John A. Moffit (1865 – June 6, 1942) was an American labor unionist and government official.
Born in
Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.Orange, New Jersey when he was 21, to work as a hatter. He joined the National Hat Makers' Association of the United States, and became business agent of his local. In 1896, the union became part of the new
United Hatters of North America
The United Hatters of North America (UHU) was a labor union representing hat makers, headquartered in the United States.
History
The UHU was founded and received a charter in the American Federation of Labor in 1896 through a merger of the Inter ...
. Moffit became vice-president of the union, and then in 1898, became its president, also editing the union journal.
In 1903, and again in 1912/13, Moffit served on the
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutu ...
's Legislative Committee, and in this role, he helped draft the law which established the United States Department of Labor. In 1913, he was appointed as one of the first commissioners of conciliation for the new department. In the mid-1920s, he became a lawyer in Washington D.C., but he remained a conciliator until his death, in 1942.