.

From the guide to the Adolph Germer. Papers, 1945-1947., (Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Martin P. Catherwood Library, Cornell University.)