Charles Moyer

Charles H. "Charlie" Moyer (1866 – June 2, 1929) was an American labor leader and president of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) from 1902 to 1926. He led the union through the Colorado Labor Wars, was accused of murdering an ex-governor of the state of Idaho, and shot in the back during a bitter copper mine strike. He also was a leading force in founding the Industrial Workers of the World, although he later denounced the organization.

Little is known about Moyer prior to 1893. He was born near Ames, Iowa. Moyer's parents, William and Maria Drew Moyer, were natives of Pennsylvania who migrated to Indiana by 1852 and on to Iowa by 1860. Charles was the youngest of five brothers and two sisters who survived their mother who died at the age of thirty-nine-years-old in 1870. In 1870, one of the sisters, a sixteen-year-old, had assumed the task of housekeeping for the family and care of Charles who was a sickly infant and youth. He attended public school but left after the fourth grade.

Moyer headed West in 1872 and found work as a cowboy in Wyoming. He returned East in 1885 and settled in Chicago, Illinois. He committed robbery, and served a year in the Illinois State Penitentiary. After his release, Moyer became a miner at the Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota, and joined the Lead City Miners' Union. In 1893, the Lead City Miners' Union was one of several unions which formed the Western Federation of Miners.

Moyer was elected to the Executive Board of the WFM in 1900. After President Ed Boyce declined to run again in 1902, Moyer was elected his successor.

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