Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, established in 1869, found prominence in the United States during the 1890s and was an important working-class institution in the late nineteenth-century American labor movement . In 1869 Uriah S. Stephens led a small group of tailors in forming the Knights as a forum of discussion that sought to end child and convict labor, while advocating equal pay for women, progressive income taxes, and a cooperative setting of an employer-employee ownership industry. Stephens envisioned the Knights as a “brotherhood of toil” open to every laborer, mechanic, and artisan who wanted to improve his mind and condition. Their primary goal was to educate wageworkers on the nobility of labor and the evils of the present wages system. The Knights became the direct descendent of the Nation Labor Union, continuing those traditions of reforming labor during the Jacksonian era. In 1879 Stephens stepped down as leader and was replaced by Terence V. Powderly. Powderly was an idealist and a reformer. His sympathy for the underdog and constant desire to alleviate the conditions of the oppressed and the unfortunate made him an ideal leader for the Knights. The son of immigrant working-class parents and a laborer himself, he witnessed the devastating effects of an economy that emphasized material gain over principles of humanity. Under his leadership, membership ... log in or subscribe to read full text