(b Alton, Hants, 16 July 1875; d London, 26 March 1960). English architect and watercolourist. After studying engineering and architecture, he was articled to John Belcher. He then entered the Royal Academy schools in London and won the Bidlake Gold Medal and a travelling studentship. After extensive study tours of Spain and Italy developing his drawing skills, he returned to England in 1897. For a short period he was employed as draughtsman for The Builder before setting up his own practice in 1898. Initial commissions included a number of structures for power stations, for example Bristol Tramways Power Station (1898-9) and Chiswick (1904; destr.), which he designed in a classical style. He acquired a reputation for houses and contributed designs to Hampstead Garden Suburb (from 1905), Letchworth Garden City (from 1902) and municipal housing at Winchester (1919). In 1917 he became a partner in the firm of Dunn & Watson, and his work in the 1920s and 1930s was much concerned with large, mostly classically inspired office developments. He also designed a number of branches for Lloyds Bank and Barclays Bank (e.g. one in Piccadilly, London, 1922). His Wolseley House and showrooms (1921) for the Wolseley Motor Co. at 160 Piccadilly, London, won the first RIBA medal for street architecture in 1922. His largest project (1930) was the Dorchester Hotel, Park Lane, London, where he added coy Art Deco detail to the advanced reinforced-concrete structure designed by Owen Williams as well as radically altering the interior decoration. He was president of the Architectural Association (1913-14), vice-president of the RIBA (1923-4) and was elected a Royal Academician in 1933. An accomplished watercolourist, he exhibited repeatedly at the RA summer exhibitions and published collections of his drawings.

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William R. Green (1872-1952) was president of the American Federation of Labor during the stormiest period in United States labor history.

William Green was born on March 3, 1872, in Coshocton, Ohio, the son of English immigrants. He wanted to become a Baptist minister, but economic circumstances compelled him to enter the local mines. Soon the labor movement became his ministry.

Green rose gradually through the hierarchy of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). He passed from president of subdistrict 6 to president of the Ohio district union in 1906 and 5 years later to UMWA statistician. In 1913 Green was elected UMWA secretary-treasurer and later that year a vice president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). He served two terms (1911-1915) in the Ohio Senate, where he sponsored the Workmen's Compensation Act.

Green maintained excellent relations with the barons of the American labor movement but could not command the respect of more obdurate labor leaders. Basically accommodating, he proved unable to discipline quarrelsome union officials or to negotiate with strong antilabor employers.

When Samuel Gompers, the tough and resourceful president of the AFL, died in 1924, Green replaced him. Taking over the AFL at a time when it was declining, Green watched it sink even lower during the late 1920s and the Great Depression.

Although President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal promised labor great organizing opportunities, Green failed to command enough support within the AFL to launch a vigorous membership campaign. Devoted to the concept of the AFL as a harmonious family that could amicably settle its internal conflicts, he allowed the craft unionists, who dominated the executive council, to drive the industrial unionists out of the organization. Green thus became a party to the civil war between the AFL and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) that raged unabated from 1936 to 1941. Always loyal to his original union, the UMWA, in 1937 he was suspended from it because John L. Lewis, UMWA president, was leader of the CIO.

President of the AFL for 28 years, Green continually backed down under pressure from powerful craft union leaders. On Nov. 21, 1952, he died of a heart attack.

Further Reading

No adequate biography of Green exists. However, Irving Bernstein's The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920-1933 (1960) and Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933-1941 (1970) contain sympathetic and critical information about Green. Philip Taft, The A.F. of L. from the Death of Gompers to the Merger (1959), gives a dry, detailed history of the organization during Green's presidency. For the conflict with the CIO see Walter Galenson, The CIO Challenge to the AFL: A History of the American Labor Movement, 1935-1941 (1960).

Additional Sources

Phelan, Craig, William Green: biography of a labor leader, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989.

For more information on William Green, visit Britannica.com.

1872–1952, American labor leader, president of the American Federation of Labor (1924–1952), b. Coshocton, Ohio. He rose through the ranks of the United Mine Workers of America, of which organization he was (1912–24) secretary-treasurer. With backing from John L. Lewis, Green was elected president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) to succeed Samuel Gompers. He led the organization of skilled labor into craft unions and gradually built up AFL membership. After eight of the largest unions split away (1935) under the leadership of John L. Lewis and formed the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) to organize workers in industrial unions, Green led the AFL in the subsequent struggle with the CIO. He set forth his philosophy in Labor and Democracy (1939). Green was succeeded as president of the AFL by George Meany. See American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.

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