Reuben George Soderstrom (March 10, 1888 – December 15, 1970) was an American leader of organized labor who served as President of the Illinois State Federation of Labor (ISFL) and Illinois AFL-CIO from 1930 to 1970. A key figure in Chicago and Illinois politics, he also played a pivotal role in American labor history by helping to define national labor policy after the formation of the AFL–CIO in 1955. Soderstrom advised and was courted by multiple U.S. presidents seeking his endorsement and the votes of the over 1.3 million laborers he represented. The longest-serving state federation chief in American labor history, he passed seminal labor legislation and increased his organization's membership five-fold, transforming it into one of the most powerful labor bodies in the United States.
Early life
Reuben Soderstrom was born on March 10, 1888, on a small farm west of Waverly, Minnesota. He was the second of six children born to John Frederick Soderstrom and Anna Gustafava Erikson, Swedish immigrants from Småland, and Jämtland, respectively. John, a free church preacher and cobbler by trade, attempted to become a farmer. He leveraged the family's assets in 1886 to purchase land, seed, and equipment. His efforts met with failure, and within ten years, the Soderstrom family was mired in debt.
In 1898, John sent ten-year-old Reuben to work for a blacksmith in neighboring Cokato, Minnesota, to pay the family's arrears. Two years later, Reuben traveled alone to the mining town of Streator, Illinois, in search of better wages. He labored on the trolley lines and in the glass factories, which proved formative experiences. "People often ask me what moved him, what things in his life made him choose to devote his life to the Labor Movement," his sister Olga later wrote. "He knew poverty, firsthand, he experienced child labor. He knew the loneliness of separation from his family at such an early age. These were his formative years, and they were not happy ones."
Eventually, Soderstrom earned enough money to move his parents and siblings to Streator. At 16, he became a printer's devil at the Streator Independent Times, where he came under the tutelage of John E. Williams, a columnist and an early leader of the labor movement in Illinois. He introduced Soderstrom to the works of many organized labor theorists, economists, and activists including John Mitchell, Richard Ely, and William U’Ren.
Soderstrom pursued a career as a union linotypist, apprenticing throughout the Midwest from St. Louis, Missouri, to Madison, Wisconsin, to Chicago, Illinois. He returned to Streator in 1909, establishing himself professionally, and marrying Jeanne Shaw on December 2, 1912. He also assumed full financial responsibility for his mother and sister after his father's death that year.
Political career
Soderstrom joined Streator ITU Local 328 and soon became a fixture in the city's labor movement. In 1910, he was elected to his Local's Executive Committee and was nominated as a delegate to the city's Trades and Labor Council. In 1912, he was elected President of both his Local and the Streator Trades and Labor Council. After retiring from the Presidency in 1920 he became the Labor Council's Reading Clerk, a position that he held until 1936.
In 1914, Soderstrom made his first run for public office, campaigning for Illinois State Representative as a member of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party. Although ultimately unsuccessful, Reuben was introduced to the state political scene. Four years later, he was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives as a member of the Republican Party. After a 1920 loss largely attributed to his opposition to Prohibition, Soderstrom reclaimed the office in 1922 and held it without interruption for 14 years.
Soderstrom soon earned a reputation as organized labor's strongest advocate in the Illinois House. He authored and shepherded a series of pro-labor bills through the legislature, including the Injunction Limitation Act (1925), the Anti-"Yellow Dog" Contract Act (1933), the One Day Rest in Seven Act (1935), and the Old Age Pension Act (1935). He increased education funding, and helped found the University of Illinois Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, known today as the Illinois School of Labor and Employment Relations. He also secured favorable amendments to the workmen's compensation, occupational disease, and pension laws.