The life of Jacob Frank Friedrick suggests the typical Horatio Alger story: the poor
immigrant boy with limited education grows up to become an important labor, civic, and
educational leader in his community and state. Jacob was born to Frank and Barbara (Wolf)
Friedrick in Perjanios, Hungary (now Periam, Rumania), on January 31, 1892. His family
immigrated to the United States and in 1904 he joined them in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There,
he finished only the eighth grade and then spent a year and a half learning the machinist's
trade at what became the Boys' Technical High School. Though this was the end of his formal
schooling, he continued to read widely throughout his life, concentrating especially on
economics. This interest was bolstered by later friendships with John R. Commons, Selig
Perlman, and Edwin E. Witte, professors of economics at the University of Wisconsin.
After completing his machinist's apprenticeship in 1909, Friedrick worked in Omaha,
Nebraska, and Indianapolis, Indiana, before returning to Milwaukee where he joined his first
labor union, Lodge 66 of the International Association of Machinists (AFL). Almost
immediately he became an active unionist. He was elected president of his local in 1917 and
1918 and most sources credit him with bringing about the first reduced work week in the
Milwaukee metal trades--from 55 to 44 hours. His activities also brought him troubles. The
day following the end of World War I, he was fired for his participation in a one-day
walkout in a successful effort to make an employer abide by the overtime rules of the War
Labor Conference Board. The next year, Friedrick was again fired because his name was
published in a list of union delegates to a Chicago protest meeting in behalf of Tom Mooney,
a militant unionist who was jailed because of his alleged part in a 1916 San Francisco
bombing. Friedrick persisted in his union activities however, becoming business
representative of Machinists District Lodge 10, Milwaukee, a position he held until
1929.
At the same time, Friedrick became prominent in other activities related to unions and
labor welfare. In 1920, he helped to establish the Milwaukee Labor College, a night school
for workers which was the forerunner of the University of Wisconsin School for Workers at
Madison, established in 1925. He also worked with John R. Commons in preparing an
unemployment compensation bill which was introduced in the 1921 Wisconsin legislature. Not
passed until 1931, this was still the first law of its kind in the nation. Friedrick was
appointed to the first Industrial Commission Advisory Committee on Unemployment
Compensation, a post he held until the mid-1960s.
Having joined the Socialist Party in 1918, Friedrick quit his job with Machinists District
Lodge 10 in 1929 and joined the Milwaukee
Ledger, the Socialist Party newspaper in Milwaukee. He was employed there as labor
and city hall reporter until 1935 when he left both the newspaper and the Party. He joined
the Farmer-Labor-Progressive Federation, and returned to the labor movement as general
organizer for the Milwaukee Federated Trades Council. Friedrick's later positions in the
labor movement included AFL Regional Director, with headquarters in Milwaukee, 1945-1952;
secretary-treasurer of the Milwaukee Federated Trades Council, 1952-1959; and president of
the Milwaukee County Labor Council (AFL-CIO), 1959-. His other labor activities included
appointments as a U.S. representative to the Berlin Trade Fairs in both 1957 and 1958, and
as labor arbitrator in a 1960-1961 seniority dispute between the Wisconsin Electric Power
Company and the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local No. 317.
Besides these full-time labor activities, Friedrick had become very active in local and
statewide civic affairs. In the early 1950s, he was a member of the following: the policy
committee of Milwaukee County's five major taxing units, Governor Kohler's Education
Advisory Committee to handle state participation in the GI Bill for Korean War veterans, the
board of directors of the Community Welfare Council and the United Hospital Fund Drive, and
the Milwaukee Common Council's special committee to study health insurance plans for city
employees. His activities continued to mount in the early 1960s. In 1959-1960, he was a
member of the Continuing Revenue Survey Commission. In 1960, he took part in Governor
Gaylord Nelson's Conference on Resource and Industrial Development. That same year, he was
appointed by Nelson to a nine-year term on the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents--the
first labor leader so honored; and he served as president of the Board from 1962 to
1964.
In 1961, he became a member of the Wisconsin Coordinating Commission on Higher Education
and in 1965, participated in the White House Conference on Education as well as in Governor
Warren Knowles' Conference on Economic Development. Also in the early 1960s, he was a
prominent member of four Milwaukee civic betterment groups: one supporting area vocational
schools; the Greater Milwaukee Committee, a group dedicated to civic betterment and reform;
We-Milwaukee, a group of white business and labor leaders and African American leaders who strove to
develop equal employment standards through out the city; and the board of directors of
United Community Services of Greater Milwaukee.
Friedrick married the former Agnes Piechowiak on June 21, 1914. They had three children,
Maxine (Mrs. Philip LaPorte), Frederick, and Frank.
(The above biography was primarily written by Douglas Clanin, a U.W. Library School student
in the summer of 1969. He cited four major sources of information: Who's Who in America, Vol. 33 (1964-1965), p. 695; John D.
Pomfert, "'Jake' Friedrick of the Milwaukee Federated Trades Council" in Jack Barbash (ed.),
Unions and Union Leadership: Their Human
Meaning (New York, 1959), pp. 63-66; Robert L. Dishon, "Friedrick's Career: Labor
Lamplighter," Milwaukee Sentinel, May 14,
1965; and Robert L. Lewin, "J. F. Friedrick: A Dropout of 1908 Leads UW Regents," Chicago Daily News, December 7, 1963.)
