:4

. ‘
'22:”..7 "I 49

Lh,“fi~ “It. A it 3—0

:9

Ia

1".

738

4

b.

w

9

I
A

 
  
  
  
 
     
      
   
   
     
    
         

 

-O

   
 
 
 
    
 
      

 

W 7 l

‘ MMRMRIIM

3

Hoolwfldwo.-¢o-oo-..---oo .3‘..Ioo--QVU¢¢O-- v". HWWV—v -
~33

    
       
      
       
   
 
 
   

 

:‘vhp‘swm :J.dv¢w-oou-Wkacaaa«-haaoov.vu-~oooo _ 3 3. ”.9; In;
3' - . r - - ’, _ z ‘ ~ I
o .3. .I. 'n - ' wv'q- 3 - "-.. 0333 iv -né- v. 9' r ,. M. or. «I. .-, _,
.. .N (:63IIT’W '~‘ -','I‘ H. ‘ 3-3“), s.‘.‘.. ‘ rr'..PJr ”:91! r!‘
.3 .)3' .33. ~ 3-3.33 ‘yq. 5 n... O'é. I 1' duo p.33 . v..._9
." .l).' 1 .-','N- a .33 rug. ,3. 4'1”? IH‘I' '2‘" .- 3r
.‘a 3 - .3 .- . . I. 3 r- .o.' _ I _c..».~-.I ."
. I 3,.3‘. IJIIQ 33 .0 0‘ x I . '\ I no ‘. J . ‘3 1 3‘. '.I ' ". - '3’
. . 3 f-

.o’ l":"_' 'h-II_,‘ -- ‘ .‘0 '. “ 1" l.
. 4-,” o 1- -s1. 9* .

 

   

      
  

    
    
 

     
  
      
   
        
           
  
 
 

 

3
O .
' ' . '1- p, _' .p a I 5x . t . . .‘l .
0‘3!" 3 t ’ .5 ‘3’. ‘. " ‘3"! 0“": ' '3‘1’ ' J ' I ' '9 '- 3.- ‘0'“ I"; ‘ . 31
if 3:. b" .‘:I . f ;_ .7.- ppp , I. ~ I . 9 '1' 1"“. 3"“ -€0r,3-&o '3 I" ' ' 1 [3 “"3‘3- "
.ri‘i'rzo I - .II. - .Oo't 3: 3 3- 3 a . . o 0 c3 .1 ‘.!h‘,, gy~‘\‘;:. ‘3‘)", ‘33.‘»\
“m;- I, .§:'.’ ?. .‘q', o- ‘: I. .0 O f: |—. . ' 5‘.‘.\'k‘ '.I . :‘J';‘“fl {0:3
. 3 ’L. -.. .-.--. .' ,- - .;-_ _
fifisn’j.’ 3—4 ~733.". 3:; ‘0“! ‘0’: 3- - 3. - u ." 3.35““ 3'"! '0‘, W‘ t 1' ’-
l’ v3 - ‘ - , ‘1' V - ' {a " ,1." - -' f ‘- :01" \‘3-—".3
. . ,. , . . . a! :0. m 3“ 4-40-61 3 . 3A? r .t ‘13.: 2 ..3 3...,3- 3. r u tun?- - "‘f"J 3 3 4r
. . . . t ' - . o - v
3,. a"... It ._ r 3 ‘.3:.”.'.‘ ... 4,. ' ”3‘, °_ (3" 0.33 334 ~ 3.}!53
.r ".0 . f 3-:
.\ U S. '.
'.‘ ’ 3,-

    

      

   

   

 

 
  
     

 

    

    

v
. 33 3o. 3 . . 3 ' 9"
«(3-93. ~'.v-. -:-' "1’ 3 . 7-. $3.33.. .3. - '33 3 «t ‘3- we a! -1 IN» 04‘!
“‘9 1.“, g .1. ‘ t'.Io . 3 .I . ‘_ .‘. _vI :5 r'! "H’IfJII 0 I. _‘ "It". ‘:‘00'.D“ ‘Li‘fl 'lfi"
3m I‘d-v.34! I.3'V\.'“: 3onr-I'3 '.-‘-f3-'JP"’ "’.".I’ ""
I.-.( 3.!- .I O ..- 3 0r 3 _i¢v._ 3 - 3 ---- -"loouIvI:*" “2' ’."
.r 3 - .4 -...2. too '- 3, .9 .3 _,. ..' 3".‘Oé‘l. "33.1.. .l;:n:.::.‘r.. at
t- ’ J y; ';'.»..- ~° "'1 ' 0° -n.--' '4‘ -;-;.' ;“.. .l.‘ 3'3;
$.11? Q..." ._I..."";)I' .ql- u '. C-,‘ ‘ f'. o . f A .I‘
c.3IJ' “"9 ‘kvu‘ Monty-J - 3’ ' "‘
c “303 I n--. “'03
.K' i O G
<I".
r 9.: .
q-_' 5' .6
1'1113’. .
. )("° IOOP> ‘
(nyy. 13.'.~ I ~'-. ‘1.
..'.’ I '-’ ‘3"! "_ 35:9
1’ " '91-” .'--3 .- ""
33y-O’F'OC‘VO‘ "‘
3—003 3 .9? map — -
- “.““‘."l“ -3
'3 I! ."."‘f3r.
~-‘ 0'. VI“‘.;‘.""
aro‘g
'
3r

   
   
  
  
 

     
      
    

 
   

A 9.
, pm 3- ~ ~-_' ': "
' 2' =3; ' ”If: ‘3‘: :3. "3.; 3I 90'7","
3 ‘ 3
3.1‘." ..'_ r'..'..- :51 '1'":'4I: ‘ g~§::*'
. .‘30‘,.I— '.-, 3' (I ~ ..3 a. 'VL- 1"
I . 3 «'34.— 'O D ‘3"... —,.r

3'-

':‘Mw‘w '
J I

      

 

  
  

         

  
  

       

          
  

 

    
 
 
 

  
 
  

 
  

 

I
. ,3 3! ‘ '3, c I I ‘ '
u‘oog—o-‘n-ou-II "
3, u I. ' I. '9...
. f ' I,",.I' l;:. 3'. no. 3 1 I 'y 'l" ‘WQ‘J
'1‘; y "3 in! r O. ' a" f . u or - I '(J‘ 30""
$.41: ~ '--'.". [33,933.33 o.-_¢p3ov--a‘ '9."D-Cl'cf_“dfi'l " "0
I fif‘y.IOOIl~Ia.'- - pa... .,-¢I_ .4 3.3 tr. 3.3... O I - y. 'm J; ‘U 45".;
I ‘ . 33‘- - 3 '0‘" ~.- 333 - 33-3 .0. -‘ tyzl'r We "-3-:- to '3! “~94 £3.“ v 4rh-vy‘
" C 0. 3 or“. ’.O °'r lyfivu" «Va “FI‘H'O‘pJqIJ-r. .. . a. 3'3. 30". '1'? ”LI "4
I . 3“ -0 .,.:_. up otl3'13i - v1.3... I'm-'9 . " I0 My: ‘0 I ‘313' I‘.“'.'""?
, _“_ , r7". .3-roo'cp13rno'o ,1».

     

 
 
   

I... #3.." 03. o 0' , 030-.“ ":“.'" .l""

- 9 . A

:9 r3 ' .' "I"

r-‘w'dbhr

'3'...’¢33,'l3 OuI..-. 0“‘,’.’l4 O: :90: '

(3-0141 ..
43‘ N

          
   
   
   
    
    
   
   
 
     
  
       
  
  
  

' '. '.' .ro:|:_..;. *5: ’1‘ I l O l ' I V
. o I ~- 5 v ‘ ' '
. 3 I! 0 II no ,3 v I (64' '3...
a. 3 o.
c

303,
a n'.

    

I. ,¢.93~-Ivn‘coyoo~9 u: r _' 3‘1'
0 r--r«vz'v‘03..'*.!""~"°t' G'O‘9' "I’Qt’WH -""' P‘ ;';' (Jo.
,. 3' “'4 on 0|. a. Q I C-I’I 1 4 1M.O(I ,d I “ M ’ _ f’:¢ 4-":05’? " K‘r“. ' :9 ’M 3
potting-waiv-u 301.030; 3 to I..' _3, 3.. ~03, '-..3.r3o'::- 33;. ”r: to" "5”
' - f 0-.

 

 

 
 

0 a. .
":3: , ‘0' 3 '- 09.0‘0 , .3! v. , .3 3-”. [3“5' 3 ' 3 Iv. ‘. . , u-.
3.0; r ’ 'w‘ 3-3; I”. on 3. .3 ....,3'3-, -,I V
".‘0':1I' 10- " ""I' 'v‘ o""|"f-1'('.O.O'UOI.'. '3 P ¢
. I I Iv Ir 9' " -" 0y“ ' 3 r all, .9 'IL‘
"HI, Dui- ‘(H -"."-'.:P!11‘:'.‘_-3./; .‘/'_l'1(J'O‘O"'p"I
. not 39". on “P I" ‘r".9"" 9. "‘ " 'u"v'l-0.'.._JO
..'I.. 3o.I4I 91:." 'l 932'0'0'. . pa; QOQOO‘IO
' 'J"-‘ “O 9 "IV' ' ‘ ' "2 '1. I'Olr I. Qfi’II. '
'0" "";."1'.":I¢“" opt 1‘0;'“ C .IV vIoo’o-l f9if‘I
. ,., ," I-‘ogv-gv:of_'m. ’IJ' of“ 9.7-ng:"
-. I. '0‘! I.‘ 95.4.2' . f"'¢o‘o‘.

    
    

of".
top’l'h'Oftl‘“ "..'
{p.03 q~rl’ll_" ' ‘O-r .
vi" I r01 ‘ '2‘!“ ('1 a - 0—910‘4':
P: ° 1' .0 3' .‘9r.':-3 "3H o-g'r 31..“
Ovavvyu-IyI ,3 ...
C- - Or.

 
    
        
  
  

 

-' , ';"-"..'°.
9 I

   

z-o-r

     

. 0' o g "."' ,oIfqn. ‘, c

o 3” 3 a n I nun-n yr. 9' O" o a p '0': 0"}

.3 .3. 0.9,. a. 0 urn"; ' ...-' 3 coo-mil"
.0 H ‘

 

 

 
 

o - ' "
3 . .- 3-. ' I - "7376—. 2.!
u- . r "-0 no no .r .I J . g 3.. a ' ' 0- 'f.‘ ‘\.3 I' "2””..‘5'3’ '1'V-3vr.vu:.ov"
.,I 3 I" .“ ‘u."-.-I'OD'I3 -'-l-.‘- 3., l 3.....I'ozsfrv‘ cc“ .‘fY‘ .. .‘m"‘:""*
o. - ‘3 9-" “V!

  
  
    
    
      
   
     
  

 

3. 3 .3aovan-g-rr-owot'vr.".""',‘."‘!°
'03! 0- 3 o a 0 ran 0 '3 rmunroqv. or! l“ n. ”7""0" 'Q n "' ‘
O 3' o o" 3 0-. r. '. yum-i ' I'O'c I- o--'- o 0'01"". f"'0

. , a. .33 r 3 3 avg-'33 .3. 0 «pr 9 -—n oIOO-o unocrt‘s'jc 3
.u- .333. ... ”,3" «.3 I ,..,-,. .391 3lvuo~7¢9\'0,rltv--
. p 3. 3 “’35-. -:._-a.o'000'lb$_l n.1,...nf‘o',

   

     
             
  
  
   
 
 

   

  

, ,,H.... -.,uv-'- _ .3... .W‘ o3c:;300p—.I ‘
. .ororrannm o':‘-:3Iio.~o.3- 3-p- «rr'lvrnfl 'r‘i'm
.‘3‘..-‘-o,'.oonn‘-O0Q- o:a.,.o‘o.000 'I ..:;-J"! ‘l;"""'!""
~13 '3». . , [31"0 3I3uo'a’v‘.31s.3po' p,"( ”I; ('3': "'u‘J-f .4 .
‘....! O ,,’,., 3,._ ,’3.......|... 33., ‘ ’33..”93'9033'1'If-Iff- 0"
.a a '. . . o 3 .33., '.onaI'.o'1 Ito-'1- I'.‘.C.- 0.;l;~0 093' _';OIQ 9: p ”-0 .
- .0. 33- ao'vvc -t>4)o-o.rr< —Io- new 3.3 .._..I3;.3..~.. no I‘D-""‘3 “l."‘f ‘ ' ’ J ' ' ' ' 3
1 3 a 4rd I .3 w"! - . -oau.5-¢.n row ”poo .o'ra~oIn,u',r.' 0'; 'I-I‘U'CD"-O or 0.0". O‘““‘“" 00“! ""O-o-nm ' ' ' "' ' "' ' I
..vy-a~3~n-.3 ,. g ' g-o , 3.3-, a 0.1333," 33. p «3., 393.3..pq30 up»... 3‘. “.3g3n.I“33-.-. '. 33' ’~I.F...‘_"V w'ffli'l £1..." 0:." "at; .3,.oI'-o-‘ r’ 0" ~' '1 " ' ‘.'
.". _. fl. .',.....3. .- ,,..‘ q", 3' ‘3...ngu-p_. .yI-o.".qo-O n..-..‘... '1. I“"""‘""l 3‘:...‘uv-o 3-3-0019'0
I -343. 3. .... II :33, up hyauirl- y, _o P;.‘:‘;-. - '.‘;;.';' If. .J: 3.3915 0':" g n In?"
', . ‘ 10"!- '_.§'. .fi..o. ...’ 3 "’CI-' .3. :,'.,.r’ '5 33 - ":7Il‘.

