Knights of Labor

The Great Seal of the Knights of Labor

The Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, best known simply as the Knights of Labor (K of L), was the largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s. Its most important leader was Terence Powderly. The Knights promoted the social and cultural uplift of the workingman, rejected Socialism and radicalism, demanded the eight-hour day, and promoted the producers ethic of republicanism. In some cases it acted as a labor union, negotiating with employers, but it was never well organized.

It was established in 1869, reached 28,000 members in 1880, then jumped to 100,000 in 1885. Then it mushroomed to nearly 700,000 members in 1886, but its frail organizational structure could not cope and it was battered by charges of failure and violence. Most members abandoned the movement in 1886-87, leaving at most 100,000 in 1890. Remnants of the Knights of Labor continued in existence until 1949, when the group's last 50-member local dropped its affiliation.

Organizational history

Origins

Terence Powderly, Grand Master Workman of the Knights of Labor during jiz meteoric rise and precipitous decline.

In December 1869, seven members of the Philadelphia tailors' union, headed by Uriah Smith Stephens and James L. Wright, established a secret union under the name the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor. The collapse of the National Labor Union in 1873, left a vacuum for workers looking for organization. The Knights became better organized with a national vision when they replaced Stephens with Terence V. Powderly. The body became popular with Pennsylvania coal miners during the economic depression of the mid-1870s, then it grew rapidly.

As membership expanded, the Knights began to function more as a labor union and less like a fraternal organization. Local assemblies began not only to emphasize cooperative enterprises, but to initiate strikes to win concessions from 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.

Though initially adverse to Strike action|strike]] as a method to advance their goals, the Knights aided various strikes and boycotts. 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 finally supported what became a successful 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 gave momentum and a surge of members, so by 1886, the Knights had over 700,000 members.

Ideology

The Knights primary demand was for an eight hour day; they also called for legislation to end child and convict labor. They were eager supporters of cooperatives.

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 tolerating the segregation of assemblies in the South. 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, who amounted to nearly a tenth of the overall city population at the time. The Knights 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, although the group did accept most others, including skilled and unskilled women of any profession.

Decline

J.R. Sovereign, Grand Master Workman of the Knights of Labor from 1893.

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. The top leadership did not believe that strikes were an effective way to upthe status of the working people, and failed to develop the infrastructure that was necessary to organize and coordinate the hundreds of strikes, walkouts, and job actions spontaneously erupting among the membership. The Knights failed in the highly visible Missouri Pacific strike in 1886. The Haymarket Riot of May 1886 came during a strike by the Knights in Chicago, although outsiders were responsible, the Knights were very badly tarnished nationwide with the image of violence and anarchy. They lost many craft unionists that year to the rival Railroad brotherhoods and the new American Federation of Labor, which had more conservative reputations. Efforts to run labor canididates proved a failure in numerous elections in 1886-89. By 1890, the Knights had declined to fewer than 100,000 members. At the same time, the organization gave political support to 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.

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 labor movement people such as William Lane, Ernie Lane, WG Spence, Arthur Rae and George Black. A similar assembly operated in Melbourne.

Legacy

Though often overlooked, the Knights of Labor contributed to the tradition of labor protest songs in America. 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, became 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).

Grand Master Workmen

• Uriah Smith Stephens (1869–1879)
• Terence V. Powderly (1879–1893)
• James Sovereign (1893–1901)
• John Hayes (1901–1917)

