They represented, in education, socioeconomic class and philosophy, the broad range of South Slavic immigrant America.
Although not all Marxist, they were unified in opposition to industrial capitalism and the intrusion of organized religion into economic and political spheres.
These people established a myriad of organizations in America between 1900 and 1918, among them the Slovenska Narodna Podporna Jednota, the South Slavic cooperative movement, and the Yugoslav Republican Alliance.
From 1912 to 1917, the Federation was affiliated with the Socialist Party of America; it favored entry of the United States into World War I.
The Federation published two newspapers, Proletarec (Slovenian) and Radnička Straza (Serbo-Croatian) as well as an annual, Ameriški Družinski Koledar.