Golden, Clinton S. (Clinton Strong), 1888-1961

Clinton Strong Golden was born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania on November 16, 1888. When his father died in 1900, Golden went to work in an iron mine and thus his formal education was ended. He apprenticed as a machinist, but later worked several years as a railroad fireman and became active in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Engineers. He was a full-time representative for the International Association of Machinists, 1919-1930. He served on the board of directors of Brookwood Labor College, 1919-1922, and as its field representative and business manager. He helped found the Conference for Progressive Labor Action to promote industrial unionization. Golden was an Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America organizer during 1933. He served as senior mediator with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry in 1934. In 1935 he was appointed as regional director for the National Labor Relations Board and prepared the unfair labor charge that culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court's historic Jones and Laughlin decision. He was appointed director of the important Northeastern region of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) in 1936. Clinton S. Golden was the only major SWOC leader who had not been affiliated with the United Mine Workers of America, but was close to SWOC chairman Philip A. Murray and directed SWOC during Murray's illness in 1941. At the founding convention of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) in 1942, he was influential in the creation of an international executive board of regionally elected members. Golden was elected by the convention as an assistant to the international president (later vice-president). He served as vice-chairman of both the War Production Board and the War Manpower Commission during World War II. Golden was one of the few labor intellectuals with real influence in the trade union movement. He believed that unions should play a greater role in socio-economic affairs and tried to persuade management and organized labor that unions should share responsibility for maximizing productivity and participate in the distribution of profits. In 1946 he resigned as USWA vice-president. He was named chief labor advisor to the U.S. Mission to Aid Greece in 1947 and served as a consultant on European labor to the Economic Cooperation Administration. He was appointed executive director of the Harvard University trade union program and continued to lecture at Harvard and at many labor education institutes until his retirement in 1959. Golden coauthored The Dynamics of Industrial Democracy (1942), and numerous articles. He died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 12, 1961.