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Knights of Labor

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Knights of Labor
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First important national labour organization in the U.S. Founded in 1869 by Uriah Smith Stephens as the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor, it included both skilled and unskilled workers, and it proposed a system of workers' cooperatives to replace capitalism. To protect its members from employers' reprisals, it originally maintained secrecy. Under Terence V. Powderly (1879 – 93) it favoured open arbitration with management and discouraged strikes. National membership reached 700,000 in 1886. Strikes by militant groups and the Haymarket Riot caused an antiunion reaction that rapidly reduced the organization's influence. A splinter group left to form the AFL (later AFL-CIO).

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Business Dictionary: Knights of Labor
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Originally a fraternal order of tailors, established in Philadelphia in approximately 1869 by Uriah Smith Stevens. The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor quickly grew to a national union having, in the mid-1880s, more than 700,000 members from every occupation. The Knights of Labor collapsed in 1893 after a national public reaction against labor agitators.

US History Encyclopedia: Knights of Labor
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The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor reached a peak membership of around 700,000 in the mid-1880s, making it the largest and most important labor organization in nineteenth-century America. The complexities of its organization, ideology, and activities reflected the problems that afflicted the American labor movement. Antebellum working-class involvement with fraternal orders, such as the Freemasons and the Odd Fellows, inspired associations like the Mechanics' Mutual Protection Association and the Brotherhood of the Union. From the Civil War and the panic of 1873 emerged new clandestine labor organizations, including the shoemakers' Knights of St. Crispin and the miners' "Molly Maguires," along with the broader Sovereigns of Industry, Industrial Brotherhood, and Junior Sons of '76. The Knights of Labor eventually subsumed all of these.

Long a hotbed of such activities, the Philadelphia needle trades built the Garment Cutters' Union during the Civil War. On 28 December 1869, Uriah Stephens gathered a handful of workers in that craft to launch the Knights of Labor. Members paid a 50-cent initiation fee. Ten members could form an assembly, though at all times at least three-quarters of the assembly had to be wage earners. Initially, membership in the Knights expanded among Philadelphia textile workers, but in the mid-1870s it spread into western Pennsylvania and began recruiting large numbers of miners. Expansion into other trades required not only the "trade assembly" but the industrially nonspecific "local assembly." The presence of the order in different communities with growing numbers of organizations inspired the formation of a "district assembly" to coordinate the work.

After an insurrectionary railroad strike in 1877, the order assumed a more public presence, and membership expanded at an unprecedented pace. The Knights numbered nearly 9,300 in 1878; over 20,000 in 1879; over 28,000 in 1880; and almost 52,000 in 1883. With the radically expanding membership, new leaders like Terence V. Powderly displaced the old fraternalists like Stephens. This turnover in leadership represented a deeper ideological shift.

The Knights of Labor proclaimed the underlying unity of the condition of all who work and urged solidarity. They asserted the equal rights of women and included them in the order despite the often Victorian values of the leadership. Calling for the unity of brain and brawn—the solidarity of all who labor—the Knights essentially shaped the popular notion of class in American life. Notwithstanding national chauvinismand ethnic rivalries, the order organized assemblies of immigrants from across Europe and Jewish associations. By some estimates, as many as ninety-five thousand African Americans became Knights. Glaringly, however, the Knights established a terrible record regarding treatment of Chinese Americans, even defending the massacre of Chinese workers by white miners at Rock Springs, Wyoming.

The order pursued legislative and political means to undermine the "money power," banks and monopolies, and favored the legislation of an eight-hour day, equal pay for equal work, abolition of child labor and convict labor, and public ownership of utilities. On the other hand, in the midst of major third-party movements, the Knights struggled, usually without success, to remain aloof. Largely to placate the active hostility of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, the leadership of the Knights explicitly denied an interest within the order in more radical politics.

These contradictions gave the Knights great power, yet largely predisposed the order to use its power in an uncoordinated and chaotic fashion. Railroad workers in the Knights in 1883 launched a series of strikes against the widely hated railroads that came to fruition in the southwestern strike of 1885 against the Jay Gould interests. Powderly and the Knights successfully organized national boycotts in support of the strike movements. As a result of the consequent publicity and the temporary demise of third-party politics, the Knights expanded to massive proportions, attaining 110,000 members by July 1885 and over 700,000 members by October 1886. By then, the movement embraced virtually every current in the American labor movement. Some thought the strike, wage agreements, boycott, and cooperatives were sufficient. The order avoided support of the 1886 eight-hour-day strike movement and remained ambiguous about nonpolitical means of attaining its goals.

Members of the trades assemblies, including printers, molders, cigar makers, carpenters, glassworkers, ironworkers, and steelworkers, combined into the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (FOTLU) in 1881. Although initially cooperative with the concerns of these trade unionists, the leadership of the Knights became increasingly cautious even as their successes inspired intense opposition, and the FOTLU reorganized as the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1886. Membership in the Knights quickly fell to 100,000 by 1890, and neither its dalliance with populism nor interventions by the Socialist Labor Party kept it from plummeting during the twentieth century.

