Editing Knights of Labor (section)

==Origins==
In 1869, [[Uriah Smith Stephens]], James L. Wright, and a small group of Philadelphia tailors founded a secret organization known as 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, in 1879, they replaced Stephens with [[Terence V. Powderly]], who was just 30 years old at the time. The body became popular with trade unions and Pennsylvania coal miners during the economic depression of the mid-1870s, then it grew rapidly. The KOL was a diverse industrial union open to all workers. The leaders felt that it was best to have a versatile population in order to get points of view from all aspects. The Knights of Labor barred five groups from membership: bankers, land speculators, lawyers, liquor dealers and gamblers.<ref name=":02">{{Cite journal |last=Scharnau |first=Ralph |date=1991 |title=The Knights of Labor in Iowa |journal=The Annals of Iowa |pages=30 |via=uiowa}}</ref> Its members included low skilled workers, railroad workers, immigrants, and steel workers. This helped the workers to get an organizational identity. As one of the largest labor organizations in the nineteenth century, Knights wanted to classify the workers, as it was a time where large scale factories and industries were rapidly growing. Even though skilled workers were prioritized at the beginning 1880s, by the time of 1886, nearly a million workers were enrolled. <ref name=":23">{{Cite journal |last=Voss |first=Kim |date=1988 |title=Labor Organization and Class Alliance: Industries, Communities, and the Knights of Labor |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/657519 |url-status=live |journal=Theory and Society |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=329–364 |doi=10.1007/BF00160843 |issn=0304-2421 |jstor=657519 |s2cid=147551660 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230327174422/https://www.jstor.org/stable/657519 |archive-date=27 March 2023 |access-date=5 May 2023|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

[[File:Powderly-terence-1890.jpg|thumb|left|[[Terence V. Powderly|Terence Powderly]], Grand Master Workman of the Knights of Labor during its meteoric rise and precipitous decline (1890)]]
As membership expanded, the Knights began to function more as a labor union and less as a secret organization. During the 1880s, the Knights of Labor played a massive role in independent and third-party movements. Local assemblies began to emphasize cooperative enterprises and initiate [[Strike action|strikes]] to win concessions from employers. The Knights of Labor brought together workers of different religions, races, and genders and helped them all create a bond and unify all for the exact cause. <ref name=":03">{{Cite journal |last=Scharnau |first=Ralph |date=1991 |title=The Knights of Labor in Iowa |journal=The Annals of Iowa |pages=30 |via=uiowa}}</ref> The new leader, 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.   

In 1882, the Knights ended their membership rituals and removed the words "Noble Order" from their name. This was intended to mollify the concerns of [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] members and the bishops who wanted to avoid any resemblance to [[freemasonry]]. Though initially averse to strikes to advance their goals, the Knights did aid various strikes and [[Boycott|boycotts]]. The [[Wabash Railroad]] strike in 1885 saw Powderly finally adapt and support an eventually successful strike against [[Jay Gould]]'s Wabash Line after C. A. Hall, a carpenter and Knights member, was fired for attending a meeting in February. The strike included stopping track, yard, engine maintenance, the control or sabotage of equipment, and the occupation of shops and roundhouses.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Case |first=Theresa A. |date=2009 |title=Blaming Martin Irons: Leadership and Popular Protest in the 1886 Southwest Strike |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40542736 |journal=The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=51–81 |doi=10.1017/S1537781400001006 |jstor=40542736 |s2cid=147049676 |issn=1537-7814 |access-date=5 May 2023 |archive-date=29 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230329171840/https://www.jstor.org/stable/40542736 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Gould met with Powderly and agreed to call off his campaign against the Knights of Labor, which had caused the turmoil originally. This gave momentum to the Knights and membership surged. By 1886, the Knights had more than 700,000 members.

