Farrell Dobbs, who rose to head the Socialist Workers Party and who served as the party's Presidential candidate from 1948 to 1960 was born in Queen City, Missouri, in 1907 and raised in Minneapolis. The son of a lower-level manager in the coal industry, he began his political career as a registered Republican and supporter of Herbert Hoover. Unemployment during the 1930s radicalized him, and in 1933 Dobbs became involved with Teamster Local 574 in Minneapolis. Influenced by the local's Trotskyist leadership, Dobbs became a member of the Communist League of America in 1934. Also in 1934 Dobbs was a central figure during a series of strikes among coal industry drivers in the city. He was eventually elected head of the local.
Hired by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to organize Midwestern over-the-road drivers, Dobbs established the Central States District Drivers Council in 1937 and served as its secretary-treasurer and organizer. In this capacity Dobbs is generally credited with initiating many of the organizing techniques that later propelled James Hoffa to leadership in the Teamsters. Despite Dobbs' success in this endeavor (and an offer of an IBT vice-presidency from Teamster president Daniel Tobin) Dobbs resigned in 1939 to become labor secretary of the Socialist Workers Party, and shortly thereafter he journeyed to Mexico to confer with Trotsky. In 1941 Dobbs was convicted under the Smith Act and imprisoned for thirteen months (1944-1945). During this period, and until 1948, Dobbs also served as editor of the Militant.
In 1948, Dobbs served as the party's Presidential candidate. When James Cannon went into semi-retirement in 1953, Dobbs became national secretary, continuing in this position until 1972. Unquestionably one of the SWP's leading figures of the 1950's and the 1960's, Dobbs again ran for the Presidency in 1952, 1956, and 1960. After 1972 Dobbs devoted himself to researching and writing a four-volume history of the Teamsters and multi-volume history of radicalism in the United States. Dobbs died in California on October 31, 1983. He was survived by his wife, Marvel Scholl (1908?-1984), who was also a party activist.
