Who was Charles Kassel?

(Image showing leaders of the Central Trades and Labor Union preparing for their 50th anniversary "Golden Jubilee" celebration in 1937. Unfortunately, the elder Kassel did not live long enough to join his Business Manager, David Kreyling. The caption reads:  This committee of the Central Trades and Labor Union is laying plans for the organization’s golden anniversary this month. The St. Louis central labor body was chartered fifty years ago. Left to right, William M. Bryant, secretary of the Central Trades and Labor Union; Martin a Dillmon, Teamsters’ union: Della Cox, Bindery Women’s Union; David Kreyling, Cigarmakers’ Union and Joseph J. Hauser, Brewery Workers Union. Murphy and Hauser are former presidents of the Central Trades body.)

To commemorate the 129th Anniversary of the IBEW we profile Charles Kassel, Chairman of the Organizing Committee and sometime President of the St. Louis Central Trades and Labor Union, the man who facilitated the first AFL Federal Local Union charter of the IBEW.

Listeners can learn more about Kassel, his powerful Cigarmakers' Union, and the St. Louis Central Trades and Labor Union from Golden Jubilee Recollections, a historical summary penned in 1937 by CMIU Local 44 Business Manager and Central Trades President David Kreyling to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the coalition. Today that coalition is the St. Louis Labor Council, AFLCIO.

Supplemental information:
The Birmingham News, December 20, 1891, carries news of the Committee on Credentials unfavorable report on Delegate Henry Miller.

9th AFL Convention roster - Charles Kassel

Read more about Henry's first AFL Convention.

Charles Kassel's address on Workingman's Day in 1879.

Kassel's Obituary

A special thanks to Ben Blake from the George Meany Labor Archives at the University of Maryland.

This episode is dedicated to late IBEW organizer Duane Moore, and all the devoted men and women of the Trade Union Movement who work to, elevate the moral, intellectual and social conditions of workers, their families and dependents, in the interest of a higher standard of citizenship.

Happy 129th Anniversary IBEW!

Thank you!