Knights of Labor

Examples of Knights of Labor in the following topics:

• The Knights of Labor and the "Conditions Essential to Liberty"

  • The Knights of Labor transitioned from a fraternal organization to a labor union that promoted the uplift of the workingman.
  • The Knights of Labor was the largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s.
  • Wright, established a secret union under the name, the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor.
  • 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.
  • Two years later, members of the Socialist Labor Party left the Knights to found the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance as a Marxist rival.

• Toward Permanent Unions

  • The Knights of Labor, organized in 1869, was the first effective labor organization that was more than regional in membership and influence .
  • In 1885, the Knights of Labor led railroad workers to victory against Jay Gould and his entire Southwestern Railway system.
  • The Knights of Labor were seriously injured by the false accusation that the Knights promoted anarchistic violence.
  • The American Federation of Labor , led by Samuel Gompers until his death in 1924, proved much more durable than the Knights of Labor .
  • The official seal of the Knights of Labor, representing their mission statement.

• Workers Organize

  • The end of the Civil War saw the formation of organizations that sought to unite multiple labor unions.
  • The first successful effort to organize workers' groups on a nationwide basis appeared with The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor in 1869.
  • Within a year, they added 500,000 workers to their rolls, far more than the thin leadership structure of the Knights were prepared for.
  • The Knights of Labor soon fell into decline, and their place in the labor movement was gradually taken by the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
  • The killing of policemen greatly embarrassed the Knights of Labor, which was not involved with the bomb but which took much of the blame.

• The Rise of Unions

  • The first major effort to organize workers' groups on a nationwide basis appeared with The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor in 1869.
  • The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor was open to all workers, including African Americans, women, and farmers.
  • The Knights of Labor soon fell into decline.
  • The killing of policemen greatly embarrassed the Knights of Labor.
  • The official seal of the Knights of Labor, representing their mission statement.

• Labor and Domestic Tensions

  • During the Gilded Age, new labor unions, which used a wide variety of tactics, emerged.
  • Starting in the mid 1880s as a new group, the Knights of Labor grew rapidly.
  • The Knights avoided violence but their reputation collapsed in the wake of the Haymarket Square Riot in Chicago in 1886, when anarchists bombed the policemen dispersing a meeting.
  • At its peak, the Knights claimed 700,000 members.
  • The new American Federation of Labor, headed by Samuel Gompers, found the solution.

• Work in Industrial America

  • The Knights of Labor, lead by Terence V.
  • Powderley, was the largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s.
  • The Knights promoted the social and cultural uplift of the workingman, rejected Socialism and radicalism, demanded the eight-hour workday, and promoted the producers ethic of republicanism.
  • 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.
  • The Knights were also responsible for race riots, resulting in the deaths of about 28 Chinese Americans in the Rock Springs massacre in Wyoming, and an estimated 50 African-American sugar-cane laborers in the 1887 Thibodaux massacre in Louisiana.

• "Mother" Jones

  • Mary "Mother" Jones was instrumental in community and labor organization during the late 19th century.
  • Mary Harris "Mother" Jones was an American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent labor and community organizer and helped coordinate major strikes and co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World .
  • After her husband and four children all died of yellow fever and her workshop was destroyed in a fire in 1871, she began working as an organizer for the Knights of Labor and the United Mine Workers union.
  • She joined the nascent labor movement and the Knights of Labor , a predecessor to the Industrial Workers of the World who where later dissolved after they were accused of anarchism after the Haymarket Affair.
  • When the newspaper men informed her that they could not advertise the facts about child labor because of the mill owners stacks in the newspapers, she remarked "Well, I've got stock in these little children and I'll arrange a little publicity. " Although the President refused to meet with the marchers, the incident brought the issue of child labor to the forefront of the public agenda.

• Socialism and the Unions

  • Socialism often overlapped with union and labor activities.
  • The IWW was founded in Chicago in June 1905 at a convention of 200 socialists, anarchists, and radical trade unionists from all over the United States who were opposed to the policies of the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
  • The Wobblies' motto was, "an injury to one is an injury to all," which improved upon the nineteenth-century Knights of Labor's creed, "an injury to one is the concern of all."
  • One of the IWW's most important contributions to the labor movement and broader push toward social justice was that, when founded, it was the only American union (besides the Knights of Labor) to welcome all workers including women, immigrants, African Americans, and Asians into the same organization.
  • This ended with his appointment to a post in the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

• The Diversity of Workers

  • The American Federation of Labor (AFL) offered more support to white men than to women and non-whites.
  • 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.
  • The Knights were also responsible for race riots that resulted in the deaths of about 28 Chinese Americans in the Rock Springs massacre in Wyoming, and an estimated 50 African-American sugar-cane laborers in the 1887 Thibodaux massacre in Louisiana.
  • 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.
  • Examine the diversity of workers within the American Federation of Labor

• Gompers and the AFL

  • Samuel Gompers was a labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history, founding the American Federation of Labor.
  • Gompers helped found the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in 1881 as a coalition of like-minded unions.
  • In 1886, it was reorganized into the American Federation of Labor, with Gompers as its president.
  • Under Gompers' tutelage, the AFL coalition gradually gained strength, undermining the position previously held by the Knights of Labor, which as a result had almost vanished by 1900.
  • Samuel Gompers began his labor career familiar with, and sympathetic to, the precepts of socialism, but gradually adopted a more conservative approach to labor relations.