page_title: Reuben G. Soderstrom
section_title: Presidency
hierarchical_section_title: Reuben G. Soderstrom / Presidency
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Reuben Soderstrom, circa 1930
context_page_description: Reuben George Soderstrom was an American leader of organized labor who served as President of the Illinois State Federation of Labor and Illinois AFL-CIO from 1930 to 1970. A key figure in Chicago and Illinois politics, he also played a pivotal role in American labor history by helping to define national labor policy after the fornation of the AFL–CIO in 1955. Soderstrom advised and was courted by multiple U.S. presidents seeking his endorsement and the votes of the over 1.3 million laborers he represented. The longest-serving state federation chief in American labor history, he passed seminal labor legislation and grew his organization's membership five-fold and transforming it into one of the most powerful labor bodies in the United States.
caption: Portrait of Reuben Soderstrom, circa 1930
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "2500", "Image ImageLength": "3760", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 (Macintosh)", "Image DateTime": "2017:08:17 09:03:09", "Image ExifOffset": "236", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "386", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3219", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2500", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3760"}