3,1. 33.3 33334;! 3’ x 94' O:s‘:J'I".r‘--g\. p3 ”no"- . 01%;!
.3 '0 '“fll u 3 33‘. “.9.‘ '1 I r'

             
  
 
  
 
   
 
 
   
 
     
 
 
   
  

   

0J3 ' rv-3§.npuo ro- owl"" woo .(v . .3
0.311“? 'q' ° ' 0" 0 06.0 ""’P’.‘ " :V" 3".fi. ltn"{:”"-""“."!7"!'°‘- 3"""f" fu'w‘ll'
. I 33., ‘: l" N- ', ‘I ,'.. . 0.. '33-'39: o. ”'1.“ 'O“O‘ 0‘" ‘ ' (ck-'yy-3o3 ”van-0' ‘ 0'"

, . ' .I .I . .II. a ' I .4 o..o-ul '0': '1“; f 93' .‘ ‘ ‘3. ' 3' Y.‘ Q 33." fl " ' 9‘ ‘
r .1 o O‘l‘ 3 I 1 - 3 i .0 0'3, 1‘. . rgdc-Iy .;-'l{’l‘3oo—f-O.I‘O‘¢r'03~g .33. .43. I. 3%. .ozf3."
, . ‘ I 3 V . 3.3 . _ '0 0 M n I “- 3 - o 50 '-
' ' . . . ’n ' ,.'. " .fot. O"_32¢:r$'l I Oyo'l£ 1!}; o .3 .2 {£2 . .1 f ‘ , 3
3. 0 '.' .- I ~ r «N .. , . D l
'l 6 0 0" II I -:I:" ll'ozIIIut.‘.-'I‘I ' v.‘ '0 I ‘ ‘ 3

':.I:;J u’.r".¢‘lo 00'. >00! '0

 
 

3.3: "(0’ r4 VJ "l'.."'. :' .‘(3 0:... .
. 'Qh‘o_ot‘o"j'I.3‘I. ' 9' '1' a - --0' r
393'— 3 3.3.3. 30.. o -l' v " to -.~ .p-ro-I-r
.’o' opI'3 .; Inot'l 0‘ O"".‘. (Q. ‘ I'{! '9 O" 0,. l p . ,{rn‘ 3 '4"
y“...3'.,3'.3p ¢ qv‘fio'o r~1333vp.pzor"'
,. ,rr'3’3 ' :3- ‘3-’ '00- 3 -Ql' OJ. .3 3'" v I
93".,3‘.. :g.."".‘ "'." l‘.“‘f"""0"lu0‘ 0-1"
’ o l 0 Q r J fl,.ID 1- ' --‘ O-vvolt . no *)'I'\
03'. ,0 "M‘ 3 v‘q.'.-, "3...." 39"‘.‘ .03‘.I.. v 4‘ ,fra".' '- . .. I:¢3\-.-o"ll
”.',....3,Q.L.--Io¢v.no 'com gov-005:3. rmrofil'ffil l!0""oa 'p—I‘t.|.'.-l-.o- r.. 'th~--'“.'¢- 91-03.: “'7' 'l

.a-:p:‘:u‘pIIIQ-..n- '.'3'€N >-.-':.!'-(d'o-ooal¢D-‘.:lo->{0IO:( "Il_‘_I'o 33.33-v063'0‘1'
3 o I n

'0.-
‘ .ulv1:\3 .- .3 :3. pa .3I.I|‘o I3. 33r".3'¢;.‘.' .;..IIQ§.‘ w. I o 0’”_3 ‘3’ c 3 u
I I o "f! ’;-:"f‘ I, ‘ '
3..

.9
3

uwovau o Q'W'I’v'fla Ain't" U“
‘ 0.. ' I

 
 

.
. . -
':1'I'.1I1'
. 0-- I" _
W». 1-! IIWI
' I 'I
”1:..(‘2'y OEOIG"

 
 

       

I ' - h
.. , . ’ -, .3 ». . ... . c o 3 y 3. ' .3.‘c-0—I"~ 00'. 1 0 i No lifiv‘onllO' I
03 -5I I I o ' '-O"_IO-fuv"‘"-"5"?-W 'fl{;au':', ,' ”u. . nywv‘ ‘3. .5‘
~- r33 3- 3' 3 . OW'vn \1-‘0‘ "0‘0' "' 'vq-I-Q‘o ['0 c v...-,- :-"- ' 1' 3333.373 ..
I 3 o "'.”.J.". 0 ocul- . 3... I393'...',53.m.‘, ‘0 1‘3!
'3! - - g 3 g- - 3— '. 33““.3. II~-‘ prltl‘b":fIIOIU-l n- 30-. IJpoo c-‘. 2.3!:
3 3.. .333 - - ' . I O' , O .r —¢‘I-.0Il.‘ 0 0' 06v 3 G . I ("l-'I U":;':r:- ”I F -
9-333-03 0“".5“ _ , ,v ‘4 0‘0 to .~Orl,0lu;33'33:f’a-o..333 -03~-
.3. .. ..-° I -: o 3 AI! O.d"“'3' v'" 1;; 3'... 33'. o. 1.3 wo-ors‘mod- c 'I‘;' 3"“-
._, ,. , . 30- . 3” 'g- . 1 ——-3 '1" 9,4 r3) J. 3. 3 .g. 3 3 03.. ,3 0.-'~d3¢3 .- 3|
. _ _,3 .\ fl-Q’t ’ "'..1" 3.3r’l 0" I 1. 3' It. “1'0...‘...r3'."
J". "‘.‘""‘ ,,”._.,,,.. . . . .-3|310’O‘..‘p10 Ham!» ‘qo-‘l“!- 3 3..3.333........,.........
3 J. a .., 3 A I y t: 0- ‘0 0'. I' "‘ ')".J"' U' ' u- o—fia. - c3... 4 0-- ..~ 3; nun-
IIr.\o 4"I.:.'rff '¢-'I-"“:£_""‘I":.‘I'" ’0" 4‘"’- 3-10 -.-3~v"f0~OO¢|o-oov-o .0-
.... , I . , ‘ 13:...HI” '-II'ol‘IQ'I"I’\.. (3. ;J.3.I...ov...3¢' .3.
."- ,.. _ Y‘..."'"'._’ 0" " ‘ 9" I ‘I‘.I "Iu';,,3l.po oolcnbc-o |.'3¢I Q.
,. 3.. ,._.4 I 33n-0I‘ III-'3. . \L . ., ..., .....<
, ._ . .,:.' 1‘ 0 f "3" ‘. " ’5' to. l --.¢-o--noor 33.
3 .3 3'3]. . r' ‘ "\ I DO ’3‘ 'U" ""' I" It! 0". 01....-.
. _ - 3 . AA. l "‘13' "“7‘ ’b . 3 l... .33.. 'Q’CD'
.. c_ ‘ '3' o:‘ 3..3I30..,'0c ‘ I“ O._I,I.QQ." '3' 100' p
3.3.. 3-..‘4-3 .' 33 ~09 ‘ ' -'u' I'Ivr 33 3
r 339- ‘ f a; 1"}. r 9 “"‘ “"’ ' ‘9’... “\ "3 ‘. '. .l'
33 , . 3-3-, C?»(.I‘V“:['“'Q{3 I V 0" '.'||‘I'.‘I' 13
t‘os' 3: o 0‘ o I. 333. ..33n3'-"r. ""¢l“. I ..
I .,. ,__‘.’_-’ 3-W3“43J "' uh. __ r -_.o-... _ .33_I.v-.3'-ry-o .u
. ‘.'. . r. ‘--O b “ . ,} fro-if I II ‘gfiv‘ ( ""WJ‘.‘ "§n0l‘l‘ Q0 3
v ' ".3 u . I», -‘ . "I "~i" ‘l,3f 1. ' I " 0". 0
I33 .' ‘3‘ 9‘ '- 33,0‘ !,Mo\,3’.£3 ‘3'} \‘rg . ‘#V« 3-1‘3 .\.'.‘3'.’ ‘.I 33'...
......3 ---. .-_3--A' whir'vr’-(0~t-‘ I". -113 I Onr‘d0"0~01‘f3-nhlv'fi '_"_’_‘

   

“HE-78!.

MICHIGAN STATE UN VERSITY LIBRARIES

ill llllllllllll ll HH

3 1293 00903 2644

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

'AS YOU HAVE EVER BEEN THE WORLD'S PROVIDERS,
SO NOW YOU ARE TO BE ITS SAVIORS':
A STUDY OF CHRISTIANITY AND THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR

presented by

Mary Lynne Mapes

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

M.A. degree in History

 

MW PM

Major professor

Date ll'llZ'IQl

0-7639 MS U is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution

”w A“

l umar

magnet! State
University

L J

———vv

 

r

 

PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove this chockout from your record.
TO AVOID FINES return on or before date due.

ll DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MSU I. An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution
omens-ox

 

 

 

 

 

—_—————____—~— — ,._______ .,__-__

 

’AS YOU HAVE EVER BEEN THE WORLD’S PROVIDERS,
SO NOW YOU ARE TO BE ITS SAVIORS’:
A STUDY OF CHRISTIANITY AND THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR

BY

Mary Lynne Mapes

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ART

Department of History

1991

{Xi/{57’

ABSTRACT
’AS YOU HAVE EVER BEEN THE WORLD’S PROVIDERS, 50 NOW YOU ARE

TO BE ITS SAVIORS': A STUDY OF CHRISTIANITY AND THE KNIGHTS
OF LABOR

By
Mary L. Mapes

The Knights of Labor was unquestionably the most
important labor organization of the late nineteenth century.
Over 700,000 men, women, blacks, as well as skilled and
unskilled laborers protested the abuses wrought by the rise of
industrial capitalism by participating in a wide range of
labor activity from boycotts to strikes. To explore the
ideology of this protest most scholars have focused on the
Order’s use of republican rhetoric and adherence to the basic
tenets of capitalism. Through the use of labor journals and
reports this study concentrates on the Knights’ use of
Christian discourse as well as the Order’s relationship with
the dominant churches and established clergy. The Knights’
belief that Christianity was defined by deed rather than creed
provided the Order with an ideology that allowed the Knights
to both construct an independent identity and critique the
dominant society. The Christian ideas the Knights supported
also allowed the Order to believe the labor movement would
redeem those institutions and individuals corrupted by the

burgeoning industrial capitalist system.

Contents

Introduction
1. Defining Christianity 13

The Clergy 27

(JON

The Labor Missionary Social Movement 38
4. Female Knight Redeemers 49

5. Conclusion 64

iii

 

"The emancipation of the working classes must be
achieved by the working classes themselves. ‘Go, disciple all
nations, beginning first at Jerusalem,’ said Jesus, and then
to convert a nation was to revolutionise it. An the cry rings
out to every one that ears to hear or eyes to see: Go,
revolutionise all nations!"

Judson Grenell
Labor Leaf
December 2, 1885

iv

Introduction

In 1883 a witness before the United States }Senate
Committee investigating relations between capital and labor
testified: "I believe the labor movement includes all those
forces in society which are first of a religious kind..."1
Rather than representing an anomalous allusion to
Christianity, the above statement is representative of the
types of Christian references that abound throughout the
journals of the Holy Order of the Knights of Labor. _ For
example, in response to the question, "how can the toiler
receive and enjoy a just share of the values or capital he has
created", Nicholas 0. Thompson of Philadelphia responded:
"But, brethren, a new era has dawned. The Phoenix has arisen
from its ashes, and we see in our Noble and Holy Order the
bright star, which if followed with the zeal of the ‘Wise Men
of the East’ will bring us to the true solution of the problem
and the acme of our hopes."2

From the historical literature on late nineteenth century
labor activity, and the Knights of Labor in specific, one
would be hard pressed to find any evidence that religious
imagery and concepts informed the responses of those
protesting the rise of industrial capitalism. Until the

19503, the "Commons’ school" largely dominated how historians

interpreted and analyzed labor history.3 The Commons’ school,

2

which was developed in the early decades of the twentieth
century under the tutelage of John R. Commons at the
University of Wisconsin, described in detail the
organizational apparatus of the unions, as well as the values
and personalities of the union leaders. The umbrella national
structure of the General Assembly and Grand Master Workman,
especially the leader Terence V. Powderly, are discussed in
depth. It is not surprising, therefore, that labors’ uses of
Christian imagery and analogies was not the primary focus for
investigation.

