As a strong supporter and employee of the labor movement, the Samuel Gompers memorial in Samuel Gompers Memorial Park (on Massachusetts Ave, between 10th and 11th Streets NW) holds a sense of inspiration for me. The statue was sculpted by Robert Ingersoll Aitken in 1933 and was dedicated by then president Franklin D. Roosevelt (read the dedication speech.)

Samuel Gompers was the first president of the American Federation of Labor and is considered a father of the American labor movement. It was under Gomper’s leadership that the AFL secured an 8 hour workday for America’s workers and began seeking legislative protections by electing union members and supporters to political office, a practice which rooted labor’s long-standing relationship with the Democratic party.

I’ll end with an interesting tidbit: In the 1940s, thieves reportedly discovered that the base of the monument was hollow and used it as a hideout. Another tidbit: Samuel Gompers had 12 children.