The Failures of the Knights of Labor, and the Rise of Defined Unionism
Without a clear directive, and reliant upon voluntary participation of members who each fought for local independent causes, the union dwindled as its former members rushed to better organized labor unions like that of the American Federation of Labor.
During the late nineteenth century, the Knights of Labor was both a prominent voluntary based labor organization and one of the largest of its time. During the peak of its existence in 1886, membership staggered around nearly three-quarters of a million participants, but henceforth rapidly declined thereafter due to the nature of its own organizational structure.
The structure was fraternity based, favored mass membership with little prerequisites, and aimed to settle a large scale of workplace issues in a campaign against the aggressive nature of capitalism. Though the ideals were compelling, membership was lost to labor unions who favored protection and clearer standards.
The Knights of Labor, once a dominant labor union, fell victim to its own strategy of widespread inclusion. Without a clear directive, and reliant upon voluntary participation of members who each fought for local independent causes, the union dwindled as its former members rushed to better organized labor unions like that of the American Federation of Labor.
The Knights of Labor’s rapid growth during the 1880s can be attributed to the inclusiveness found in the organizations fraternally based roots. The Knights of Labor understood that the fraternal organizational structure, and fraternalism itself, was a traditional familiarity with prestigious value to the American working class. The organization effectively fostered the fraternal qualities of ritual-based ceremonies, versatility, informal sociability, moral uplift, and self-improvement, and this allowed the Knights to dominate the labor frontier for a short period of time.[1]
In combination with the familiarity, the Knights gained membership by advocating against the aggressive power of capitalists and corporations as it was believed that if power remained unchecked it would bring forth the pauperization of the American working class.[2] However, the Knights ultimate downfall would be the very ideals of inclusivism that prompted its explosive growth.
The Knights allowed widespread local assemblies to define its own organizational base, disregarding any ideas of a national agenda that introduced constraints on both the organization effectiveness in its advocacy and created a sectional rift between the skilled and unskilled working classes over the lack of progress.[3]
These failures led to a swift decline in the Knights membership between the time of its peak in 1886 and in the fall of 1888 as membership tailwind from approximately 700,000 to 350,000 as former members flocked to more defined labor unions like the American Federation of Labor.[4]
In the downfall of the Knights of Labor some contested the idea of labor unions entirely, as they judged its ability to dictate working wages as unempathetic, because it dictated gainful employment its members could seek only allowable if employers yielded to wage demands.[5]
Others found membership within the Knight’s competitor, the American Federation of Labor that offered a stark contrast to the Knights of Labor’s ideologies. The American Federation of Labor separated itself from the Knights of Labor by disregarding the idea of visionless inclusivism, the primary failure of the organization believed by the founder of the American Federation of Labor Samuel Gompers as explained in his description of the Knights of Labor as a “hodgepodge with no basis for solidarity” and “an organization with high ideals but purely sentimental and bereft of all practical thought”, in exchange for the intended purpose of focus on a smaller group of the working class, the skilled worker.[6]
Additionally, Gompers aimed to have the American Federation of Labor be the complete opposite of the Knights of Labor that was described as a fraternity without a fraternal beneficiary plan and a labor union without tenacity or direction, by avoiding any fraternal traits at all costs and by focusing on “the benevolent as well as the protective features in the union.”[7]
In effect, the standards and clear direction defined by Gompers brought new members in droves because of the American Federation of Labor’s ability to effectively use its skill set of its membership base to win negotiation with employers for better working conditions for its members.[8] Where the Knights of Labor failed, the American Federation of Labor flourished by providing an organization of clear vision and determination for the skilled working class of America during the Gilded Age.
The Knights of Labor was once one of the largest and most dominate labor organizations of the 1880s, fell victim to its own design. Its original intention was to create an inclusive labor organization based upon America’s oldest familiarity, the fraternity, with the intention of the betterment of the entire American working class, but in its wake created a union unable to use its strength in numbers because it was lost without a national directive.
As a result, its eventual collapse flocked its former members to other labor organizations like the American Federation of Labor which they saw fit as having a clearly defined initiative. The American Federation of Labor advantageous approach to unionizing, its focus on specific groups, its avoidances of fraternal, and its effectiveness in working with employers to secure better workers rights for its members proved to be the answer for many former Knights members as they left their former organization seeking more.
Bibliography
Kaufman, Jason. “Rise and Fall of a Nation of Joiners: The Knights of Labor Revisited.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 31, no. 4 (2001): 553–79. http://www.jstor.org/stable/206859.
“The ‘Pauper Labor’ of the South.” The Tobacco Plant. February 2, 1887. https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/primary-source-opposition
“Preamble and Declaration Of Principles Of The Knights Of Labor.” 1878. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Broadsides and Ephemera Collection, Duke University Libraries, Durham, N.C. https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4668bt1d
Voss, Kim. “Labor Organization and Class Alliance: Industries, Communities, and the Knights of Labor.” Theory and Society 17, no. 3 (1988): 329–64. http://www.jstor.org/stable/657519.
[1] Jason Kaufman, “Rise and Fall of a Nation of Joiners: The Knights of Labor Revisited,” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 31, no. 4 (2001): 553–79. http://www.jstor.org/stable/206859.
[2] “Preamble and Declaration Of Principles Of The Knights Of Labor,” 1878. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Broadsides and Ephemera Collection, Duke University Libraries, Durham, N.C. https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4668bt1d
[3] Kim Voss, “Labor Organization and Class Alliance: Industries, Communities, and the Knights of Labor,” Theory and Society 17, no. 3 (1988): 329–64. http://www.jstor.org/stable/657519.
[4] Kaufman, “Rise and Fall of a Nation of Joiners.”
[5] “The ‘Pauper Labor’ of the South,” The Tobacco Plant. February 2, 1887. https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/primary-source-opposition
[6] Kaufman, “Rise and Fall of a Nation of Joiners.”
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