Unfortunately, the Knights of Labor did not fare well
under the Commons’ school inquiries. Because the Commons’
school concentrated on the Knights’ failure as a union
movement, they described the Order in largely negative terms.
Why both skilled and unskilled laborers found the Knights an
effective voice for their grievances and hopes was largely
ignored. The many strikes and boycotts instituted on the
local level by district and local assemblies did not receive
adequate attention. Selig Perlman is one such follower of the
Commons’ school whose belief in the inherent weakness of the
Knights of Labor limited his understanding of the Order.
Rather than describing why workers of the late nineteenth
century found the Knights a viable medium for their
expression, he attempts to prove the Orders’ unsuitability to
nineteenth century America. To illustrate the unsuitability
of the Knights of Labor, he compares the Order to the American

Federation of Labor which he describes as more "fit" because

3
it accepted what he refers to as the political and economic
realities of late nineteenth century America.‘

Although the Commons’ school suffered from weaknesses,
the scholars who used this approach thoughtfully discussed the
organizational form of the Knights as well as the limits of
the Knights’ ideology and activities. The most important
study on the Knights of Labor published before the 19603 was
Norman Ware’s work, The Labor Movement in the United States
1860-1895.5 IBy providing profiles of the leadership, as well
as a thorough chronological discussion of the Orders’
organizational changes, Ware demonstrates the typical
methodology and subject matter of the Commons’ school.
However, Ware’s analysis of the Knights of Labor deviates from
the Commons’ tradition. Instead of highlighting the Knights’
"unsuitability" to the nineteenth century political and
economic conditions, as well as the Knights ultimate failure,
Ware finds the activities of the Knights of Labor a legitimate
form of labor protest. Though Ware assessed the Knights
differently from most Conunons’ school scholars, the
perseverance of the Commons’ school institutional focus is
demonstrated by Gerald Grob’s study, Workers and Utogia: a
Study of Ideological Conflict in the American Labor Movement
1865-1900, published in 1961.6 Even though Grob addresses
divisions between the leaders and the rank and file, he
largely relied on the Commons’ school methodology of focusing
on the organization of the union and its leaders. Like

Perlman, he also critically analyzed the Knights’ failure as

4
a labor organization by arguing that they pursued misguided
reform goals. The belief that the Knights were a backward
looking organization became fully entrenched in the historical
record due to this scholarship. '

Labor historians writing in the 19603 and 19703 reacted
against the Commons’ school institutional focus on national
unions and leadership by enlarging the subject of study to
workers and working class culture. Workers previously ignored
by labor historians, such as women, blacks, and those
unaffiliated with unions, became important subjects of study.
Greater emphasis was also placed on the cultural, political,
and social milieu in which working class dissent arose. E.P.
Thompson and Herbert Gutman are two forbearers of this new
cultural approach to labor history.7

The subject of working class culture continues to
predominate the work of labor historians. Recent scholars
have argued that the logic and legitimacy of working class
beliefs and goals can be illuminated by exploring the culture,
as well as the ideology and rhetoric, of working people.
Rather than employing a static definition of class
consciousness, these historians have attempted to investigate
how and why the workers’ goals and ideas found resonance
within their specific cultural milieu, Leon Fink has used the
term ‘movement culture’ to identify this new perspective on
labor history.8 He argues that the movement culture approach
is unique for it recognizes the existence of a vital and

distinctive working class cultural experience.

5

Like the labor scholars of the 19603 and 19703, current
historians have continued.to study culture. However, they have
begun to place greater emphasis on the role of rhetoric and
discourse as constitutive parts of culture and ideology.
Language, not merely as words but as systems of meaning, has
been designated as a topic worthy of study. The writings of
Michel Foucault, and Dominik LaCapra have clearly contributed
to this new direction in labor history. Foucault has been the
most prominent scholar involved in determining the definition
of the somewhat ambiguous, but popular word, discourse. By
placing power and knowledge at the center of _his
conceptualization of discourse, Foucault has given scholars a
definition that allows them. to uncover the contest and
conflict involved in power relations among people. Foucault’s
assertion that discourses are achieved and unified through
conflict, rather than consensus, provides historians with a
helpful way to understand the power and uses of language.9
Dominik LaCapra has added to the discussion on discourse by
his work, History and Criticism.10 Highlighting the
historian’s predilection to oppose science as the anti-
rhetoric, and rhetoric as merely persuasive uses of language,
allows LaCapra to develop a wider definition of rhetoric that
concentrates on dialogue. Because historians are engaged in a
dialogue with. the jpast, through ‘their evidence, LaCapra
encourages historians to develop approaches to the past that
will reflect a dialogic inquiry rather than a monologic

discourse. Feminist scholars have made significant

6

contributions to the new focus on discourse through their
exploration of the social construction of gender; Joan Scott,
as well as many others, have argued that gender be recognized
as one of the most significant ways in which people use
difference to construct meaning.11 Although labor
historians have ibeen reticent to recognize the gendered
construction of meaning, feminist scholars produced innovative
and challenging scholarship.

.Although the focus on discourse has achieved.a legitimate
and highly respected place in labor history, many scholars
continue to question its utility. Bryan Palmer has provided
the most insightful critique in his work, Descent into
Discourse: The Reification of Language and the Writing of
Social History.12 He aptly warns historians that the
traditional marxist oriented materialist inquiry into the
working class experience must not be superseded by a focus on
discourse. Scholars attempting an analysis of discourse would
benefit greatly to heed his advice. However, the most
successful historians analyzing rhetoric have illustrated that
discourse analyses need not exclude materialist analyses and
can even lead to a greater understanding of material
conditions.

Analysis of discourse and rhetoric has greatly affected
the way scholars study American history in general, and
protest in specific. Because republicanism has been
identified as the most important ideological and cultural

discourse of protest in nineteenth century America, it has

7
been studied.by many historians. Discourse includes much.more

than words, however, for it includes non-discursive

activities. For example, in Chants Democratig: New Xork City
and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788-1850, Sean

Wilentz illustrates how republicanism was a valuable form of
identification for mid-nineteenth century New York laborers by
describing their participation in cultural public events.13
Leon.Fink argues that the Knights also generally believed that
they were re-vitalizing basic American principles. According
to Fink, the Knights used the language and. meaning of
republicanism to criticize the widening class differences and
develop a distinctive value system that gave their
organization the authority, right, and possibility to critique
the emerging industrial capitalist system.“ Unfortunately,
neither Fink nor Wilentz fully explain how ‘and why
republicanism appealed to immigrant workers. Obviously
republicanismrwas not the only cultural discourse, other ideas
might also have proven meaningful to both native born and
immigrant workers. Christianity is one such issue that must
be explored to gain a fuller sense of the ideology and culture
of laborers.

Most labor historians who study working class culture
have consistently ignored the role of institutional religion
and Christian ideology.15 This is surprising considering
that English historian E.P. Thompson successfully emphasized

the significance of religion in his monumental work, The

Making of the English Working Class. To explain both working

8

class and bourgeois affiliation with Methodism, Thompson
argued: "No ideology is wholly absorbed by its adherents: it
breaks down.in.practice in a thousand.ways under the criticism
of impulse and of experience: the working-class community
injected into the chapels its own values of mutual aid, and
neighbourliness and solidarity."16 By demonstrating the
dynamic ideological role of religion, E.P. Thompson provides
a conceptually innovative focus for analyzing religion
historically.

Herbert Gutman also hailed the importance of religion in
"Protestantism and the American labor Movement: The Christian
Spirit in the Gilded Age". In this article Gutman provides
convincing evidence that Christianity constituted a dynamic
discourse rather than a static concept for nineteenth century
laborers. He proves this assertion by recounting how most
late nineteenth labor protesters used Christian imagery and
analogy to denounce the emerging industrial system. Because
Christianity functioned as a dynamic discourse, the American
working class not only confronted the dominant churches but
were also able to develop their own ideas about Christianity.
Furthermore, Gutman claimed that, "the ‘mind’ of the worker-
the mode of thought and perception through which he confronted
the industrial process and which helped shape his behavior-
has received scant and inadequate attention."17 Gutman
argued that valuable insight into the mind of the worker would
. be realized.by studying labor’s use:of'Christianityu Although

Gutman was reticent to express specific conclusions about the

9
real significance of working class Christian rhetoric, he
fully illustrates the dynamic character of Christianity
central to E.P. Thompson’s work.

Though, as obvious from the previous discussion, most
labor historians have neglected the role Christianity played
in gilded age labor protest, many religious historians have
provided evidence that demonstrates the influence religious
thought had on the development of American institutions,
political ideas, and protest, For example, many historians
have discussed the impact millennial thought had on American
beliefs in destiny, progress, and protest.18 By uncovering
how seemingly secular issues and concepts are often understood
and articulated through religious ideas and language, these
historians reveal a complexity in America’s past intellectual
tradition.

For the gilded age, Henry May has demonstrated the
centrality of religious thought. May not only argues that
religious thought was important for the nineteenth century'but
he also claims that the relationship between religious and
secular thought is central for understanding American society
in general: "It is to this dialogue, after all, that American
culture itself owes much of it’s vigor and complexity."19
By arguing’ that religious and. secular' thought are
dialectically intertwined, May offers an innovative
perspective on American intellectual history. This dialogue
is not merely abstract but most importantly, it manifests in

the way in which groups of people understand their worlds.

10
May emphasizes that religious thought was central for the way
laymen who confronted the new capitalist industrial system:
"It must be borne in mind that people of this generation were
reacting to these physical stimuli [industrialization and
urbanization] in terms of the complex intellectual and
religious tradition carried on from earlier periods."20

Although very few historians have written on labor and
religion since Gutman. and. May, an interest in religious
thought in American labor history has recently resurfaced.
Ken Fones-Wolf, in his study Trade Union Gospel: Christianity
and Labor in Industrial Philadelphia, 1865-1915, attempts to
answer some of‘thetquestions Gutman raised.about Christianity.
Like Gutman, Fones-Wolf argues that Christianity served to
legitimate and justify both labor’s critiques and goals. Most
interesting though, Fones-Wolf argues that, "religion was
truly a contested terrain."21 Fones-Wolf not only discusses
how different classes viewed Christianity and religiosity, but
he also describes how these competing visions often
conflicted. Fones-Wolf’s conceptualization of religion as
contested terrain provides an innovative and helpful way to
explore the significance of power and conflict in the
religious thought that informed American labor.

Clark Halker has recently explored the importance of
Christianity in gilded age labor songs and poems in his
article, "Jesus was a Carpenter, Labor Song-Poets, Labor
Protest, and True Religion in Gilded Age America." As a

preview to his forthcoming book, For Democracy, Workers and

11

God: Labor Song-Poems and Labor Protest, 1865-1895, this
article illustrates the prevalence of Christian imagery and
ideas in labor songs and poems. Halker also claims that song
poetry was central to labor’s movement culture: "These song-
poets and their audiences established song-poetry as a vital
element in the labor movement and as an integral part of the
‘movement culture’ which surrounded the labor movement and
proffered a distinct vision of America."22 Like Gutman,
E.P. Thompson, and.Fones-Wolf, Halker argues Christianity was
both ideologically and culturally central to gilded age labor
protesters.

Through a careful reading of various sources, including
published journals and labor reports, this study will explore
and expand upon questions raised by both Gutman and Fones-
Wolf. Methodologically, this work attempts to utilize an
approach similar to Norman Pollack’s use of textual exegesis
by carefully analyzing various texts from the Knights of
Labor.“3 .Discussing the Knights’ ideas about Christianity,
as well as describing their relationship with institutional
religion, provides a new perspective on the ideological
significance of Christianity for the Knights. The Knights
will be described as a unified voice, and though this conceals
many regional and factional divisions, this study concentrates
on the ideas and concepts that constituted the base of the
Knights’ ideology. Because culture and ideology are
inseparable, studying the Order’s uses of Christianity will

illuminate how Christianity was a significant force shaping

12
the Knights’ distinctive movement culture.

Analyzing the Knights’ use of Christian rhetoric, and
their relationship with the established clergy, reveals that
religion provided the Knights with.a way to define themselves,
critique others, and interact with the larger society. Much
like republicanism, Christianity proved to be a viable and
attractive discourse. Christianity might also have been
especially important to the immigrants for whom republicanism
was novel. Because Christianity encompassed values familiar
to most immigrants, a Christian discourse might have had as
much, if not more appeal, than republicanism.

