The
Noble Order of the Knights of Labor was founded in 1869 by Uriah
Stephens and five other former members of the Garment Cutters'
Association of Philadelphia. The organization was open to all working
people except for bankers, lawyers, stockbrokers, doctors and liquor
manufacturers. Controversially, the Knights of Labor was a secret
organization.
It
was the first union to attempt to unionize women on a national scale.
This included appointing Leonora Barry as a national organizer.
In 1881 Terence Powderly became the
new leader of the organization and he brought an end to the rule of
secrecy. Soon afterwards it was claimed that the Knights of Labor
had 700,000 members. However, it went into decline after the formation
of American Federation of Labour in 1886.
(1)
Leonora Barry published a report for the Knights
of Labor in 1887.
One year ago the Knights
of Labor, in convention assembled at Richmond, Va., elected me to
a position of honor and
trust - the servant and representative of thousands of toiling women.
Having no legal authority
I have been unable to make as thorough an investigation in many places
as I would like, consequently the facts stated in my report are not
all from actual observation but from authority which I have every
reason to believe truthful and reliable.
Upon the strength of my
observation and experience I would ask of officers and members of
this Order that more consideration be given, and more thorough educational
measures be adopted on behalf of the working-women of our land, the
majority of whom are entirely ignorant of the economic and industrial
question which is to them of such vital importance; and they must
ever remain so while the selfishness of their brothers in toil is
carried to such an extent as I find it to be among those who have
sworn to demand equal pay for equal work. Thus far in the history
of our Order that part of our platform has been but a mockery of the
principles intended.
December 10 went to Newark
to investigate the matter concerning the sewing-women of that city,
which was referred to our committee at the General Assembly at Richmond.
Found, after a careful study of the matter, that the case reported
by the boys' shirt-waist makers was not only true, but that in general
the working-women of Newark were very poorly paid, and the system
of fines in many industries were severe and unjust. Instance: a corset
factory where a fine is imposed for eating, laughing, singing or talking
of 10 cents each. If not inside the gate in the morning when the whistle
stops blowing, an employee is locked out until half past seven; then
she can go to work, but is docked two
hours for waste power; and many other rules equally, slavish and unjust.
Other industries closely follow these rules, while the sewing-women
receive wages which are only one remove from actual starvation. In
answer to all my inquiries of employer and employed why this state
of affairs exists, the reply was, monopoly and competition.
March 14 was sent to Paterson
to look into the condition of the women and children employed in the
Linen-thread Works of that city. There are some fourteen or fifteen
hundred persons employed in this industry, who were at that time out
of employment for this reason: Children who work at what is called
doffing were receiving $2.70 per week, and asked for an increase of
5 cents per day. They were refused, and they struck, whereupon all
the other employees were locked out. This was what some of the toadying
press called "Paterson's peculiar strike," or "unexplainable
phenomena." The abuse, injustice and suffering which the women
of this industry endure from the tyranny, cruelty and slave-driving
propensities of the employers is something terrible to be allowed
existence in free America. In one branch of this industry women are
compelled to stand on a stone floor in water the year round, most
of the time barefoot,
with a spray of water from a revolving cylinder flying constantly
against the breast; and the coldest night in winter as well as the
warmest in summer those poor creatures must go to their homes with
water dripping from their underclothing
along their path, because there could not be space or a few moments
allowed them wherein to change their clothing. A constant supply of
recruits is always on hand to take the places of any who dare rebel
against the ironclad authority of those in charge.
(2)
John Mitchell was an early member of
the Knights of Labor. He eventually became leader of the United
Mine Workers of America. He wrote about his experiences in his
book, Organized Labor (1903)
No one
can understand the true nature of trade unionism without understanding
the industrial revolution and what it is accomplished. The history
of mankind has been more virtually affected by changes in its machines
and its methods of doing business than by any action or counsel of
statesmen or philosophers. What we call the modern world, with its
huge populations, its giant cities, its political democracy, its growing
intensity of life, its contrasts of wealth and poverty - this great,
whirling, restless civilization, with all its vexing problems, is
the offspring merely of changed methods of producing wealth.
The condition of workmen in the textile and other factories was incredibly
bad. The day's work was constantly lengthened, in some cases to fourteen,
sixteen, and more hours, and while not difficult, the labor was confining
and nerve-wearing. There was little provision for the safety of the
workman, and terrible accidents were a matter of daily occurrence
in the crowded mills and factories. Periods of feverish activity,
during which men were worked beyond the limit of human endurance,
were succeeded by still more harassing periods of depression, when
thousands of men were thrown into the street.
The labor organization as it exists today is the product of a long
evolution. The constitution of the trade union, its by-laws, its customs
and traditions, its practices and policies have all been the result
of a gradual working out of particular remedies for particular problems.
The constitution of the trade union, moreover, has been evolved by
and through the efforts of workingmen. The trade union is a government
of workingmen, by workingmen, for workingmen, and the framers of its
constitution have been workingmen.
(3)
Hugh
Clews, North American Review (June, 1886)
The Knights of Labor have undertaken to test, upon a large scale,
the application of compulsion as a means of enforcing their demands.
The point to be determined is whether capital or labor shall, in future,
determine the terms upon which the invested resources of the nation
are to be employed. The labor disease must soon end one way or another.
The demands of the Knights of Labor and their sympathizers, whether
openly expressed or temporarily concealed, are so utterly revolutionary
of the inalienable rights of the citizen and so completely subversive
of social order that the whole community has come to a firm conclusion
that these pretensions must be resisted to the last extremity of endurance
and authority.
The laboring man in this bounteous and hospitable country has no ground
for complaint. Elsewhere he is a creature of circumstance, which is
that of abject depression. Under the government of this nation, the
effort is to elevate the standard of the human race and not to degrade
it. In all other nations it is the reverse. What, therefore, has the
laborer to complain of in America? By inciting strikes and encouraging
discontent, he stands in the way of the elevation of his race and
of mankind.
The tide of emigration to this country, to this country, now so large,
makes peaceful strikes perfectly harmless in themselves, because the
places of those who vacate good situations are easily filled by the
newcomers. When disturbances occur under the cloak of strikes, it
is a different matter, as law and order are then set in defiance.
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