Powers Hapgood

Powers Hapgood (1899–1949) was an American trade union organizer and Socialist Party leader known for his involvement with the United Mine Workers in the 1920s.

[1] Hapgood graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts in 1917 and enrolled in Harvard University, from which he earned his bachelor's degree in 1921.

Hapgood worked as a miner at Hibbing, Minnesota, on the Northern Pacific Railroad and in a Montana sugar beet factory.

Following his ouster, Hapgood subsequently went abroad and worked himself as a miner in South Wales, France, Germany, and Soviet Russia.

Hapgood was elected to the August 1927 annual convention of the UMWA as a delegate of the union's local from Cresson, Pennsylvania.

[4] German-American author (and fellow Indiana native) Kurt Vonnegut pays homage to Hapgood in his novel Jailbird.