Christianity also affected the Knights’ moral, ethical,
and economic evaluation of society, as well as their
development of an alternative vision for industrial America.
Rather than just using religion to legitimize their goals, the
Knights of Labor actively questioned the church, clergy, and
re-conceptualized important Christian ideas. Thus a Marxian
approach to religion, as a unified oppressive class
possession, is more inhibiting than helpful. More useful is
a Foucaultian. perspective which focuses on discourse, a
discourse in which meanings, and the authority and power to
decide and construct meanings, are achieved through contest
and conflict. The meaning of gilded age Christianity was not
static, or securely defined by the dominant society. The
Knights therefore, could use Christian rhetoric to challenge
the dominant society by constructing alternative meanings for

traditional Christian concepts.

Chapter 1

Defining Christianity

Most nineteenth century commentators who discussed the
relationship between labor and institutional churches argued
that church attendance among the working classes, especially
among those involved in labor organizations, had declined
during the 18703 and 18803. Testifying to a United States
Senate Committee investigating relations between labor and
capital a laborer claimed: "The working people that are active
in the labor movement may be fairly charged, I think, with

being very bad church attendants."24

After interviewing many
witnesses, the Chairman on the Senate Committee stated: "Men
popularly known as leaders in the labor movement and
organizations have been before the committee, and many of them
have given testimony to the effect that evangelical
Christianity is very rapidly losing its hold upon the masses

'“5 From his evaluation of

of wage-workers in this country.
the testimony, the Chairmen claimed that the decline had
occurred among the general population of wage workers. Yet,
many witnesses before the Senate Committee argued that even
though urban working class church attendance had declined,
rural working class church attendance had actually remained
steadyu .Although few statistics were provided to substantiate
these various .claims, the perception that urban workers

(especially those involved in the labor movement) had become

alienated from institutional religion, and even Christianity,

13

14

was prevalent and generally unquestioned. The veracity of
these claims, however, has been challenged by Herbert Gutman
and Fones-Wolf who assert that church attendance might
actually have been climbing.“ Henry May similarly argues
that the "Report on Statistics of Churches in the United
States, at the Eleventh Census:1890" indicates that church
membership probably increased during the 18803.”’ Yet, the
explanatory power of these church statistics is limited, for
attendance reveals very little about people’s religiosity,
motivations, or attitudes. Fones-Wolf, Gutman, and May
demonstrate that low or high, church attendance did not
necessarily signify either concern or apathy towards
religion.

Although the actual attendance of the working classes
cannot be definitively established, the prevalent perception
that the working classes were alienated, if not departing from
traditional churches, is in itself significant and requires
explanation. Exploring statements provided by people involved
with labor demonstrates how dissatisfaction, rather than
apathy, motivated the working classes in their criticisms of
many churches. The Knights, however, did not reject all
churches or all forms of institutionalized.religion. Instead,
the Knights attacked what they perceived as the traditional,
or dominant, form of Christianity. Furthermore, the Knights’
expression of discontent with institutionalized religion was
an avenue for the Order to question the abuses wrought by the

capitalist industrial system by denouncing the churches and

15

Christian ideology that legitimated industrial injustices.

Many Knights argued that the working classes had become
alienated from traditional institutionalized religion because
of the upper class parishioners who attended the churches and
what was preached within the church walls. The Knights
leveled numerous claims that many churches were increasingly
becoming the domain of the wealthy. The Knights’
dissatisfaction with parishioner constituency involved a
feeling that they, as laborers, were no longer welcome in the
church. The Detroit Knights of labor journal, Labor Leaf
expressed this view: "They [the working Class] look upon the
churches as they do upon the mansions of the rich on our
fashionable avenues- things to be admired at a distance, but
to enter which and be welcome, to say nothing of feeling at
home, is forbidden."28 Individuals in the Order very often
commented on the class character of these fashionable churches
by discussing their own failure to don the proper attire
required for church attendance. IFor‘example, Mrs. Jennie Hall
wrote to the Journal of United Labor: "The man who lives on
starvation wages cannot dress his wife and daughters so that
they may sit in the same church with his employer’s wife and
daughters without giving them offense by the poverty of their
attire."29 This comment demonstrates how in the Knights’
own view, clothing itself came to represent one manifestation
of the class differentiations which alienated the working
class from the churches. Furthermore, by referring to

clothing, the Knights directly denounced the conspicuous

16
consumption of the wealthy. The numerous references to
clothing also indicate how many Knights felt important and
obvious class distinctions were: Ibecoming' significant
impediments to their own involvement in church communities.

Commenting on the class character of churches also
allowed the Knights to address the ethical consideration and
ramifications of widening class differences in both church
communities and the secular society. A witness before the
United States Senate Committee investigating relations between
labor and.capital testified: "The church.edifices are becoming
another symbol of that peculiarity on which I have already
remarked as a product of the time, the division of our people
into marked classes."30 By arguing that the class dominated
and segregated secular society was finding expression in a
class segregated Christian community, the Knights increasingly
questioned the social make up and class divisions of both the
church and the larger society.

The Knights of labor implicated the ethics which had
accompanied the rise of industrial capitalism as the major
influence causing the:moral and Christian bankruptcy of church
followers and clergy in the dominant churches. A laborer
testified to the United States Senate Committee: “The belief
amongst many, many large masses of men who nominally belong to
different Christian denominations, of the power of money as a
corrupting influence upon their church is very wide
indeed..."31 The Knights, however, never rejected the

capitalist system itself. They could critique the abuses

17

wrought by industrial capitalism, as well as the values
sanctioned by the system, but they never posed a structural
critique of capitalism}2 The abuses the Knights challenged
concerned, most importantly, the power industrial capitalists
had which resulted in low wages and poor working conditions
for laborers. Rather than questioning the capitalists right
to own property, the Knights argued that collectively
organized laborers could counter-balance the power of the
industrial capitalist.

The Knights reacted to the growth of industrial
capitalism by attempting to limit its abuses and affects.
They questioned the widening class differences, not because
they hoped to establish socialism or communism, but because
they saw laborers becoming "slaves" to the capitalist
industrial classes. The Knights were also very concerned
about the laborers abilities to participate in the larger
society. By commenting on their own inability to don the
attire required for church, the Knights argued not only that
society had lost sight of its ethical obligations but that
laborers, (especially women for they were most active in the
church) were losing an important facet of social life. They
spoke of social life not merely in terms of sociability but
that which allows one to be an active participant in the
identity of the larger community. The widening class
differences thus tore asunder the obligations and ethics that
the Knights perceived had formerly united diverse groups of

people together. Rather than attempting to revolutionize the

18
society, the Knights hoped to reform the society so that all
could participate as respected members. The Knights
questioned the effects of the industrial capitalist systemrand
it is in this challenge that Christianity played an important
role.

Atpreacher sympathetic to labor thus did.not stand alone
in his views when he wrote to the Journal of United Labor:
"The reason I do not exhort men to trust in the church for
guidance and deliverance is because it is clear to me that the
church cares nothing for the gospel of Jesus, and is in
practical alliance with. all those social agencies which
operate to defraud and oppress the poor."33 The Knights
argued that the corruption of traditional churches allowed
ministers and their followers not only to ignore the working
class but to justify their oppression of the poor. By
focusing on the ideology and social actions of the churches,
the Knights questioned whether many dominant churches were
preached and practiced true Christianity.

According to many Knights, working class people
voluntarily left numerous churches because the congregations
no longer upheld or promoted Christian values. The most
significant Christian value the dominant class ignored.was the
golden rule. A witness testified to the United States Senate
Committee: "They sit in church on Sunday and hear the minister
of the Gospel talk about doing unto others as you would be
done by, and they see their ‘boss’ in the pew listening to

that gospel, and they find that on the following Monday,

19

probably, he reduces their wages."“ By emphasizing the
golden rule, the Knights questioned. whether* most church
followers honestly practiced Christian values. AFeeling
excluded from traditional churches, because of the hypocrisy
of the parishioners and the class character of the
congregation, the Knights believed their discontent with the
churches just.

Furthermore, the churches’ support of ideas that resulted
in social injustice further motivated the Knights in their
critique of the dominant forms of Christianity. For example,
the Knights of Labor rejected.the dominant churches’ belief in
the divinity of poverty: the idea that God designed the world
with poor and rich and that poverty breeds strength. To
refute a sermon on the divinity of poverty, John M. Trumbell
wrote to the editor of the Chicago journal, Knights of Labor:
"Some great lives, indeed, have been wrought out of poverty,
but for every one of them victorious, poverty has conquered a
million. It is a diseased.gospel and a church unrighteous that
proclaims to the congregations the divinity of poverty."35
Trumbell found that the divinity of poverty was antithetical
to true Christianity. Furthermore, the divinity of poverty
was biblically false according to a writer for the Journal of
United Labor: "It is impossible for me to tell men that God
arbitrarily rules this world; that he chooses that some people
shall be rich and others poor..."3‘ By questioning the
origins and veracity of the dominant churches’ ideas, the

Knights began to implicitly challenge the moral authority of

20
the clergy. Without rejecting Christianity itself, they
questioned the ideas supported and purported by many gilded
age ministers and upper class parishioners.

To challenge the churches’ support of social injustices,
such as the divinity of poverty, the Knights claimed that the
dominant churches had distorted the real meaning of
Christianity and the true message of the bible. For example,
Heber Newton, a well known Episcopalian minister who supported
labor, argued that most churches had lost sight of the true
meaning of Christianity:

The well-to—do classes are not quick to see how
completely the Christian Church has forgotten its
Master’s gospel, and become the church of
respectability and wealth and ‘society’; how it has
become the upholder of civilization as it is, how it
has accepted the anti-christian dogmas of the older
political economists, and in so doing really turned
traitor to the ethics of Jesus Christ.37

Trumbell, writing to the Chicago Kni hts of Labor, not
only referred to the divinity of poverty as diseased gospel,
he also argued, "In the true church the best worshipper is he
who does the most to abolish poverty, who sacrifices most to
ease its pain, who votes to repeal the laws that make it, and
who will not stain his soul with the profit of these laws."38

This belief, that Christianity manifested itself through
deed, was prevalent among the Knights and the clergy who

supported labor.

21

Connected to the Knights’ rejection of the divinity of
poverty, and their conceptualization of Christianity as
praxis, was the Knights questioning of the theological and
creed orientation of the dominant churches. The Knights
believed that many of the churches’ ideas and creeds,
formulated years before the birth of industrialism, lost
utility in the context of the new industrial society.
Reverend. Heber' Newton argued: "The :mass of’ open-minded,
intelligent men have already made up their minds about the old
theology. They find it simply obsolete. It doesn’t translate
into our speech or represent real thought or true knowledge of
our age."” To determine the legitimacy of creed and
theology, the Knights looked at the social results of the
creed.

They also claimed that social justice was the most
important way one could truly practice Christianityu Reverend
Heber Newton expressed this view: "It is religion’s function
to waken the enthusiasm of humanity, as the love of God, and
to set this omnipotent force at work on the building of the
City of God."‘° Like most Knights, Trumbell and Newton
argued deed.and social action were important manifestations of
Christianity. However, not only were deeds important they
were imperative, for 'without social justice Christianity
ceased to be real. Christianity thus was tied to and embedded
in the social relations and activities of the world. The
Knights ideas about social justice and fairness were

conceptualized as ethics defined by Christianity.

22
Knights ideas about social justice and fairness were
conceptualized as ethics defined by Christianity.

In defining the relationship between social justice and
true Christian ethics the Knights, however, did.not reject the
bible or all Christian theology. In fact, the bible was
central to the Knights’ ideas about Christianity as well as
their criticisms of the dominant churches. They even used the
bible to prove Christians must promote social justice. For
example, Shokespave, a regular writer for the Journal of
United Labor, asked:

You remember when John wanted to know whether He of
whose fame he had heard was really Christ. The
highest assurance given him was ‘The poor have the
Gospel preached to them’. Well, now,do you think if
any one were to ask for a distinctive sign which
would show that modern Christianity is really what
it claims to be, could any one truthfully say that
its genuineness is assured.for ‘the poor have Gospel
preached to them’?
With the use of biblical sources, Shokespave was able to argue
that gilded age ministers had neglected the true purpose and
meaning of Christianity: to preach to the poor. Shokespave
could hence ask: "Did you ever hear a fashionable minister- I
don’t care what his creed- honestly face the Sermon on the
Mount?"“- These passages illustrate that the Knights used
the bible to actively, and to consciously, engage in a debate

with the dominant clergy over the correct conceptualization

23
for the Knights’ ideas about Christianity.