Bibliography

Voss, Kim. The Making of American Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labor and Class Formation in the Nineteenth Century. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993.

Weir, Robert E. Beyond Labor's Veil: The Culture of the Knights of Labor. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Knights of Labor
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Knights of Labor, American labor organization, started by Philadelphia tailors in 1869, led by Uriah S. Stephens. It became a body of national scope and importance in 1878 and grew more rapidly after 1881, when its earlier secrecy was abandoned. Organized on an industrial basis, with women, black workers (after 1883), and employers welcomed, excluding only bankers, lawyers, gamblers, and stockholders, the Knights of Labor aided various groups in strikes and boycotts, winning important strikes on the Union Pacific in 1884 and on the Wabash RR in 1885. But failure in the Missouri Pacific strike in 1886 and the Haymarket Square riot (for which it was, although not responsible, condemned by the press) caused a loss of prestige and strengthened factional disputes between the craft unionists and the advocates of all-inclusive unionism. With the motto "an injury to one is the concern of all," the Knights of Labor attempted through educational means to further its aims-an 8-hour day, abolition of child and convict labor, equal pay for equal work, elimination of private banks, cooperation-which, like its methods, were highly idealistic. The organization reached its apex in 1886, when under Terence V. Powderly its membership reached a total of 702,000. Among the causes of its downfall were factional disputes, too much centralization with a resulting autocracy from top to bottom, mismanagement, drainage of financial resources through unsuccessful strikes, and the emergence of the American Federation of Labor. By 1890 its membership had dropped to 100,000, and in 1900 it was practically extinct.

Bibliography

See P. S. Foner and R. L. Lewis, ed., Black Worker: The Era of the Knights of Labor (1979).

Wikipedia: Knights of Labor
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The Knights of Labor, also known as Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, was one of the most important American labor organizations of the 19th century. Founded by nine Philadelphia tailors in 1869 and led by Uriah Stephens[1], its ideology may be described as producerist, demanding an end to child and convict labor, equal pay for women, a progressive income tax, and the cooperative employer-employee ownership of mines and factories. [2][3]

Contents

Origins

The Knights of Labor had a mixed history of inclusiveness and exclusiveness, accepting women and blacks (after 1878), and their employers as members and advocating the admission of blacks into local assemblies, but turning a blind eye to the segregation of assemblies in the South. Mary Harris Jones, known as "Mother Jones", helped recruit thousands of women to the Knights of Labor. She was greatly feared by factory owners, but loved and respected by union members and workers, which is how she earned her nickname "Mother Jones". Bankers, doctors, lawyers, stockholders, and liquor manufacturers were excluded because they were considered unproductive members of society. Asians were also excluded, and, in November 1885, a branch of the Knights in Tacoma, Washington worked to expel the city's Chinese, which amounted to nearly a tenth of the overall city population at the time. They were also responsible for race riots that resulted in the deaths of Chinese Americans in the Rock Springs Massacre. The Knights strongly supported the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Contract Labor Law of 1885, as did many other labor groups.[4]

The Knights of Labor grew rapidly after the collapse of the National Labor Union in 1873, and especially after the replacement of Uriah Stephens with Terence V. Powderly. As membership expanded, the Knights began to function more as a labor union, and less like a fraternal organization. Local assemblies began to emphasize not only cooperative enterprises, but to initiate strikes to win concessions from non-Knights employers. Powderly opposed strikes as a "relic of barbarism", but the size and the diversity of the Knights afforded local assemblies a great deal of autonomy.

The Knights found that secrecy interfered with the organization's public work and inhibited its response to critics. Carroll Wright, U.S. Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor, characterized the Knights of Labor as a "purely and deeply secret organization" that drew heavily on Freemasonry for its ideas and procedures.[citation needed] In 1881, the Order's General Assembly agreed to make its name and objectives public and to abolish its initiating oaths. Most rituals associated with the order continued, and the Knights entered its period of greatest growth.

Though initially afraid of the strike as a method to advance their goals, the Knights aided various strikes and boycotts. Arguably their greatest victory was in the Union Pacific Railroad strike in 1884. The Wabash Railroad strike in 1885 was also a significant success, as Powderly did not follow his usual practice and supported what became a crippling strike on Jay Gould's Wabash Line. Gould met with Powderly and agreed to call off his campaign against the Knights of Labor, which had caused the turmoil originally. These positive developments encouraged new membership, and by 1886, the Knights had over 700,000 members. While the Knights were in no way involved, the Haymarket affair nonetheless significantly tarnished their reputation.

The Order was brought to Australia around 1890. The Freedom Assembly, which operated in Sydney during the tumultuous period of 1891-93, had as members well known Australian labour movement people such as William Lane, Ernie Lane, WG Spence, Arthur Rae and George Black. A similar assembly operated in Melbourne.

