The Knights of Labor constitution sets forth the broad aims and rules for governance of the organization on the general, district, and local assembly levels. The document's eighty-one pages explain procedures for admission of new members, the duties of officers, as well as practicalities like doling out insurance benefits to members. Its rules and language reflect the institutional practices and currents of thought among laborers in the late nineteenth century. A clear hierarchy of officers and distinct responsibilities is clearly outlined, as are meeting and election protocols. The Knights of Labor put more than their rules for governance into their constitution, however. The document is steeped in the urgency and confidence with which the Knights went about organizing to promote higher wages, shorter work days, equal pay for equal work, and other labor reforms.

Nowhere is this sense of purpose and determination to promote their rights more in evidence than in the constitution's preamble, which is reproduced here. The preamble was largely written by a veteran of earlier union movements, Robert Schilling. Schilling penned the preamble for the Industrial Congress, an organization formed in 1873 to succeed the National Labor Union. Before he became the leader of the Knights of Labor, Terence Powderly helped organize workers in his home state of Pennsylvania for the Industrial Congress. Working to organize for the Industrial Congress inspired Powderly.

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He especially admired the Congress' goal of organizing by industry, rather than by particular trade, and its emphasis on making "industrial, moral and social worth-not wealth-the true standard of individual and national greatness," as the Congress' preamble stated. Schilling became involved in the Knights of Labor too, and with Powderly, headed the Knights' committee on the constitution. When the two men presented the preamble and platform of Industrial Congress to the first General Assembly of the Knights in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1878, it was accepted almost intact.

Questions:

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After reading the preamble to the Knights of Labor constitution, consider the following questions:

1. What development among "capitalists and corporations" will continue if the Knights do not take action to end it? 2. What do the Knights believe they must do in order to "enjoy the full blessings of life"? 3. What do you think the Knights mean when they say that "industrial and moral worth," and "not wealth" should be the "true standard of individual and national greatness."? 4. Name one demand the Knights hope to achieve "at the hands of the State." 5. Name one demand the Knights hope to achieve "at the hands of the Congress."

Document 1B: KOL Local Assembly Constitution and By Laws, 1880

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Control of the Knights of Labor was not strongly centralized. Terence Powderly, while a popular leader, also realized that the strength of the Knights rested in the power of its local assemblies (referred to as "LAs") to govern their own affairs. The local assembly was the basic unit of the Knights organization. Between 1869 and 1896 the order was represented in 15,000 local assemblies across the United States. The Knights had LAs in every state, and in rural as well as urban areas. Finally, locals were established outside of the United States as well, in Canada, England, Ireland, Belgium, Australia, and New Zealand. The prevalence of Knights LAs in areas affected by industrialization suggests that a genuine need for laborers to organize and educate themselves on responses to economic change existed.

The kinds of workers that made up particular LAs varied. Workers in a single trade, or occupational specialty, could make up an LA. Locals organizing according to a single trade, say glass-blowing, were called trade assemblies. A local could, however, also be made up of workers of several different trades, say coal miners, railway workers, and steel workers. The Knights encouraged organization across industries, meaning that workers that performed different jobs within single industries, such as in the shoe or textile industry, unite despite their different tasks, skills, pay, and work conditions. This, Knights leaders thought, would strengthen unity and make it a greater force for enacting change favorable to labor.

Though the Knights encouraged mixed assemblies, for reasons related to a single kind of worker having similar work and pay interests as well as grievances, single trade locals remained popular. The first LAs were garment and metal workers, but the order soon took off among Pennsylvania coal miners. Seventy percent of the LAs formed between 1875 and 1879 were coal miners' locals. Later on, in the 1880s, coal miners continued to dominate among the locals, though new groups of workers in food processing, manufacturing, transportation, and agriculture also formed locals. Around this time, the mixed locals began to gain popularity. Sometimes, the mixed local followed organization across occupations within the same workplace. At other times, a local's leadership might bring together different trades in a single community.

Document 1b is a reproduction of the cover of the constitution and by laws of the Jackson, Michigan Local Assembly No. 1446 of the Knights of Labor, an single-trade assembly of coal miners. The LA constitutions were expected to conform to rules set out in the national constitution. For example, a local had to have at least ten members and at least three-quarters of them had to be wage earners. The national constitution also emphasized the broader goals of the local: "Agitation, Education and Organization are all necessary. Among the higher duties that should be taught in every right to a share, for use, of the soil, and that the right to life carries with it the right to a means of living and that all statutes that obstruct or deny these rights are wrong, unjust, and must give way." Hence, the local was given administrative and moral guidance by the national organization, but local identity and practice were reinforced as these assemblies conducted their own affairs at regular meetings. (Top of Page)