who was eugene debs

Eugene V. Debs was a prominent American labor leader, socialist activist, and five-time presidential candidate who helped shape early 20th-century labor and socialist movements in the United States. He was born November 5, 1855, in Terre Haute, Indiana, to immigrant parents, and he rose from railroad fireman and local union organizer to become the national secretary-treasurer of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and later the founder of the American Railway Union (ARU). Debs gained national prominence during the Pullman Strike of 1894, which led to his imprisonment after he and the ARU supported the strike against the Pullman Company. From prison, he became a leading figure of American socialism, helping to found and lead the Socialist Party of America and running for president five times between 1900 and 1920, including his famous 1920 campaign from prison. Debs’s advocacy emphasized industrial unionism, anti-war principles, and a vision of a more democratic and cooperative economy, and his influence extended to the broader labor and socialist movements in the United States. He died on October 20, 1926, in Elmhurst, Illinois.