The Knights' primary demand was for the eight-hour workday. They also called for legislation to end [[child labour|child]] and [[Penal labour|convict labor]] as well as a [[graduated income tax]]. They also supported [[Worker cooperative|cooperatives]]. The only woman to hold office in the Knights of Labor, [[Leonora Barry]], worked as an investigator. She described the horrific conditions in factories employing women and children. These reports made Barry the first person to collect national statistics on the American working woman.<ref>Whitman, American Reformers, 57.</ref>

Powderly and the Knights tried to avoid divisive political issues, but in the early 1880s, many Knights had become followers of [[Henry George]]'s ideology known now as [[Georgism]]. In 1883, Powderly officially recommended George's book and announced his support of "single tax" on land values. During the New York mayoral election of 1886, Powderly was able to successfully push the organization towards the favor of Henry George.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Weir|first1=Robert E.|title=A Fragile Alliance: Henry George and the Knights of Labor|journal=The American Journal of Economics and Sociology|date=October 1997|volume=56|issue=4|doi=10.1111/j.1536-7150.1997.tb02653.x}}</ref> In 1886, the Knights became of the part of the short lived [[United Labor Party (New York)|United Labor Party]], an alliance of labor organizations formed in support of George's campaign in the [[1886 New York City mayoral election]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Genovese|first=Frank C.|date=1991|title=Henry George and Organized Labor: The 19th Century Economist and Social Philosopher Championed Labor's Cause, but Used Its Candidacy for Propaganda|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3487043|journal=The American Journal of Economics and Sociology|volume=50|issue=1|pages=113–127|doi=10.1111/j.1536-7150.1991.tb02500.x|jstor=3487043|issn=0002-9246|access-date=8 November 2021|archive-date=7 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211107025835/https://www.jstor.org/stable/3487043|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

The Knights of Labor helped to bring together many different types of people from all walks of life; for example, Catholic and Protestant Irish-born workers. The KOL appealed to them because they worked very closely with the Irish Land League.<ref name="Wage Slaved to Wage Workers">{{cite journal|last1=Hallgrimsdottir|first1=Helga|last2=Benoit|first2=Cecilia|title=From Wage Slaves to Wage Workers|journal=Cultural Opportunity Structures and the Evolution of the Wage Demands of the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor, 1880-1900|date=2007|volume=85|issue=3|pages=1393–1411}}</ref> The Knights had a mixed record on inclusiveness and exclusiveness. They accepted women and [[African-American|African Americans]] (after 1878) and their employers as members and advocated the admission of blacks into local assemblies. However, the organization tolerated the [[Racial segregation|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]] violently expelled the city's Chinese workers, who amounted to nearly a tenth of the overall city population at the time.<ref name="A Radical History of Seattle's International District">{{Cite web | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KGQUnQAACAAJ |title = A Radical History of Seattle's International District: A Walking Tour|year = 2015}}</ref> Black membership stood at 60,000 in 1886, and there were 400 all-black locals, primarily in the south.{{sfn|Foner|1977|p=63}}

The Union Pacific Railroad came into conflict with the Knights. When the Knights in Wyoming refused to work more hours in 1885, the railroad hired Chinese workers as strikebreakers and to stir up racial animosity. The result was the [[Rock Springs massacre]], that killed scores of Chinese workers, and drove the rest out of Wyoming.<ref>Craig Storti, ''Incident at Bitter Creek: The Story of the Rock Springs Chinese Massacre'' (1990),</ref> About 50 African-American sugar-cane laborers organized by the Knights went on strike and were murdered by strikebreakers in the 1887 [[Thibodaux massacre]] in Louisiana. The Knights strongly supported passage of the [[Chinese Exclusion Act]] of 1882 and the [[Contract Labor Law]] of 1885, as did many other labor groups, demonstrating the limits of their commitment to solidarity. While they claimed to not be "against immigration", their anti-Asian racism demonstrated the limits and inconsistency of their anti-racist platform.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Knights Across the Atlantic: The Knights of Labor in Britain and Ireland|last=Parfitt|first=Steven|publisher=Liverpool University Press|pages=43}}</ref>