Further reading

Scholarly studies

• 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.
• Browne, Henry J. The Catholic Church and the Knights of Labor. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1949.
• Case, Theresa Ann. The Great Southwest Railroad Strike and Free Labor (2010) 1886
• 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.
• Commons, John R. et al., History of Labour in the United States: Volume 2, 1860-1896. (4 vol 1918). vol 2
• Conell, Carol, and Kim Voss. "Formal Organization and the Fate of Social Movements: Craft Association and Class Alliance in the Knights of Labor," American Sociological Review Vol. 55, No. 2 (Apr., 1990), pp. 255-269 in JSTOR, focus on steel industry
• Fink, Leon. "The New Labor History and the Powers of Historical Pessimism: Consensus, Hegemony, and the Case of the Knights of Labor," Journal of American History Vol. 75, No. 1 (Jun., 1988), pp. 115-136 in JSTOR, historiography
• Fink, Leon/ Workingmen's Democracy: The Knights of Labor and American Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983.
• Grob, Gerald N. "The Knights of Labor and the Trade Unions, 1878-1886," Journal of Economic History Vol. 18, No. 2 (Jun., 1958), pp. 176-192 in JSTOR
• Kessler, Sidney H. (July 1937). "The Organization of Negroes in the Knights of Labor". Journal of Negro History. 37 (3): 255. doi:10.2307/2715493.
• Kaufman, Jason. "Rise and Fall of a Nation of Joiners: The Knights of Labor Revisited," Journal of Interdisciplinary History Vol. 31, No. 4 (Spring, 2001), pp. 553-579 in JSTOR statistical study of competition with other unions and with fraternal societies for members
• Kemmerer, Donald L. (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. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Levine, Susan. "Labor's True Woman: Domesticity and Equal Rights in the Knights of Labor," Journal of American History Vol. 70, No. 2 (Sep., 1983), pp. 323-339 in JSTOR
• Levine, Susan. True Women: Carpet Weavers, Industrialization, and Labor Reform in the Gilded Age. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984.
• Licht, Walter; Kealey, Gregory; Palmer, Bryan; Fink, Leon (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. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• McLaurin, Melton Alonza. The Knights of Labor in the South. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978.
• Phelan, Craig. Grand Master Workman: Terence Powderly and the Knights of Labor (Greenwood, 2000), scholarly biography online edition
• Voss, Kim. The Making of American Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labor and Class Formation in the Nineteenth Century. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994. Sociological study.
• Ware, Norman J. The Labor Movement in the United States, 1860 - 1895: A Study In Democracy. (1929).
• Weir, Robert E. Beyond Labor's Veil: The Culture of the Knights of Labor. (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996) online edition
• Weir, Robert E. Knights Unhorsed: Internal Conflict in Gilded Age Social Movement (Wayne State University Press, 2000)
• Wright, Carroll D. "An Historical Sketch of the Knights of Labor," Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 1, no. 2 (January 1887), pp. 137–168. in JSTOR

Outside U.S.

• Gregory Kealey and Brian Palmer, Dreaming of What Might Be: The Knights of Labor in Ontario, 1880-1900. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
• Pelling, Henry (1956). "The Knights of Labor in Britain, 1880-1901". Economic History Review. 9 (new series) (2): 313–331. doi:10.2307/2591749., shows that American workers in the window glass industry set up an English chapter in 1884 to watch the business in Europe; it remained small
• Leon Watillon and Frederic Meyers, The Knights of Labor in Belgium. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978.

Primary sources

by Knights

• Knights of Labor (1887 - 1913). Proceedings of the General Assembly, 10th - 30th (microfilm). Library of American civilization. LAC 23217-20. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Knights of Labor (1878 - 1886). Record of the proceedings of the General Assembly, 1st - 9th (microfilm). Library of American civilization. LAC 23214-16. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Powderly, Terence Vincent (1889). Thirty Years of Labor. 1859-1889. Excelsior publishing house. p. 693.
• Powderly, Terence Vincent (1889). Thirty Years of Labor. 1859-1889. Excelsior publishing house. p. 693.
• Powderly, Terence Vincent (1891). The Labor Movement: The Problem of To-day. The M. W. Hazen Company. p. 628. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Powderly, Terence Vincent (1891). The Labor Movement: The Problem of To-day; Chapter XV: The History of the Knights of Labor. pp. 397–428.
• Powderly, Terence Vincent (1891). John A. Turcheneske, Jr (ed.). Terence Vincent Powderly Papers 1864-1937 and John Williams Hayes Papers 1880-1921, The Knights of Labor. pp. 109 reels. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

by others

• A.C. Dunham, "The Knights of Labor," New Englander and Yale Review, vol. 45, no. 195 (June 1886), pp. 490–498.
• John Stephens Durham, "The Labor Unions and the Negro," Atlantic Monthly, vol. 81, no. 484 (February 1898), pp. 222–231.
• Henry George, "The New Party," North American Review, vol. 145, no. 368 (July 1887), pp. 1–8.
• Rufus Hatch, "The Labor Crisis," North American Review, vol. 142, no. 355 (June 1886), pp. 602–607.
• Richard J. Hinton, "American Labor Organizations," North American Review, vol. 140, no. 338 (January 1885), pp. 48–63.
• M.E.J. Kelley, "Women and the Labor Movement, North American Review, vol. 166, no. 497 (April 1898), pp. 408–418.
• George Frederic Parsons, "The Labor Question," Atlantic Monthly, vol. 58, no. 345 (July 1886), pp. 97–113.
• Carroll D. Wright, "An Historical Sketch of the Knights of Labor," Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 1, no. 2 (January 1887), pp. 137–168.

See also

• Labor unions in the United States
• List of trade unions
• Labor federation competition in the United States
• Olivier-David Benoît

External links

• Record of proceedings of the General Assembly of the Knights of Labor 1878
• "Select Bibliography of Terence V. Powderly and the Knights of Labor," Catholic University of America. Retrieved October 8, 2006.