Eugene Victor Debs
| Eugene V. Debs | |
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Debs in 1897
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| Member of the Indiana Senate from the 8th district |
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In office 1885–1889 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
Eugene Victor Debs November 5, 1855 Terre Haute, Indiana, U.S. |
| Died | October 20, 1926 (aged 70) Elmhurst, Illinois, U.S. |
| Political party |
Democratic (1879–1894) Social Democracy (1897–1898) Social Democratic (1898–1901) Socialist (1901–1926) |
| Spouse(s) | Kate Metzel (m. 1885; his death 1926) |
| Profession | Fireman, grocer, trade unionist |
| Religion | Irreligious/Deist |
| Signature |  |
Eugene Victor "Gene" Debs (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies), and five times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States. Through his presidential candidacies, as well as his work with labor movements, Debs eventually became one of the best-known socialists living in the United States.
Early in his political career, Debs was a member of the Democratic Party. He was elected as a Democrat to the Indiana General Assembly in 1884. After working with several smaller unions, including the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, Debs was instrumental in the founding of the American Railway Union (ARU), one of the nation's first industrial unions. After workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company organized a wildcat strike over pay cuts in the summer of 1894, Debs signed many into the ARU. He called a boycott of the ARU against handling trains with Pullman cars, in what became the nationwide Pullman Strike, affecting most lines west of Detroit, and more than 250,000 workers in 27 states. To keep the mail running, President Grover Cleveland used the United States Army to break the strike. As a leader of the ARU, Debs was convicted of federal charges for defying a court injunction against the strike and served six months in prison.
In jail, Debs read various works of socialist theory and emerged six months later as a committed adherent of the international socialist movement. Debs was a founding member of the Social Democracy of America (1897), the Social Democratic Party of America (1898), and the Socialist Party of America (1901).
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