Western Federation of Miners strike for 8-hour day - 1903
President Theodore Roosevelt creates the Department of Commerce and Labor. It was divided into two separate government departments ten years later - 1903
A national eight-month strike by the Sons of Vulcan, a union of iron forgers, ends in victory when employers agreed to a wage scale based on the price of iron bars?the first time employers recognized the union, the first union contract in the iron and steel industry, and what may be the first union contract of any kind in the United States - 1865
Abolitionist Frederick Douglass born into slavery near Easton, Md. - 1818
John L. Lewis, president of United Mine Workers of America and founding president of the CIO, born near Lucas, Iowa - 1880
Five hundred Japanese and 200 Mexican laborers unite to fight the labor contractor responsible for hiring at the American Beet Sugar Co. in Oxnard, Calif. They ultimately win higher wages and the right to shop at stores not owned by the company - 1903
Mary Harris ?Mother? Jones is arrested while leading a protest of conditions in West Virginia mines. She was 83 years old at the time - 1913
(The Autobiography of Mother Jones: Mary Harris Jones??Mother Jones??was the most dynamic woman ever to grace the American labor movement. Employers and politicians around the turn of the century called her ?the most dangerous woman in America? and rebellious working men and women loved her as they never loved anyone else.)