The Knights’ conceptualization of Christianity was based
on social justice, the bible, and.most importantly the figure
of Jesus Christ. The Knights often described Christ as the
laboring deity; the humble carpenter who worked as a social
dissenter. Their ideas about Christ provided a connection
between social justice, divine right, and.the issue of protest
for arguing Christ was a dissenter allowed the Knights to
establish a special and unique relationship with the divine
figuren :Hence the Knights social activity, including protest,
was viewed by the Knights’ as Christian.

Not only was protest legitimated but The Knights’ focus
on Christ enabled them to envision Christianity and social
justice as practically synonymous. Jesus Christ and the
Knights’ concept of social justice were intertwined, for they
discussed Jesus Christ’s life as the fullest realization of
Christian deed. A writer for the Chicago Knights of Labor
argued: We want more deeds and fewer creeds, less ministerial
conventions and more men, men who will take the age and its
faults and stand up in the might and right of Jesus’ life, and
show men how to life, not what to think." The same writer
also questioned the creed orientation of the dominant
churches: "That the life of Jesus was one of deed and that he
never formulated nor advocated a creed, did not get through
the classical liar of any of these collegiate divines.“2
The Knights used Christ’s life to define the parameters of

true Christian living.

24

For the Knights, Christianity'was a living force, daily
recreated, and.they criticized those for whom.religion.existed
solely as a set of beliefs or rules to be followed on Sunday
or corrupted for other ends. Although this may appear to be
a secularization of religion, in many ways it constituted an
effort by the Knights of Labor to reach back (and in the
process construct) elemental truths about Christianity. They
based their beliefs on what they saw as the truest Christian
sources, the bible and Christ. Rather then manifesting itself
in creed, Christianity was truly realized by deed and hence
emulating the life of Christ. A writer for the Chicago,
Knights of Labor claimed: “To the writer religion is a life,
and Christian religion Christian life".43 Thus Christianity
and deed were defined by a condition of living and being, a
continual process of believing and acting properly and fairly.
Creed was important but deed was most significant for it was
through deed that Christianity was lived and realized.

The Knights’ discussions about Christianity illustrates
that ethics and morality were important concerns affecting
their movement culture and alternative vision for American
industrial society. Because the dominant churches had failed
to practice and provide true christian values, the Knights
questioned traditional Christian ideas and actively, as well
as distinctively conceptualized the meaning of Christianity.
The Knights argued that the theological oriented churches had
failed because they did not allow for the realization of deed

and ignored the importance of social justice. ‘Writing for the

25

Journal of United Labor, Shokespave passionately asserted: "I
often feel that I would like to get one of these very learned
men, who are so chuck full of theology that they haven’t room
left for even a little bit of Christianity, into a room and
keep him there until he gathered sense enough to realize that
poverty and misery are not part of the All Father’s plan."“
Distinguishing theology from Christianity, as Shokespave did,
was an important way the Knights could propose their criticism
as a Christian critique of the abuses of the industrial
capitalist systemn This allowed for and justified the Knights
distinct ideas about Christianity. The Knights thus
constituted much more than a forum for the working classes to
express grievances and fight for material gain, for they were
actively involved.in ardiscussion with the larger society over
the correct meaning of Christianity. The discourse they
became involved in with the larger society, the clergy, and
the institutional church, involved much more than strictly
labor concerns.

By criticizing the class character of the dominant
churches the Knights were able to reconceptualize Christian
ideas. Because Christianity, like republicanism, was not
statically defined, its meaning could be contested and
constructed. differently’ by individuals and. groups. The
Knights used the Christian language of the dominant society
but assigned new meanings to the traditional concepts that
directly questioned the traditional definitions. That the

Knights could use the Christian language of the dominant

26
society to critique that same society, illustrates the dynamic
nature of Christianity' as a :nineteenth century .American
ideological discourse. Thus the Knights understood that non-
attendance, far from reflecting apathy, served as the basis
for a critique of the abuses wrought by the industrial
capitalist system and the legitimacy of these injustices in
Christian thought. The Knights critically analyzed the
ideology'purported.by the minsters and.Churches and offered.an
alternative vision of what true Christianity should be. The
Knights confidently asserted that, "he is the only God that
has sided. with. the jpoor and. weak against the rich and

strong..."45

Chapter 2

The Clergy

Though the Knights’ questioned many of the ideas held by
dominant churches, the Order was not antagonistic to religion.
The Knights’ contemplation of Christianity reflected a concern
with, rather than an antipathy toward, religion. Exploring
the Knights’ relationships with specific ministers
demonstrates that although the Order was critical of many
ministers and the churches, sects, and denominations they
affiliated with, the Knights felt individual and institutional
issues were secondary to ideology. iBy consciously
differentiating between ideology and the individuals who
purported it, as well as the institutional framework in which
the ideas were expressed, the Knights were able to question
the ideas without rejecting the specific individuals and
institutions. Individual clerics, churches, sects, and
denominations, however, did not completely escape the critical
gaze of the Knights who concentrated.on proving the falsity of
their ideas as the way to combat the individual corruption of
the churches and ministers. But whereas the Knights argued
the false ideas about Christianity must be completely
eradicated, they believed the Ministers and Christian
institutions they associated with were redeemable.

Rather than exhibiting a general hostility towards the
ministerial profession, the Knights consciously sought to

engage in an open dialogue with ministers. The Knights

27

28

evaluated each minister and church according to the ideas and
actions that each minister and church purported.and supported.
For example, Frank Foster, (a famous printer who belonged to
the Knights of Labor), was very critical of the? class
character of many churches yet he still argued that, "we find
the church one of the great instruments, in many localities,
of alleviating distress and remedying as far as possible the
sufferings of individuals, though its work is necessarily
limited and incomplete.““ Not only did the Knights accept
those ministers that supported labor, and preached a
Christianity of praxis, they actively encouraged clerical
involvement. The Knights believed that the ministers’
position in society was essential for as Joseph Labadie,
famous Knights leader in Michigan, claimed: "The pulpit should
lead, not follow.“7 Rather than rejecting clerical
guidance, the Knights merely criticized the distortion and
perversion of Christianity by specific ministers and churches.

The enthusiasm.and.hope with which.the Knights embraced those
clergy that practiced a Christianity of deed demonstrates that
the Order could accept organized religion as well as respect
clerical authority.

Unfortunately, the ministers supporting labor were far
and few between. More often the Knights confronted clerical
hostility and apathy. The Knights responded to both hostility
and apathy by demonstrating that ideas purported by corrupt
churches were falseu ZNew York Trinity Church, which allegedly

owned slum housing, received a bitter indictment in the

29

Journal of United Labor. The Knights severely criticized
Trinity church because the church, by failing socially, had
also failed as a Christian institution.48 In a similar
vein, the Detroit Labor Leaf criticized the Michigan Christian
Herald for arguing that, "the time has come to use Winchester
rifles against mobs..."“ In both cases the Knights
rejected. these institutions Ibecause ‘they' espoused. social
wrongs which were antithetical to Christianity.

In describing the corruption of churches the Knights
often emphasized the power and evils wrought by capitalism
rather than the will of individual minsters. For example, a
writer for the Journal of United Labor argued: "The commercial
spirit has unfortunately long since laid hold of the clergy.
The spirit of dignity which once pervaded that body is
apparently expired." ” The Knights focused on the power of
capital, for they believed the values accompanying the rise of
industrial capitalism contributed to the false Christian
ideology that had corrupted the ministry. The corruption of
the clergy was presented as a result rather than the cause of
this ideology. In his critique of a minister sympathetic to
capital, Joseph Labadie expressed this perspective: "I do not
accuse Dr. Rexford of consciously and intentionally playing
into the hands of the wealthy, but his opinions only show how
the source of a man’s bread and. butter will warp his
judgement."31 Because the social abuses accompanying
industrial capitalism had been legitimated in Christian

thought, the Knights focused on combatting its influence on

30
Christian ideas while simultaneously providing the possibility
for ministerial reform.

The role the Knights would play, and the inspiration
Christ and the bible could provide, in the redemption of the
ministers was most clearly expressed by the Labor Leaf which
commented. on Henry Ward. Beecher. .Although Beecher’ had
achieved prominence in the antebellum period as one concerned
with social issues, he incurred.the wrath of the Knights quite
often because of his widely publicized derogatory statements
concerning labor.52 The Labor Leaf argued: "Surely it was
the influence of rich living which caused the meek and lowly
Beecher to belie his own kind..."’ The article continued: “He
must have patience, however, and. when. he takes time to
consider that the founder of the religion by which.he receives
his daily bread, was only a common carpenter, we think he will

"53 By focusing, on reviving the

acknowledge his error...
tradition of Christ, the Knights exhibited hope for the
possibility that the clergy could be reformed. Rather than
dismissing those ministers or their institutions, the Knights
concentrated on combatting their ideology.

The Knights condemned the ideology purported by churches
and ministers but they also, most importantly, provided a
beacon of hope, a pathway for the ministers’ redemption. The
Knights claimed that the ministers would be purporting true
Christianity if they expressed the ideas labor had been

advocating. The Journal of United Labor argued: "We are glad

to see the ministers repeat from their pulpits to-day that

31
which we workingmen reiterated twenty years ago. Evidently
the pulpit is beginning to learn."“ The criticisms the
Knights offered clergy were therefore cast in a tone that
encouraged and even demanded individual redemption.

The hospitality with which the Knights would embrace
those clergy that practiced true Christianity is illustrated
by the journals’ support of many locally significant
ministers. The Chicago Knights of Labor printed the sermons
of Revered.Cole Adams in which he expressed concern with labor
issues and the relationship between labor and Christianity.55

The Mnal of Unitedfibor actively encouraged clerical
involvement as demonstrated by their printing of a letter from
I. Villars of Clinton Illinois in which he discussed his
decision to join the Knights and preach sermons about
labor.56 Reverend Jesse H. Jones, elected Master Workman of
District Assembly 35 in Plymouth Massachusetts, was also the
subject of an article in the Journal of United Lgbgg.” The
journals’ discussions of ministers like Reverend Villars and
Jones demonstrates that the Order enthusiastically embraced
those ministers that joined their organization. Just as
importantly, the Knights encouraged clerics to become involved
in their organization by highlighting socially active
ministers.

The Knights were concerned with accepting ministers into
the Order and reforming those that were not practicing a
Christianity of deed, because they envisioned important roles

for the ministers in the labor struggle. Christ and the bible

32

were important inspirational sources for the Knights’ vision
of Christianity and labor reform. The teachings of ministers
based on biblical study, therefore, could add moral and
Christian credence to the Knights’ beliefs. Those minsters
that had recognized the connection between Christianity and
labor were thus often quoted by the Knights. For example,
Reverend C. M. Morse was quoted in the Detroit Labor Leaf:
"With social inequality among members outside the church,
there cannot be religio-social equality within it.“8 By
questioning social inequality Reverend Morse intimated that
only equality could provide the basis for true Christianity.
The Knights could hence argue that their ideas concerning
rights and equality were not only socially just but ethically
Christian. Incorporating ministers statements into the Order
provided a firm basis for the Knights’ association of labor
reform with Christianity.

Although many clergy, like the aforementioned,
enthusiastically endorsed the ideas the Knights held, the
ministers who supported labor were an independent, diverse and
complex group: while some were clearly radical, others were
quite conservative. The complexity of the relationship
between the Knights and ministers will hence be best
understood by exploring the impact various clergy had on the
Order. Rather than just using ministers to complement and
reinforce their views, the Knights unknowingly limited their
critique of American industrial capitalism by engaging the

clergy in dialogue.

33

The two most often cited supporters of labor were
Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore and Heber Newton of New York.
Although Gibbons was not the most radical supporter of labor
he encouraged the Roman Catholic hierarchy to accept the
Knights of Labor as a legitimate organization during his visit
to Rome in 1887.59 Because the Catholic church held many
reservations about the organization of the Knights, Gibbons’
task was not easy. Gibbons recognized the rights of labor
organizations and argued to his superiors in Rome that if the
workers were not involved in the Knights of Labor, they would
affiliate with secret societies.60 The support Gibbons
provided the Order enabled the Knights to believe that the
Catholic church extended a warm reception to them. Gibbons
active involvement in the discussion thus earned him much
esteem in the eyes of laborers.

