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Wired for the Long Haul

The History of the IBEW

From a boarding-house room above a St. Louis dance hall to nearly a million members — the story of the Brotherhood you carry a card in.

In 1891, a traveling lineman named Henry Miller rode the rails city to city — tools and a spare shirt in a carpetbag — organizing electrical workers wherever he found them. That November, ten delegates representing 286 members met in a rented room above Stolley’s Dance Hall in a poor section of St. Louis and founded what became the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. It was a humble start for a trade so dangerous that Miller himself would be dead within five years — killed by a fall after an electric shock. But the Brotherhood he built is now the largest electrical union in the world.

1891
Founded in St. Louis
900K+
Members today
10
Founding delegates
130+
Years of the Brotherhood
“No man could have done more for our union in its first years than he did.” — J.T. Kelly, first Secretary, on Henry Miller
A Timeline of the Brotherhood
From ten men in a rented room to the trade powering the modern grid.
1890
The Spark in St. Louis
Electricians working the St. Louis Exposition, tired of long dangerous days for meager pay, charter AFL Federal Labor Union No. 5221 with help from the AFL. A young lineman, Henry Miller, is elected president — but he knows a single local isn’t enough.
1891
The Brotherhood Is Born
On November 21, ten delegates representing 286 members convene in St. Louis and found the National Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. They work day and night for a week drafting the first constitution and the emblem you still see — a fist grasping lightning bolts. Miller is elected first Grand President.
1896
Miller Falls
Henry Miller dies at 38 after an electric shock causes him to fall from a pole. He gave the trade its union and, in the end, his life to the same dangers the Brotherhood was built to fight.
1899
“International”
As locals charter across Canada as well as the U.S., the union becomes the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers — the name it carries today.
1908
The Reid-Murphy Split
A bitter internal war — rooted in the old tension between wiremen and linemen — fractures the Brotherhood into two rival IBEWs for six years. At one point the breakaway faction claimed three-quarters of all organized electrical workers. It nearly ended the union.
1912
Made Whole Again
A court declares the breakaway 1908 convention illegal, and the Brotherhood reunites. The near-death experience left a lasting lesson about the cost of division.
1919-20
The Council on Industrial Relations
Membership explodes from 23,500 in 1913 to over 148,000 by 1919. The IBEW and electrical contractors create the Council on Industrial Relations — a joint body to settle disputes without strikes, a labor-management model that still runs today. Headquarters moves to Washington, D.C.
1941
National Apprenticeship Standards
The IBEW helps set national apprenticeship standards — the earn-while-you-learn training model that made the union electrician synonymous with skill and safety.
1980s
The AT&T Breakup
The court-ordered breakup of the Bell System guts tens of thousands of IBEW telecom jobs almost overnight — one of the hardest blows the Brotherhood ever absorbed, and a hard lesson in adapting to a changing industry.
Today
Wired for What’s Next
Over 900,000 members across the U.S., Canada, and beyond. The data-center and clean-energy boom is driving the biggest demand for skilled electrical labor in a generation — and the Brotherhood is chasing one million members again. The road’s wide open, and you’re on it.

You carry that card now.

Every hot day in the ditch, every night shift at the data center, every mile you tramp to the next call — you’re part of a 130-year line that runs straight back to ten men in a rented room who refused to take less. Wire it up, brother.

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