Decline

Membership declined with the problems of an autocratic structure, mismanagement, and unsuccessful strikes. Disputes between the skilled trade unionists (also known as craft unionists) and the industrial unionists weakened the organization. There was widespread repression of labor unions in the late 1880s, such as the violence against strikers in the Haymarket Riot of 1886. The Knights were unsuccessful in the Missouri Pacific strike in 1886 and lost many craft unionists that year when the rival American Federation of Labor was founded.[5]

In 1890, it had fewer than 100,000 members. At the same time, the Knights received political support from the People's Party. Terence Powderly was replaced as Grand Master Workman by James Sovereign in 1893. Two years later, members of the Socialist Labor Party left the Knights to found the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance as a Marxist rival. Membership was reduced to 17,000. The majority of New York City's District Assembly 49 joined the Industrial Workers of the World at its 1905 foundation. Although, by 1900, it was virtually nonexistent as a labor union, the Knights maintained a central office until 1917 and held conventions until 1932. At least a few local assemblies lasted until 1949.[6]

Though little documented by historians, the Knights of Labor contributed to the tradition of labor protest songs in American. The Knights frequently included music in their regular meetings and encouraged local members to write and perform their work. In Chicago, James and Emily Talmadge, printers and supporters of the Knights of Labor, published the songbook "Labor Songs Dedicated to the Knights of Labor" (1886). The song "Hold the Fort" [also "Storm the Fort"], a Knights of Labor pro-labor revision of the hymn by the same name, because the most popular labor song prior to Ralph Chaplin's IWW anthem "Solidarity Forever." Pete Seeger often performed this song and it appears on a number of his recordings. Songwriter and labor singer Bucky Halker includes the Talmadge version, entitled "Labor's Battle Song," on his CD "Don't Want Your Millions" (Revolting Records 2000). Halker also draws heavily on the Knights songs and poems in his book on labor song and poetry, For Democracy, Workers and God: Labor Song-Poems and Labor Protest, 1865-1895 (University of Illinois Press, 1991).

Leaders

See also

Syndicalism.svg Organized Labour portal

Further reading

Books

Articles

  • Birdsall, William C. (July 1953). "The Problem of Structure in the Knights of Labor". Industrial and Labor Relations Review 6 (4): 532–546. doi:10.2307/2518795. 
  • Cassity, Michael J. (June 1979). "Modernization and Social Crisis: The Knights of Labor and a Midwest Community, 1885-1886". Journal of American History 66 (1): 41–61. doi:10.2307/1894673. 
  • Foner, Phillip S.; W. H. Sims, George H. Williams, Andrew McCormack, C. C. Mehurin, M. I. Mattox, B W Scott (January 1968). "The Knights of Labor". Journal of Negro History 53 (1): 70–77. doi:10.2307/2716391. 
  • Grobb, Gerald (Spring 1960). "Organized labor and the Negro Worker". Labor History 1: 166. 
  • Hild, Matthew (Fall 2001). "Dixie Knights Redux: The Knights of Labor in Alabama, 1898-1902". Gulf South Historical Review 17 (1). 
  • Kessler, Sidney H. (July 1937). "The Organization of Negroes in the Knights of Labor". Journal of Negro History 37: 255. doi:10.2307/2715493. 
  • Kemmerer, Donald L.; Edward D. Wickersham (January 1950). "Reasons for the Growth of the Knights of Labor in 1885-1886". Industrial and Labor Relations Review 3 (2): 213–220. doi:10.2307/2518830. 
  • Kittell, Allan H. (December 1960). "Review: The Knights of Labor in Belgium by Leon Watillon, Frederic Meyers". Journal of Modern History 32 (4): 400. doi:10.2307/2518830. 
  • Licht, Walter (Summer 1985). "The Knights of Labor Commemorated and Reconsidered: : Dreaming of What Might Be: The Knights of Labor in Ontario, 1880-1900; Workingmen's Democracy: The Knights of Labor and American Politics". Journal of Interdisciplinary History 16 (1): 117–123. doi:10.2307/204327. 
  • Miner, Claudia (2nd Quarter, 1983). "The 1886 Convention of the Knights of Labor". Pylon 44 (2): 147–159. doi:10.2307/275026. 
  • Pelling, Henry (1956). "The Knights of Labor in Britain, 1880-1901". Economic History Review 9 (new series) (2): 313–331. doi:10.2307/2591749. 
  • Wheeler, Hoyt N (Fall 2004). ""Producers of the World Unite! A Return of Reformist Unionism?"". Labor Studies Journal 29 (3): 81–100. doi:10.1353/lab.2004.0046. 

Contemporary accounts

by Knights

by others

References

  1. ^ Perlman, Selig, A History of Trade Unionism in the United States, The MacMullin Company, New York, 1922.
  2. ^ Knights of Labor - factmonster.com
  3. ^ General Interest Business and Industry Knights of Labor - u-s-history.com
  4. ^ But other than that, the Knights of Labor accepted many people: skilled and unskilled women and men of any profession. The American Paegent. Houghton Mifflin Company. 2002. 
  5. ^ Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States. Vol. 2: From the Founding of the American Federation of Labor to the Emergence of American Imperialism, 1955, pp. 160-161.
  6. ^ Weir, Beyond Labor's Veil, p. 322.

External links


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