Heber Newton, a liberal New York Episcopalian minister,
provided important commentary on the relationship between low
wages and the poor living and working conditions of workers.
He claimed that the establishment of co-operatives was the
inevitable and only peaceful way to ameliorate these
conditions: "If the co-operative commonwealth ever comes, as
I trust it may come, it will come as the final generalization
of a long series of integrations, of which the co-operative
societies, now so much neglected, form the immediate step in
advance."“‘ Because the establishment of co-operatives was
an important goal of the Knights, it is hardly surprising that

Newton received much attention from the Order. By

34

legitimating the Knights’ criticism of the system, as well as
their goals for creating a better society, Newton occupied an
important place in the Knights discussions. The Labor leaf
even provided a profile of Newton in which they described him
as the ideal Cleric.62

Even though most of the clergy who supported labor
severely criticized. various social, industrial and. labor
abuses, most, like the Knights, held a reverence and respect
for capital. For example, the Chicago Knights of Labor
encouraged their readers to attend the sermons of’ Reverend J.
Cole Adams. .Although Adams discussed volatile issues and
supported labor, because of his dissatisfaction with the
present system, he ardently believed in the rights of capital:
"1 do not say that all values are created by labor, for that
is slander on the Almighty.“ To ignore what he termed the
"labor of the head" which allowed for the accumulation of
capital, was to slander the almighty and.to believe all wealth
was created by labor was incorrect for: "It ignores the
reciprocity of the classes."‘3 Reverend Adams expressed
discontent about the existing conditions but refused 'to
question the inherent inequalities of the capitalist system.
By asserting "the reciprocity of the classes" it is clear
Reverend Adams did not question the concept of class itself.
Likewise, Reverend F. G. Townsend argued that, "this labor
question cannot be solved without taking into account the
rights of capital, as well as the wrongs of labor."“ .An

unwillingness to confront the class relations was predominate

35
among 'the clergy commenting’ on 'the abuses of industrial
capitalism.

The failure of the Knights of labor to discuss the
inequalities inherent in capitalism has been addressed by many
historians. Scholars, provide convincing evidence that the
Knights did not challenge capitalism because they were unable
to envision a world not defined by capital and private
property: For example, a witness testified to a United States
Senate Committee upon relations between labor and capital: "We
believe that ultimately these questions will be settled.by the
co-operation of the laborers, under a plan whereby they will
become the possessors and controllers of their own capital,
and will eventually be the only capitalists.”5 Although
the Knights often cited capitalists as the group, and
capitalism as the system, that had corrupted society, the
Knights sought to establish more equality between capital and
labor rather than a new system of property relations. The
Knights challenged the abuses of capitalism, and not the
system itself, because they believed private property was
essential for .American society. It is not surprising,
therefore, that the clergy who supported both the critique put
forth by the Knights, and.the rights of capital, were embraced
by the Knights. In many ways the Knights and the clergy,
though protesting abuse, remained wedded to the values of the
dominant society in terms of the sanctity of private
property.“

Because Christianity, in many ways, was one of the most

36

important moral sources for the Knights’ critiques and goals,
it is significant that the ministers who supported the Knights
of labor ethically reinforced the Knights’ adherence to the
existing property relations. Indirectly, Christianity was an
important factor that added to the Knights’ unwillingness to
reject the capitalist system. Ministers considering the labor
issue were among those who:most ardently supported.capital and
believed a harmony between labor and capital must and could be
achieved. For example, James Danforth preached a sermon
entitled, "The Labor question, what answer shall the church
give?" to Central Congregational church. He answered: "The
employer and capitalist need to have intelligent organized
labor to rescue him from the helpless position of one who
would be either driven out of competition or compelled to
screw down labor to the bare necessities of famine
rations."“

Although Danforth’s support of labor was radical for
1886, and clearly puts Danforth on the side of labor, one sees
very clearly in the above statement why he argued that
reconciliation, instead of class conflict, was the route for
solving the problems of industrial capitalism. Without
challenging the right of the capitalist class, organized
labor, according to Danforth, could illuminate the injustices
and. thereby create the conditions for' producing' harmony
between the classes. Because the Knights envisioned
themselves as practicing the true Christianity, they believed

that they could establish this harmony. By educating the

37
society of the correct Christian principles the Knights would
achieve society-wide redemption through education.

The Knights criticized specific clergy, and highlighted
what they saw as their false ideas, because the Knights hoped
to provide the possibility for the reformation of the clergy.
The relationship between the Knights and ministers was very
important, for after the ministers were reformed they would be
able to take leading roles in the labor struggle. The clergy
also had a great impact on the ideology of the Knights in
reference to capitalisnu ‘While not the source for ‘the
Knights’ reverence for private property, the clergy certainly
ethically reinforced the Knights’ vision that they could
reform the capitalist system so that all could achieve the

status of an individual producing capitalist.

Chapter 3

The Labor Missionary Social Movement

Although the Knights enthusiastically supported those
clergy that preached a Christianity of deed, the Knights
claimed.that.most institutional churches had.failed.to provide
true Christian moral leadership. However, the Knights’
distinct conceptualization of Christianity as praxis allowed
the Knights to seek Christian guidance outside of the
traditional boundaries of the church. The possibility of this
was expressed by Mary Barker who wrote to the editor of the
Journal of United ngggz "But thanks to that Allwise Creator
people can grow in good and spiritual knowledge outside the
church, for they have the love of humanity at heart, and this
love creates a wisdom born of its own divinity..."68
Although churches traditionally had existed as the center for
Christianity, many Knights, such as Mary Barker, believed the
churches were not essential for practicing Christianity. A
witness testifying to the United States Senate Committee also
agreed: "I believe that men are religious creatures, and if
they cannot get the Gospel carried out to suit them in one
church they will institute some Gospel that will suit
them."‘9 Even though the Knights hoped that the clergy
would provide true Christian leadership, this did not
discourage the Knights from searching for new institutions

outside of the church that they could identify as Christian.

38

The institution that they saw most fully embodying true
Christian values was their own organization, the Knights of
Labor. An individual before the United States Senate
Committee argued: "I believe the labor movement includes all
those forces in society' which. are first. of' a religious
kind..."70 The Knights not only had practiced Christianity,
but was also based on Christian values according to 'Wilbur F.
Crafts, who wrote that the Knights of Labor, "has set up an
ideal that was born of Christianity."71 Because the Knights
believed that their organization had internalized and
practiced Christian values more fully than most traditional
Christian institutions, the Order claimed.the right to provide
Christian moral guidance. The Chicago Knights of Labor
claimed: "It is not a church nor even a religious association
in the common acceptance of the term; yet it has done more to
permeate and saturate the people of the United States with a
living faith in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of
man- the bottom rock of Christianity- than have all the
churches and all religious associations."72 Rather than
merely replacing'the institutional churches, the Knights would
question the social apathy’of the dominant churches by arguing
that all social issues were Christian concerns and they would
also claim that the forum.for practicing Christianity was both
within the church building as well as outside in the larger
world.

The Knights’ argument that they, rather than religious

institutions, had fully promoted Christianity enabled the

39

40

Knights to conceptualize themselves as much more than mere
labor' protesters. The Knights envisioned. themselves as
embodying and advocating the moral ethics that should
constitute the moral base for society; In many ways,
therefore, the Knights envisioned~their labor movement as a
social reform movement. A Knights of Labor book of ritual and
regulation states: "As you have ever been the world’s
providers, so now you are to be its saviors".'73 The belief
they were carrying on and re-vitalizing the Christian reform
tradition of Christ provided the moral inspiration for their
reform role.

Many historians have noted the prevalence of Christ
analogies in working class writings, but few scholars have
seriously considered the significance of religious rhetoric in
American labor history. Yet, it is by analyzing the Knights’
use of rhetoric, that it becomes evident that the Knights
envisioned themselves as participants in a biblical Christian
reform tradition. "Old Honesty", a regular writer for the
Chicago Kni hts of Labor, often used biblical analogies. He
stated: "The world has always been unjust to the laboring
classes. Christ must have been a true Knight of Labor, being
a carpenter’s son: He was master of His father’s trade. And
this proves that all Knights of Labor should become Christ-
like."" The Christ analogy was significant for "Old
Honesty" clearly associated the Knights with a longer
tradition that included all laboring classes. Not only was

Christ the most important laborer in this tradition, but he

41
was "the true Knight of Labor". This analogy, therefore,
clearly placed the Knights of Labor within a Christian reform
tradition that gave the Knights moral legitimacy and provided
the Order with a providential role in history. The Knights
used Christ analogies both to identify workers as Christians
and illuminate Christ as the ideal laborer. For example, the
Detroit Labor Leaf stated: "Something over 1800 years ago the
terms ‘demagogue’, ‘disturber of the peace’, ‘raiser of
sedition’, and others of similar meaning, were hurled by the
respectable classes against the prominent reformer of the

"” By describing Christ as an agitator, who challenged

age.
the status quo, the Knights legitimated social action and
identified the class issue as a moral concern, social issue,
and religious question. Because the Knights identified labor
issues as moral concerns, they could argue that they were re-
vitalizing Christianity. The Detroit Labor Leaf even claimed
that the social reform of the Knights was a continuation of
Christianity: "The battle for humanity has been raging now for
two thousand years, and who can say the world is not better
for the struggle? The labor movement is but another name for
Christianity and the efforts of both in the cause of humanity
are making progress."" The Knights’ re-conceptualization of
Christianity as praxis allowed them to argue their purpose was
to institute Christian principles. To legitimate their social
concern, the Knights identified labor protest as Christian

social reform, and by so doing, envisioned themselves as

reformers.

42

As a reform movement, the Knights did not direct their
attention solely at the laboring classes. Rather, they argued
it was their role to reform the entire societyu The Knights,
in both essays and poems, presented themselves as society-
wide moral reformers. Francis M. Goodwin, Master Workman of
local assembly 8378, submitted the following poem to the
Journal of United Labor:

Then let us labor one and all
To spread the truth, at duty’s call:
To organize, and then install
Our principles of right--
’Till justice shall be done anew
To all mankind, and not the few:
Till outraged labor gets her due
And then we’ll end the fight."
The belief that the Knights of Labor would institute
"principles of right" for all in society was prevalent.

A writer for the Journal of United Labor asserted that
the Knights’ social reform mission was providential: "In the
fullness of time it [labor] came, as messiahs have ever come-
when the world was ready for them, could receive them; as
every epoch has come..."78 The Knights’ providential labor
reform also contained a postmillennial dimension. For
example, a writer for the Chicago Knights gf Laggr claimed:
"Justice will be done when all the laboring men of the country
become true Knights and understand thoroughly the principles

of their Order; religion will become sacred, temperance and

43
industry will become co-workers, and.God.will no longer repent
of having created man.“79 The Knights’ belief that their
labor movement would result in an age of perfectionism was
commonly expressed by many of the Orders’ leaders as well as
in the rank and file. Although many social movements believe
in perfectionism, it is significant that the Knights used
explicitly Christian language to discuss not only the
millennial future but their role as providential reformers.
Christian imagery and inspiration thus provided the framework
through which the Knights saw their place in history as

Christian social reformers working towards the millennium.

Although the Knights of labor was a late nineteenth
century labor organization, one can see from ‘the above
passages that the Order carried antebellum and postbellum
reform ideas into the labor struggle. An evangelical
perfectionist mode of thought found.expression.in the Knights’
identification of themselves as providential social reformers.
The Knights’ belief that perfectionism would reign, once the
Order achieved its goals, also demonstrates the influence of
evangelical Christianity.80

The Knights’ belief in perfectionism is important for it
allows historians to re-consider the separation of reform
movements and labor protest. Rather than arguing Gilded Age
labor activity represented a break from nineteenth century
Christian oriented. reform, studying' the Knights’ use of

rhetoric allows us to see how the reform culture was an

 

44

- important inspirational source for the Order. The Knights’
language, even their "mode of thought", was based in an
evangelical reform traditions. Evangelical Christianity,
especially millennial perfectionism, affected the Knights’
belief in the possibility of society wide-reformation. By
considering the significance of Christianity, one can discuss
the important cultural ideas that contributed to the Knights’
ethos. Evangelical Christianity thus provided the Knights
with.a vision and language to question and confront industrial
capitalism.

One might argue that the Knights’ abstract analogies,
references to Jesus Christ, and vision of their organization
as a social movement, had little impact on important specific
labor issues. However, an exploration of the language the
Knights used to articulate grievances and goals reveals that
the Knights, as social reformers, used Christian rhetoric to
legitimate substantive demands.

Biblical references were used to discuss a variety of
issues as well as legitimate labor activities. A writer for
the Chicago Knights of Labor provided a biblical legitimation
for boycotts by discussing boycotts as part of the biblical
past: "Turn to Matthew xviii, verse 15, in your Bible, and we
will find ‘Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against
thee, go and tell him of his fault between him and thee;
alone..." The writer argues that if the employer refuses to
listen or submit to arbitration: let him be unto thee as a

heathen and a publican. To be cast out like a ‘heathen and

45

publican’ was an awful boycott, for the Christian community
was itself apart from the world, and to be cast out from this
fellowship was to be lost indeed; despised by the children of
this world and abandoned by the children of light.81
Because boycotting was a legitimate exercise used by the
biblical Christians, the Knights could.claintit was a divinely
sanctioned form of labor protest. The Knights’ decision to
cite such traditions is important for it illustrates how
Christianity could legitimate activities that were questioned
by the larger society.

