James Duncan

Background

James Duncan was born on May 5, 1857 in Kincardine County, Scotland. He was the son of David and Mary (Forbes) Duncan.

Education

Duncan seems to have received very little formal education.

Career

After serving an apprenticeship as a granite cutter, Duncan came to the United States at the age of twenty- three years. Almost immediately he became interested in the labor movement. In July 1881 he joined the New York local of the Granite Cutters’ National Union, now called the Granite Cutters’ International Association. He was a delegate to the British Trade Union Conference in 1898.

Later he moved to Baltimore and was elected secretary of the Baltimore local in 1885. The following year he attended the convention at Columbus, Ohio, at which the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in the United States and Canada (1881 - 86) was dissolved and the American Federation of Labor formed. For half a century he was a friend and associate of Samuel Gompers and of others who were active in building up the type of unionism which the American Federation of Labor represents.

Six years later, he became the first vice-president, which office he held until the time of his death. He attended every convention of the Federation from 1886 to 1927, in the latter year, being unable to attend the Annual Convention because of illness. He also represented labor in several important private and official missions. He was a delegate to the British Trade Union Conference in 1898; in 1911 he represented the American Federation of Labor at the International Secretariat in Budapest; in 1913, he was a member of a United States Commission to study workman’s compensation; in 1917, envoy extraordinary of the United States Government on the diplomatic mission to Russia, known as the Root Mission; and, in 1919, a member of the American Labor Mission to the Peace Conference in Paris.

Achievements

• Duncan served as second vice-president of the American Federation of Labor.

Personality

Duncan was a man who possessed a more indomitable will, a higher conception of truth, righteousness and justice, and it was because he possessed those qualities to such an unusual degree that he made such a great success in the organized labor movement.

Duncan possessed the excellent qualities of courage, persistency, and love for fellow workers. For more than a year preceding his death, he was ill and inactive, having failed to regain strength after a serious operation.

Connections

In January 1887 Duncan married Lillian M. Holman of Baltimore.

Father:

David Duncan

Mother:

Mary (Forbes) Duncan

Spouse:

Lillian M. Holman