The Founding of the IBEW

(This material is excerpted from They Dared To Dream, published by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and prepared by the staff of the IBEW Journal.)

In 1890 St. Louis was the scene of a national exposition featuring electricity. Electrical workers from around the country traveled to wire the booths, displays and decorations. There, at the end of the day, the men would sit and talk about their working conditions. An hourly wage of 15 cents to 20 cents was considered good, and most made do with $8 a week in pay. Apprenticeship training was unheard of, and safety consisted of trial and error and hoping for the best. The men were ready for a change.

A meeting was called at Stolley’s Dance Hall, where several members of what was to be called Local 5221 of the American Federation of Labor met with AFL organizer Charles Cassel. Henry Miller, a St. Louis lineman, was elected president and J. T. Kelly, a wireman recently settled in St. Louis, vice president. But these men realized a single isolated local union could accomplish little without the weight of a national organization of electrical workers behind it. So they set out across the country to organize other locals, hoping to eventually bind them together.

Traveling in railroad boxcars, Henry Miller visited Evansville, Louisville, Indianapolis, Chicago and Milwaukee, organizing as he worked. Unions were organized in Toledo, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Philadelphia and Duluth. Other small organizations of linemen and wiremen in New York, Denver and on the West Coast were contacted.

A year later, in September of 1891, the call went out to all those newly organized locals to meet in St. Louis to pull this loose collection of locals into a national union. And on November 21, 10 men (pictured) met at what became the First Convention of the National Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. They met for a week and worked out a constitution, adopted procedures and designed a logo—the now-famous clenched fist holding lightening bolts. Miller was elected First Grand President And Kelly first Grand Secretary.