Both Christian and republican rhetoric lent important
credence to the Knights’ critique of monopolies. To prove the
inequity and injustice of monopoly, the Knights quoted Thomas
Jefferson and.argued that all should inherit land from God the
father. For example, a poem in Detroit Labor Leaf reads:

But ‘all men are created equal’
Then all of God’s children are Heirs
It follows of course as a sequel,
That land, air and water are theirs.82
Because society allowed for, encouraged, and condoned the
monopolization of resources, the Knights claimed
monopolization denied God’s children their inherent God given
equality. According to the Knights, equality was as much a
biblical gift.as a result of democratic republican.government.
That this idea was prevalent among the Knights is illustrated
by the fact that at the founding of each local assembly the

"Title deed of Heaven to man" was read. The basic concept in

46

this passage was that, "Man, the child, must come unto his
inheritance from God, the Father."83

The Knights argued that if equality was not achieved,
both God’s plans and the true order of nature would be
disrupted. A.writer to the gournal of Unitgd Labor claimed:
That it is, from.a religious standpoint, cheerful obedience to
the Divine will or law, and the complete realization and
practical fulfillment of the Lord’s Prayer and all the other
important teachings of Jesus Christ, the Savoir of mankind;
that it [the Knights of Labor] is able to redeem from the
oppression of labor and from.poverty all who have faith in and
practice it aright, without waiting for those how 'are
willingly and otherwise blind to its merits...84

What.is most significant in both.above quotes, especially
the latter, is the reference to Divine will and law. Recent
labor historians have analyzed labor’s various uses of
republican rhetoric to articulate, legitimate, and demand
changes. From the above passages it is evident that biblical
references could be used in a similar way. Instead of arguing
that the equality of man, and natural rights were republican
and constitutional rights, the Knights referred to them as
biblical rights.

The Knights’ references to biblically and divinely
constructed laws of order and natural rights is important for
it illustrates the substantive content of often ignored

biblical analogies. Rather than constituting superficial

rhetoric, or misplaced hopes, biblical references sanctioned

47

ideas concerning equality and natural law and order. For
example, an essay in the Detroit Labor Leaf argued: "I believe
that when God conceived the thought of man’s creation, or
established laws to evolve the production of man on the earth,
he intended that the children of his creation should equally
enjoy all their natural rights..." Instead of identifying
natural rights as political, the author argued that social
material, and moral issues were included in the concept of
natural rights. "I believe it is the intention of God,
written in the reason of every man, that all those things
necessary to life, comfort, and happiness should be
distributed. at the actual cost of their production hand
distribution."85 By placing political concepts, concerning
natural law and order, within a biblical and divine context,
the author re-defined.the concept of natural rights to include
social, material, and moral dimensions. Although the idea of
natural rights is clearly an eighteenth century political
concept, that the Knights of Labor chose to associate and base
the concept in biblical origins (and add moral, ethical and
material aspects to its definition), is significant for it
illustrates that Christianity could serve to legitimate
important labor actions and concerns. The mixture of
republican ideas with Christian legitimation also illustrates
how together, both these two ideological discourses, could be
used by the Knights to help strengthen their position.

Christian ideas could legitimate critiques of the system

concerning boycotts and monopoly, as well as lend credence to

48
labor demands. Education, temperance, and the establishment
of cooperatives were important substantive goals of the
Knights. Underlying each of these three demands was the
Knights belief in individualism. By becoming temperate the
individual would gain back a sense of self. Through education
and cooperation the individual would be able to achieve an
independence not possible within the monopoly controlled
capitalist world. Although these goals might seem to have
little to do with Christianity, the emphasis the Knights
placed on individual redemption, and the language the Knights
used to support these goals, reveals that evangelical
Christian reform affected the Knights’ conceptualization of
them. Republican ideology and rhetoric was used
simultaneously with biblical ideas. By mixing them, and using
them interchangeably, the Knights achieved a firm moral,
rational, and patriotic base for their critique and
alternative vision. The use of both discourses also
illustrates how the dichotomy between the secular and the
religious did not find resonance among the Knights. Though
some might argue this reflects ideological inconsistency, it
actually illustrates the dynamic and unique nature of the
discourse the Knights engaged in to question the society and

create identity for their Order.

 

Chapter 4

Female Knight Redeemers

The preceding chapters describe how the Knights actively
engaged the clergy in a discussion concerning the concept of
Christianity and the responsibilities of Christian
institutions. Because the Knights distinctly conceptualized
Christianity as praxis, they were able to assert their
organization exemplified Christian values. Christianity,
especially millennial perfectionism, was also significant for
affecting the Knights’ vision of their organization as a
social movement. However, one must also consider how
Christianity, and the Knights as a social reform movement,
affected the actions and goals of the Order. Using Christian
rhetoric legitimated.critique3 about monopoly and.helped shape
the way the Knights conceptualized their goals of temperance,
education and cooperation. Yet, the most significant result
of the Knights as a Christian social reform movement involved
the Order’s acceptance of women. Most historians writing on
the Knights note the presence of women as well as the Order’s
support of’ equal. pay' and. female suffrage, but few Ihave
explored the Knights’ ideology that enabled the Order to
include women.86

Because the Knights of Labor was a labor organization its
inclusion of women and women’s demands has often been
described as an aberration in labor union activity. Yet, if

one conceptualizes the Knights as a social reform movement,

49

50

and describes the continuities between antebellum reform and
postbellum reform, the inclusion of women no longer
constitutes an aberration. In the nineteenth century women
were active in abolitionism, temperance, and a host of other
similar issues.87 The cultural precedents for women’s public
activity, however, do not fully illuminate how the Knights
ideologically justified their inclusion of women. Exploring
the influence of evangelical religion, including the idea
women were inherently moral and.pious people, however, allows
one to describe the ideology that legitimated women’s
inclusion and made women’s involvement imperative.
Although women’s involvement in the Order was not always
easily accepted by all (women encountered antagonism at the
local and.national levels), women comprised.ten percent of the
Knights’ membership, a number almost proportionate to their
employment rates.88 To understand how and why the Order
included women it is necessary to explore the Knights’ views
of women. Although the Knights supported female suffrage and
equal pay they did.not attempt to destroy gender difference or
the Cult of True Womanhood, the predominate ideology
(influenced by evangelical religion) that asserted women were
pure, pious, domestic and submissive.” Rather, the Knights
exalted. these four' characteristics, especially' piety’ and
purity, to argue women’s involvement in the Order was
necessary.

Women’s involvement was required because society had

reached a level of corruption that demanded a new intrusion of

51

purity. The female morality that would reform the system was
described by the Journal of United Labor: "Women have a finer
and more exact sense of honor than men; their ideas of right
and wrong are not perverted.by moves of expedience, and sordid
calculations are less apt to influence their judgement."90
However, it was not only woman’s morality that made her
presence essential, it was the influence woman’s morality had
on her ability to understand problems and offer solutions.
The nobler capabilities of women were discussed by a writer
for* the Journal. of ‘United. Labor: "While :men are coldly
calculating and discussing the pros and cons of a subject,
women could decide by their hearts and carry the project into
execution before the brothers had their thinking caps on."91

To argue women were more moral than men was ideologically
to support the Cult of True Womanhood, Yet, labor reform
activity, by its very public nature, negated the domestic
characteristic of the Cult of True Womanhood. The argument
that women’s activity involved an expansion of the domestic
sphere, however, abrogated the contradiction. The Journal of
United Labor quoted Francis Willard, leader of the Women’s
Christian Temperance Union, who argued: "She [woman] will come
into government and purify it, into politics and cleanse its
Stygian pool-for woman will make homelike every place she
enters, and she will enter every place on this round
world."92 By arguing women will make the world more
homelike, public activity could be reconciled with the

domestic characteristic of the Cult of True Womanhood.

52

Because male and female gender was strictly defined as
opposite and complementary, woman’s inherent morality was
necessary for both the private and public spheres. The
necessity for women to purify and reform the world was thus
widely accepted as one of the justifications for women’s
active involvement in the Order. For example, a writer for
the Journal of United Labor claimed that, "nothing but evil
succeeds well without woman’s blessed influence and cheering
support... her presence was always a guarantee of security
against the brutal and groveling tendencies of masculine
nature.”3 Without challenging gender difference, and even
by exemplifying gender difference, the Knights, like most
antebellum and.postbellum reformers, legitimated.public roles
for women. Thus instead of representing women’s labor
activity as only an aberration in labor history, it should be
discussed also as a continuation of antebellum and postbellum
reform activity.

The ideological key for understanding how the Knights
could legitimate women’s activity involves more than the
Knights’ assertion that women were inherently more moral than
men. By exemplifying real morality women also advanced
Christian ideas, and it is this which necessitated their role
as agents for reform and redemption. Christianity was hence
significant for both defining and legitimating women’s
activity within the Order. Women’s higher Christian morality
was described by H.C. in ‘the Report of the committee’:

Resolved, First, That we invoke on the work this day

53
begun the blessing of God and His Son our Savior,
who was on earth betrayed and denied by his male
followers- His disciples- and crucified by the
money changers et al. without a manly protest from
any class, learned or unlearned- woman alone had the
courage to remonstrate against the outrageous murder
of the son of God.“
The underlying assumption in the above passage was that women
know and do right more often then men. Women’s roles as
redeemers were necessary for they exemplified piety and could
use it to change society. This was illustrated by a poem on
the cover of the Journal of United Labor:
Woman! in your daily conflict
Wield some mightier weapons, Though!
Wield the sword of God’s great Spirit!
And before it all shall bow:
Scripture texts wield thou with power?
Own and feel that prayer is might!
And thy true and phantom legions
Shall be quickly put to flight.95
The sense that woman’s inherent morality would allow her to
infuse the order with both ethical and Christian values was
predominant.
.Although abstractly and ideologically women functioned
as redeemers in Knights’ ideology, the abstract Christian
reform role existed.in tension with some pervasive conflicting

conceptions of womanhood. Contradictory portrayals of women

54

are found in abundance in the journals. The various journals
often published articles about extraordinary overachieving
women in the women’s sections of the papers. Women doctors,
farmers, and professors, who achieved independence, received
much acclaim from the Knights. However, it was also not
uncommon for the journals to include derogatory, if not
misogynists, clips about women. For example an article in
Chicago, Knights of Labor claimed that, "Woman is the sweetest
and bitterest gift of God to man." The author continued:
"The devil is never as black as he is painted, and a woman is
never as innocent as she appears.““ Though ambiguous, the
tension that resulted from the various messages iwas
significant for it illustrates that members of the Knights
disagreed about woman’s nature and place in the Order and in
the society. These same tensions occurred in references to
working women. Yet, to attempt to uncover how working women
in the Order were conceptualized, and received.as laborers, it
is necessary to explore both the Knights’ discussion of
working women’s concerns and the ideology the Knights used to
justify their support of women’s demands.

The gender difference based morality that legitimated
women’s roles as redeemers affected the Knights’ articulation
and support of specific women related issues. The Knights’
support of female suffrage illustrates both how morality
defined the activity of women in the Order and shows how class
and gender were dialectically related.

The Knights’ main argument for women’s right to the vote

55
was based on the belief that women were more moral than men
and would thus be able to promote a better more home-like
public world.97 A writer for the Journal of United Labor
argued: "Women, as women, will represent the homes. They are
more temperate, chaste, peaceable, economical, and.law-abiding
than men; therefore their votes will promote temperance,
purity, peace, economy, and law and order."” The
predominate perception among those supporting female suffrage
was not that they were arguing the sameness of men and women,
but rather using the difference of women to redeem the
corruption of man and society. The Journal of United Labor
often addressed this issue: "I am asked, would you drag women
into the mire of politics? No, I would have them lift us out
of it."919 Like the upper and middle class suffragists, the

Knights used gender difference to argue for female suffrage.

However, the Knights’ support of suffrage was based on
more than a belief that gender determined woman’s morality.
The Knights argued that working class woman’s higher morality
was dependent on both her womanhood and her class position.
The journals abound in comparisons of decadent "ladies" and
moral working girls. For example, the Journal of United Labor
printed a letter from an individual in local assembly 7817:
"Females who consider themselves above work, who drive around
in carriages, go to church to show their silks and jewelry
under the flimsy pretext of worshiping the humble Nazarene,

turn up their noses in proud contempt at the mere mention of

56
the name of any one of these poor, honest girls, who earn

their bread in the nail factory."w°

That upper class women
looked at working girls with contempt reinforced the nobility
of toil and the morality of working women. A poem by a women
in the Order addressed this issue:

"ladies sneer at the working girls

As they pass them on the street.

They stare at us in proud disdain.

