The American Federation of Labour was a national federation of labor unions in the United States, founded in Columbus, Ohio, in December 1886. Although the AFL had a policy of egalitarianism and admitted unskilled and semiskilled workers, as well as woman, African Americans and immigrants; by the end of the nineteenth century, the AFL introduced a new policy of accepting only highly skilled members, in order to attract highly paid and high-demand workers to organized industries, and became an organization of mostly white men.
