page_title: Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen
section_title: Leading officials
hierarchical_section_title: Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen / Organizational history / Leading officials
caption_attribution_description: English: The wives of the B of LF organized the Fraternal Sisterhood and, though not members, played an important role in the operation of the Brotherhood. This photo was likely taken in the 1880s at an unknown location. It includes Sarah "Mother" Leach, wife of founder Joshua A. Leach. Also pictured is Mrs. Frank P. Sargent.
context_page_description: The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen was a North American railroad fraternal benefit society and trade union in the 19th and 20th centuries. The organization began in 1873 as the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, a mutual benefit society for workers employed as firemen for steam locomotives, before expanding its name in 1907 in acknowledgement that many of its members had been promoted to the job of railroad engineer. Gradually taking on the functions of a trade union over time, in 1969 the B of LF&E merged with three other railway labor organizations to form the United Transportation Union.
context_section_description: The pioneer head of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen during the decade of the 1870s was Frank W. Arnold (1851–1917). Arnold would be succeeded as Grand Master of the B of LF in 1885 by a man who would remain the iconic chief of the brotherhood for the rest of the 19th century, Frank P. Sargent. The New England-born Sargent remained the head official of the B of LF until 1902, when he was named Commissioner General of Immigration by Republican President Theodore Roosevelt.
  The eventuality of a Grand Master's incapacity to serve was provided for by the periodic election of a Vice Grand Master, nominally the second ranking officer of the organization. In practice, however, the number two functionary in the "Grand Lodge" of officers of the B of LF was the Grand Secretary and Treasurer—running the organization's office on a day-to-day basis and providing for the publication of the B of LF's monthly magazine.
  The first Grand Secretary and Treasurer was William Sayre of Galion, Ohio, who professed to be a staunch advocate of the theory that personal virtue and good character, economic efficiency and a stable and democratic republic were closely interrelated. While Sayre espoused these sacred values on a theoretical plain, in practice his behavior seems to have been rather more profane. In July 1880, a young locomotive fireman turned city clerk from Terre Haute, Indiana named Eugene V. Debs was elected as Grand Secretary and Treasurer of the B of LF. Upon gaining access to the books, Debs discovered that his predecessor had been embezzling funds from the organization. With the B of LF about $6,000 in debt, Debs stabilized the organization's shaky finances with a promissory note which he personally backed and began a new era of careful financial management. Two years later, the Brotherhood had recovered, with nearly $13,000 in the bank to the credit of the organization's 6,000 members.
  Debs was named editor of the Locomotive Firemen's Magazine in 1881 and he remained in that capacity and in the position of Grand Secretary and Treasurer until September 1894. While remaining supportive of the B of LF and its limited mission, over time Debs began to feel the insufficiency of a mere fraternal benefits to solve the fundamental problems facing locomotive firemen and other railway workers, which were often financial in nature and seemed to call for collective action.
  In 1893, Debs was instrumental in forming an industrial union bringing together railway workers of all occupational tasks, the American Railway Union (ARU). This organization conducted several strikes for higher wages and better working conditions before ultimately being broken by judicial injunction in the 1894 Pullman strike.
caption: The wives of the B of LF organized the Fraternal Sisterhood and—though not members—played an important role in the operation of the Brotherhood (this photo was likely taken in the 1880s at an unknown location and it includes Mrs. Frank P. Sargent as well as "Mother" Sarah Leach, wife of founder Joshua A. Leach
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