Today’s Almanac-January 24, 2010
On January 25, 1890 the United Mine Workers (UMW) was founded in Columbus, Ohio from a merger of a remnant Knights of Labor assembly and the National Progressive Union of Miners. Mother Jones was a mid-wife to its birth. Although an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), the UMW was one of the first true industrial union organized across craft lines. That and its militancy in many a bloody labor war made it a bad fit. In 1935 John L. Lewis helped found the rival Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO.)