Eugene V. (Eugene Victor) Debs

Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1855, Eugene V. Debs began working young and built his early career on the railroads. He first became widely known as a labor leader through the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and then the American Railway Union, which helped make him a national figure during the Pullman strike of 1894.

Time in jail after that strike helped push his politics in a more openly socialist direction. Debs went on to become the Socialist Party of America's most famous public voice and ran for president five times, earning a reputation as a gifted orator who spoke passionately about workers, inequality, and democracy.

In 1918, he was imprisoned for an antiwar speech made during World War I, and he ran his 1920 presidential campaign from federal prison. He died in 1926, but his name remains closely tied to the American labor movement and to a plainspoken, moral style of political argument that still feels vivid today.