Knights Across the Atlantic The Knights of Labor in Britain and Ireland STUDIES IN labOUR HISTORY 7 Studies in Labour History ‘...a series which will undoubtedly become an important force in re-invigorating the study of Labour History.’ English Historical Review Studies in Labour History provides reassessments of broad themes along with more detailed studies arising from the latest research in the field of labour and working-class history, both in Britain and throughout the world. Most books are single-authored but there are also volumes of essays focussed on key themes and issues, usually emerging from major conferences organized by the British Society for the Study of Labour History. The series includes studies of labour organizations, including international ones, where there is a need for new research or modern reassessment. It is also its objective to extend the breadth of labour history’s gaze beyond conven- tionally organized workers, sometimes to workplace experiences in general, sometimes to industrial relations, but also to working-class lives beyond the immediate realm of work in households and communities. Knights Across the Atlantic The Knights of Labor in Britain and Ireland Steven Parfitt Knights Across the Atlantic LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS First published 2016 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU Copyright © 2016 Steven Parfitt The right of Steven Parfitt to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A British Library CIP record is available print ISBN 978-1-78138-318-6 cased epdf ISBN 978-1-78138-353-7 Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster Contents Acknowledgements vii Introduction: The World of the Knights of Labor 1 1 Origins 20 2 The Rise of a Transnational Movement 50 3 Organisation, Culture and Gender 79 4 The Knights in Industry 109 5 The Knights and Politics 135 6 The Knights and the Unions 164 7 The Fall of a Transnational Movement 196 Conclusion: The Knights of Labor in Britain and Ireland 223 Appendix: List of Known Assemblies of the Knights of Labor in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland 233 Bibliography 239 Index 256 Acknowledgements Acknowledgements This book would not have happened without the help of many people in many different ways. The first of them are my PhD supervisors, Professor Chris Wrigley and Dr Nick Baron. Your willingness to very often meet and talk about my research, read whatever I sent you, and provide useful guidance and advice throughout all three years of the PhD, made those three years as rewarding, productive and stress-free as any PhD can possibly be. I must also thank Paul Taillon, my supervisor at Honours and Masters level at the University of Auckland, who read drafts on occasion and remained incredibly supportive even though I was no longer your student and not even in the same country, and my external examiner, Neville Kirk, whose comments on this book helped it to assume its final shape. In all cases I have been given the best possible understanding of what it means to be a historian and I hope that any future students I might supervise will learn as much from me as I have from you. Without my parents, Julia and Graham, this book would also not have been possible. You provided me with an early love of reading and learning, and instilled in me an interest in current and past events. Without all of those I would not have written this book. Your financial support during my PhD studies made this research possible, and you deserve thanks as well as my love. My friends in New Zealand, and friends I made in Nottingham – Anas, Dominik, Mike, Laura, Maria and Christeena, amongst many others – also kept me sane during the three years and made it such an enjoyable experience. Thanks especially to Michael, Josh, Jeremy and Jou-an, Paula and Philip, and Richard, Julie, Kirk, Claire and Dan, for putting me up on my many trips to London and sharing the odd drink or two. There are too many other people to name here but I thank you all. And finally, to Elizabeth, who demonstrated amazing patience with me during the last several months and kept me going. I love you. viii Knights Across the Atlantic I would also like to thank the Economic History Society, the Society for the Study of Labour History and the Royal Historical Society for providing me with the necessary funds to conduct research in the United States, and the University of Nottingham for providing me with an International Research Excellence Scholarship that allowed me to study in the UK. Thank you as well to the archivists at the Modern Records Centre at Warwick, the Catholic University of America, the British Library, National Library of Scotland, the Library of Congress, and the Local History Centres at Liverpool, Birmingham, Sandwell, Dudley, Wolverhampton, Walsall, and Rotherham, for making the task of research that much easier. Thanks to Valida and Chris Walker for making my stay in Washington DC so enjoyable and productive. Finally, I would like to thank the editors at Liverpool University Press and Alison Welsby in particular for your friendly and efficient help in the preparation of this book. Though this book bears my name, it was only possible because of a wide cast of people. I thank you all once again. Introduction The World of the Knights of Labor Introduction On 9 December 1869, the members of the Garment Cutters’ Association of Philadelphia met to dissolve their organisation and divide its funds amongst themselves. After that meeting ended, some of them convened elsewhere to create a new, secret association. Nine men, joined by five more two days later, founded the first assembly or branch of the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, although they only adopted that name on 28 December.1 The leading spirit behind that new order, Uriah Stephens, a man trained for the Baptist ministry before economic circumstances forced him to seek work in the garment trades, designed the Knights of Labor along the lines of a fraternal order with an elaborate ritual based on Freemasonry. The Knights kept their name and existence hidden from the public, even from the workers they sounded out as members. They announced their meetings in a cryptic code scrawled on the walls of public buildings. From these unlikely beginnings the Knights of Labor became one of the great social movements of nineteenth-century American history. The Knights grew slowly during the 1870s. That decade was marked by the Panic of 1873, a global financial crisis that left economic depression in its wake, and by the Great Uprising of 1877, when the first nationwide railroad strike in American history took place and in some cities and acquired the feel of an armed struggle between workers, employers, local police and state militias. The Knights were only marginally involved in these battles and in 1878, at their first General Assembly, or national convention, they mustered around 10,000 members. As the trade unions succumbed to depressed economic conditions or to the counter-attacks of employers after the Great Uprising, the Knights moved slowly, at first, into the spaces they left behind. 1 N. Ware, The Labor Movement in the United States, 1860–1895: A Study in Democracy, 2nd ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1964), p. 23. 2 Knights Across the Atlantic They exploded onto the American social and political scene in the 1880s. From 50,000 members in 1883, 70,000 in 1884 and 100,000 in 1885, the Knights of Labor approached the staggering figure of 1 million members in the early months of 1886.2 In that year, known to historians as the Great Upheaval, American workers struck in unprecedented numbers, formed numerous labour parties that contested and often won elections, and flocked to labour organisations, whether the Knights or the trade unions, in their hundreds of thousands. The economic and political rulers of the United States found themselves facing a mass mobilisation from below that threatened to redraw the American social landscape on cooperative rather than competitive lines. The Knights of Labor became the symbol of and the banner for that mass mobilisation. Yet only ten years later the Knights were effectively dead. Employers and their allies in government launched a fierce attack against the Order and rooted it out of workplaces across America. Rival trade unions fought the Knights out of their industries and took many of their members. Knights fought amongst themselves for control of the Order’s leadership and over its tactics, strategy and political orientation. The Knights of Labor disappeared from American life almost as quickly as they had entered it, and in 1917 their last General Master Workman, the top executive position in the Order, deposited its records in a shed behind an office in Washington DC, and formally brought the Order to an end. The rise and fall of the Knights of Labor remains one of the most dramatic episodes in American and Canadian labour history. But the Order became more than just a North American movement. Over the course of their history the Knights established assemblies in Belgium, England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France, Italy, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. There are suggestions that the Knights also extended into Germany, Mexico, Scandinavia and even India.