Timothy Healy

Timothy J. Healy (1863–1930) was an Irish-American trade union leader and political activist. Healy is best remembered as the longtime head of the International Brotherhood of Stationary Firemen and Oilers (IBSFO), a trade union for steam boiler operators.

Biography

Early years Timothy Healy was born on March 25, 1863, in County Cork, Ireland. Healy was the son of a farmer and was educated in Irish common schools. As a young man Healy worked as a boiler stoker aboard transatlantic ships, making the crossing 38 times in all.

Career Tim Healy addressing a crowd during a New York City streetcar strike, Union Square, Sept. 14, 1916.

Healy emigrated to the United States in 1888, settling in New York City. In America Healy first worked as a steam boiler operator as a member of an independent trade union called the Eccentric Firemen of New York City, affiliated with the Knights of Labor, gaining a leadership position in the union.

In 1898, Healy organized the engineering department of the New York Naval Militia in conjunction with its expansion during the Spanish–American War. He was 64 years old at the time of his death.

At a dinner held in his honor in 1927, Healy was lauded by United States Secretary of Labor James J. Davis, who asserted that "No labor leader has ever had more friend than Healy for the reason that he has given labor a new dignity, a new title to public respect."

Footnotes

Works "Report of President Healy," Stationary Firemen's Magazine, vol. 13, no. 7 (May 1912), pp. 2–4.