<Tr> <Th> Office location </Th> <Td> New York City; later Washington, D.C. </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Country </Th> <Td> United States </Td> </Tr> <P> The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L .) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States founded in Columbus, Ohio, in December 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor union . Samuel Gompers of the Cigar Makers' International Union was elected president at its founding convention and reelected every year, except one, until his death in 1924 . The A.F. of L was the largest union grouping in the United States for the first half of the 20th century, even after the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) by unions which were expelled by the A.F. of L. in 1935 over its opposition to industrial unionism . The Federation was founded and dominated by craft unions throughout its first fifty years, after which many craft union affiliates turned to organizing on an industrial union basis to meet the challenge from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the 1940s . </P> <P> In 1955, the A.F. of L. merged with the CIO to create the AFL - CIO, which has comprised the longest lasting and most influential labor federation in the United States to this day . </P>

When was the american federation of labor founded