Knights of Labor

Knights of Labor, North American labor union, originally established as a secret fraternal order. It is notable in United States and Canadian labor history as the first organization of workers to advocate the inclusion in one union of all workers without regard to skill, sex, or nationality. As its ideal, the Knights of Labor projected a society based on cooperative industrial and agricultural enterprises owned and operated by the workers, farmers, clerks, and technicians constituting them.

The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor was founded in Philadelphia in 1869 by the American garment worker Uriah Stephens and a number of his fellow workers. Workers in all trades were eligible for membership; physicians (prior to 1881), lawyers, bankers, professional gamblers or stockholders, and liquor dealers were excluded. During its first few years, the Knights of Labor functioned as a secret society using an elaborate, mystic ritual. It grew slowly until the economic depression of the 1870s, when large numbers of workers joined the organization. The secret and fraternal nature of the order was eliminated in 1881, and it began to function as a trade union. It adopted a policy of militant action against employers and played an important part in the strikes by coal miners and railroad workers in 1877.

The first general assembly of representatives of local organizations of the Knights of Labor met in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1878. The assembly projected a number of sweeping reforms, including institution of the 8-hour workday, abolition of convict labor, prohibition of the employment of children under 14 years of age, institution of equal opportunities and wages for women in industry, and establishment of a bureau of labor statistics. The assembly also adopted the policy of inclusive unionism, whereby all workers, regardless of race, creed, craft, trade, or degree of skill, and all other individuals and groups expressing sympathy for labor were eligible for membership in the Knights of Labor. Despite this general policy of inclusion, the Knights of Labor refused to admit immigrant Chinese workers. On the West Coast of the United States and Canada the union organized protests against Chinese workers and supported anti-Chinese legislation.

For about five years after the convocation of the 1878 general assembly, the Knights of Labor employed the strike weapon on numerous occasions. During this period, however, the national leadership of the organization began to advocate the use of less radical measures. In 1883 Terence Powderly, an American machinist who was the order's leading exponent of moderate policies, was elected to head the Knights of Labor.

In 1886 the membership began to decline rapidly, partly because of opposition by Powderly and other organization leaders to a one-day general strike as a means of winning the 8-hour day. Members were alienated also by their leaders' denunciation of the eight anarchists whose conviction for complicity in the Haymarket Square riot in Chicago was widely believed to be unjust. Another reason for membership decline was the defeat that the organization sustained in a strike against the railroads in the southwestern part of the U.S. Also in 1886 factional strife broke out between the members who continued to support the original policy of inclusive unionism and those who favored craft unionism. This dissension led to the secession of a number of large craft unions, which, in December of that year, participated in the organization of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The last important struggle in which the Knights of Labor participated was the 1894 strike by workers against many of the principal railroads of the U.S. The total defeat of this strike, due partly to the opposition of the AFL, resulted in the virtual collapse of the Knights of Labor. The organization was formally dissolved in 1917.