Philip Murray (1886-1952), American labor leader, helped organize America's mass-production workers into industrial unions through the establishment of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Philip Murray, John L. Lewis, Sidney Hillman, and David Dubinsky built the American labor movement as it now functions. During the Great Depression and the New Deal of the 1930s, they brought trade unionism out of the doldrums and, through the creation of industrial unions, into a position of power whereby labor influenced big business and national politics.

Murray was born on May 25, 1886, in Lanarkshire, Scotland, to Irish immigrant parents. His father was a coal miner active in the Scottish trade union movement. When Philip entered the mines at the age of 10, he was already a novice trade unionist knowledgable about strikes. In 1902 the Murray family emigrated to America. They settled in the western Pennsylvania mining district of Westmoreland County, where they had relatives.

Early...