John Brophy, Voice of the Miners

John Brophy was tied to Nanty Glo, a small coal town in Cambria County. Born in England in eighteen eighty-three, he came to Pennsylvania's coalfields as a boy and spent decades underground before rising to lead District Two of the United Mine Workers of America, a post he held until his failed challenge to Lewis in nineteen twenty-six.

Brophy's Miner's Program was ahead of its time: he called for nationalization of the mines, among other changes. His ideas kept him in constant tension with John L. Lewis, the dominant force in the union. But Brophy outlasted the rivalry. By nineteen thirty-five he was a founding official of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the CIO, and spent the rest of his working life helping build one of the most consequential labor federations in American history.