Frank Keys Foster

Who was Frank Keys Foster?

Frank Keys Foster was an early American labor leader.

Foster was born in Palmer, Massachusetts on December 19, 1854, the son of Charles Dwight and Jane Elizabeth Foster; married Lucretia Ella Ladd on May 22, 1880 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He grew up in Palmer and was educated in common schools and at Monson Academy. Between 1872 and 1876 he learned the printer's trade at the office of Churchman in Hartford, Connecticut. By 1878 he was working in Boston as a compositor and by 1882 as an editor. Foster took an active leadership role in the early formation of trade unions in the United States. He was a member and secretary of the Hartford Typographical Union; president of the Cambridge Typographical Union; a delegate to the Federation of Trades Convention; secretary of the Boston Central Trades and Labor Union; and secretary to the Knights of Labor. Foster, along with Samuel Gompers, helped to found the American Federation of Labor, was its first national secretary and president of the state chapter.

Foster helped to steer labor unions away from Socialist and Marxist philosophy and toward the Democratic Party.