Thomas J. Morgan

Thomas John "Tommy" Morgan, Jr. (1847 - 1912) was an English-born American labor leader and socialist political activist. Morgan is best remembered as one of the pioneer English-speaking Socialists in the city of Chicago and a frequent candidate for public office of the Socialist Party of America. Morgan was also one of the founders and leading figures of the United Labor Party, an Illinois political party which elected 7 of its members to the Illinois State Assembly and another to the Illinois State Senate in the election of 1886. He was married to Elizabeth Chambers Morgan.

Thomas John Morgan, known to his friends as "Tommy," was born in Birmingham, England on October 27, 1847. He was one of nine children born to Thomas John and Hannah Simcox Morgan. Thomas Senior, a former member of the Chartist movement, was a maker of nails, working long hours in an oftentimes futile effort to eke out a modest living.

As a boy Tommy Morgan attended a so-called "pauper's school" until the age of 9, at which time left school to take a job. Morgan worked as a nail maker, a printer, an iron molder, and a machinist, among other jobs, never managing to escape from poverty.

Morgan married the former Elizabeth Chambers in January 1868. The next year the pair decided to depart for a new life in the United States, settling in Chicago, Illinois.

In America Morgan went to work for the Illinois Central Railroad. He remained for 20 years with this company, working in the railroad car repair shops. In this occupational context Morgan joined the International Machinists and Blacksmiths of North America in 1871, in which he served as the president of his local in 1874.

The economic depression of 1873 hit Morgan hard, resulting in 15 months of unemployment. This systemic economic failure made a particular impact upon Morgan, causing him to turn to the ideas of socialism in his effort to understand the crisis. Morgan joined the Social Democratic Workingmen's Party of North America in 1876 and continued membership in its successor organization, the Workingmen's Party of the United States, which had changed its name to the Socialist Labor Party of America before the decade was out.

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