And their lips in scorn will curl;

As they pass us by we hear them say,

She is only a working girl.101
For the Knights, the working woman’s morality was both the
result of her gender and class position. By juxtaposing
classes of women, the Knights emphasized working women’s
morality.

The dialectic between class and.gender becomes clear, for
the Knights supported female suffrage because women were
female and hence moral workers. They Journal of Labor
asserted: "The influence of pmoletarian women enfrancaised
would be powerful in labor legislation and social reform.“102
By emphasizing "proletarian", the Knights saw'their support of
female suffrage as support of the working class struggle. The
support of female suffrage was conceptualized primarily as a
working class demand and secondarily as an issue of women’s
rights. The Chicago Knights of Labor urged, "workingmen to

consider the advantages to labor that woman suffrage would

bring, as well as the principle of justice involved,

57

remembering that workingmen were and are to some extent to-
day, excluded form the privilege of participating in
elections."1°3 Although one cannot discount the Knights’
acceptance of suffrage as novel, and liberating for women as
a group, one also cannot argue this was an assertion for
women’s rights without first recognizing it was primarily a
way to solidify and strengthen the political power of the
working class. The class solidarity of the Knights thus
enabled them to use the morality of working women to redefine
some gender roles.

Exploring the dialectic of class and gender demonstrates
how the Knights’ support of suffrage, as a working class tool,
opened up possibilities for women. It illustrates how the
Knights, through their critique of the abuses of industrial
capitalism, could argue for greater roles for women. By
contrasting women’s morality with decadent ladies and the
corrupt system, the Knights used working women’s gender
defined.purity to emphasize the moral purpose of the Order, to
critique the dominant system, and justify their alternative
visions. Abstractly women represented the moral purpose of
the Order, for they exemplified the Christian element of the
Knights.

Along with suffrage, a primary concern of the Knights, in
reference to working women, was the issue of sexual
harassment. The Detroit Labor Leaf argued: "One of the
greatest evils that women have to contend.with is the presence

of foremen in the factories who take improper advantage of

58
their position."1°‘ Although the Knights discussed many
other issues in reference to women, it is significant that
they were sensitive to the specific and unique plight of
women. However, the Knights were most concerned about women
when questions about morality were involved. Woman’s double
duty as both worker and caretaker was rarely addressed. This
illustrates how gender determined and defined the significance
of working women’s issues. Women’s issues were thus largely
based on the premise that women were and needed to be moral.
Leonora M. Barry, General Investigator of Women’s work and
wages, also expressed this concern:
A.custom is rapidly increasing in the country which.means
shame, dishonor and humiliation to womanhood, and I here
and now appeal to every father within sound of my voice
to be watchful and wary of his little daughter if she be
employed.in.any large establishment, or small one either,
where she is made to understand that the price of her
position is ‘that she stand in with the boss’105
Although the Knights' concern with sexual harassment was both
significant and very helpful to women, exploring the ideology
behind the Knights’ critique of sexual harassment reveals that
the belief women should be moral, more than regard for women
as workers, defined the Knights’ concern.106
To determine whether the Knights promoted equality
between the sexes, while also accepting and advocating gender
difference, it is necessary to explore the substantive issue

of pay. It is frequently noted by historians that the

 

59
Knights’ support of equal pay, for women and blacks, proves
the Knights advocated a true equality. Investigating the
arguments for equal pay will illustrate that the same gender
difference that allowed for the redeeming role of women, and
the support of suffrage, also played a part in the Knights
demands for equal pay.

Many in the Knights argued for equal pay and some argued
for it based on a belief in women’s and men’s true equality.
More common, however, was the assertion women needed higher
pay to sustain virtue and protect the wages of men. In
reference to low female wages a writer in the Chicago Knights
'of Labor claimed: "It lowers woman’s standard, decreases the
sanctity of the sex, weakens the marriage contract. It
creates a current of evil that flows around the moral circle,
and may lead to the obliteration of all that is womanly in
woman."107 That low pay debased women’s morality by forcing
them into prostitution and vice was commonly discussed as an
important reason for raising women’s wages. Equal pay was
necessary for insuring that the working women would remain
pure and hence sill possess all the moral characteristic that
defined her as woman.

The most prevalent justification for women’s equal pay,
however, was based on the premise that it was the only fully
secure way to raise men’s wages. A writer for the Chicago,
Knights of Labor asserted that, ”unless the wages of women are
raised to those of men, the wages of men must sink to the

level of the wages of women."108 That the issue of equal pay

60

was aimed primarily towards elevating men’s wages is
illustrated.by aiwriter for the Chicago Knights of Labor: "Let
no working man, whatever his occupation, then be stupid and
short sighted enough to say that the question of raising the
condition of female labor does not concern him."1°9 One
cannot ignore the novel significance of the Knights’ support
of equal pay, yet that one of the primary goals was to raise
men’s wages must be noted. Though the desire to raise men’s
wages, and a principled belief in equality are not
antithetical, most argued for equal pay without the intention
of advocating true equality.

The argument that the primary goal of equal pay was to
raise men’s wages is substantiated by the Knights’ discussion
of "pin money", money earned by married women for "non-
necessity" spending. The Journal of United Labor stated: "Pin
money is blood money".“° But how to differentiate between
pin money and real money was not clear. A different writer
for the Journal of United Labor argued: "I think it is about
time that the men, men with hearts and brains, take this
matter up, and see to it that their wives and daughters who do
not absolutely need the work do not, of the sake of a little
more pin money, take the bread from their starving
sisters."”1 By legitimating poor women’s rights to work
while simultaneously arguing against wealthy'women’s rights to
work, the Knights narrowed the options open to women as a.
distinct group. Underlying the whole issue of pin money was

the assumption that a family wage (a wage earned solely by the

61
father sufficient to provide for the whole family), was ideal.
Class was thus used to restrict options for women and narrow
the roles for women.

The association of women with children, in discussions
and articles on labor problems, also affected the propriety of
women’s work. By classifying the two together as a moral
issue, and arguing the evil of child labor, women’s right to
labor suffered. For example, an article in the Chicago
Knights of Labor, on women’s work, commented on the increase
of women’s and children’s work related to the decrease in
men’s between 1870-1880: "The one greatest evil of our
factory system is its effect upon the employment of women and
children."112 Though not directly questioning woman’s right
to work, the author supported the family wage as the ideal and
thus relegated.women’s work to a subsidiary'positionl Just as
important, the association of women with the moral issue of
child labor made the issue of women’s right to work a moral
concern. Women’s work could thus implicitly be challenged on
moral grounds by arguing that the family wage was ideal and
that labor by women and children was equally demoralizing.

Although one of the reasons the Knights supported equal
pay was to raise men’s wages, this does not negate the
Knights’ support of women’s right to work and right to earn a
fair wage. In fact, many Knights supported woman’s right to
equal pay based solely on a belief in principled.equality. To
fully understand the role of working women in the Order, and

determine whether the Knights supported. equality, it is

62

necessary to explore how the Knights envisioned the ideal,
(the end goal for women in their alternative vision). Susan
Beth Levine has argued that the final goal of the Knights, in
reference to women, was to institute a family wage that would
allow women to return to their gender defined role in the
home. "Although the Knights accepted women’s wage work as
unavoidable under'present circumstance, they hoped.that in the
cooperative commonwealth women would no longer need to venture
into the market place."113 George F. Burns of local assembly
2590, thus did not stand alone in asserting: "These girls and
women are not destined to remain in these factories and mills
forever. Some day they will be married, and perhaps have
families to raise".114 Although the Knights advocated
woman’s right_to work, and.earn a fair wage, their conceptions
of working women, labor activity, suffrage, and equal pay,
were based on an assumption of woman’s morality that was tied
to the Cult of True Womanhood. Gender difference thus defined
how the Knights saw working women and it was this same
difference that dictated that the ideal role of the woman was
to reside in the home.

Though ideologically and culturally the Knights’
acceptance of women has perplexed historians and been
described as an aberration, it is necessary to look at the
evangelical Christian reform tradition. The evangelical
Christian reform tradition of the nineteenth century, which
asserted women were inherently moral, allowed the Knights to

encourage women to publicly redeem the society politically,

63
socially, and economically. For a short time the Knights
used class to confront traditional gender roles concerning
women’s suffrage, right to work, and earn equal paywithout,

however, challenging the belief woman’s true role was in the

home.

Conclusion

Christianity, both institutionally and ideologically, was
important to the Knights of Labor. In the process of
questioning dominant Christian ideas the Knights became
involved in a powerful discourse, one in which the very
meaning of Christianity, and the power to decide it, lay at
center. By questioning the dominant churches, the Knights
were able to distinctively re-conceptualize the meaning of
Christianity for themselves. They argued Christianity must be
defined by praxis and realized through deed. Defining
Christianity by praxis thus allowed the Knights to usurp>moral
authority and envision themselves as the redeemers of not only
the laboring class, but the whole societyu Because women were
more pious and pure, they became important agents in the
Knights’ reform efforts.

To understand fully the ideology of the Knights, it is
necessary to view their organization as more than a labor
movement. Conceptualizing the Knights of Labor as a social
movement, reform movement, and movement culture, allows one to
both understand how the Knights envisioned themselves, as well
as explore the influence and significance that Christianity
had on their ideology. Many scholars have explored the
significance of republican ideology in labor history, and it
is this historical orientation that allows and demands for an
inquiry into Christianity. Most importantly, studying

Christianity allows access to the world view of the Knights.

64

65
Henry May has argued that, "...the recovery of religious
history has restored a knowledge of the mode, even the
language, in which most Americans, during most of American
history, did the thinking about human nature and destiny."“5
The Knights are no exception.

Because the Knights of Labor was a labor organization,
its ideas about reform and objects of reform were distinctive.
Rhetorically the reform orientation was significant to the
Knights for they envisioned themselves as the redeemers that
would reform the entire society. Because reform, rather than
class conflict, was their orientation they advocated reform
goals like including women, temperance, and the use of the
ballot. These goals were not divisive, rather they were
conciliatory, a way to create harmony between the classes
rather than domination of one over the other.

Even though the Knights’ reform goal allowed the Knights
to criticize the society, it failed to allow them to reject
industrial capitalism as a system. Though the knights often
termed.the struggle as one between the laboring and.capitalist
classes, the Knights never truly envisioned their conflict as
one between classes. The Christian reform influence allowed
the Knights to describe the conflict as one between right and
wrong, rather than one between classes. Reverend J. Cole
Adams, a minister whose sermons were reprinted in the Chicago
Knights of Labor argued: "This question of rights is a
question of lights".116 The Knights termed the struggle in

a similar way because the Knights believed that once the truth

66

was revealed the conflict would.be ameliorated, for all would
have seen the light. Because the conflict was really between
right and. wrong, reconciliation. between the classes and
achieving harmony, was not only possible, but the real goal.
Although the influence of pre-industrial capitalist values
inhibited the Knights from rejecting capitalism, Christianity
allowed them to develop an alternative vision that criticized
the abuses wrought by industrial capitalism. Because the
Knights believed the injustices so self-evident, and their
critique divinely sanctioned, reformation of the entire
society could be achieved through an education of those
committing injustices. Conflict, therefore, was. not
necessary, for education would result in harmony.

Rather than discussing the Knights’ failure to reject
capitalism and class relations as proof of an underdeveloped
class consciousness or conservativism, it is more useful to
use their ideology to gain access to the way they saw their
world" The Knights’ failure to fully challenge the inequality
inherent in capitalism thus makes sense when one understands
the Knights as an American social movement influenced by
Christianity. Yet, not only did Christianity influence their
critique of the system, and their development of an
alternative vision, it helped shape the way in which they
could and did visualize their world. Christianity
rhetorically played an important role in their
conceptualization of themselves and their ideals of fairness

and justice. Though this might have impeded them from

67
developing a systemic critique of capitalism it nonetheless
had cultural integrity for them. It allowed them to make
sense of their turbulent and unjust world.

The predominance of Christian rhetoric for the Knights
cannot be ignored. It provided the Knights with a base value
system, and a shared ideology, that allowed them to identify
themselves as active participants in the larger culture. It
allowed them to criticize injustices and believe in the
possibility of a better future. Within the context of late
nineteenth century America, during which Christianity and
republicanism were central discourses, the Knights’ use of
Christianity allowed them to construct their own independent
identity, and alternative vision, based on a conception of

moral justice and fairness.

 

Notes

1. United States Senate Committee Upon the Relations Between Labor and
Capital, Report, 4 vols. (Washington D.C.: GPO, 1885) Vol 2, p.84
(hereafter cited as USSC, Report [1885]).

2. Journal of United Labor (Philadelphia) June 15, 1880. (hereafter
cited as JUL ).

3. The information about the Commons' school in the introduction is
largely derived from the work of Gregory S. Kealey and Bryan Palmer,
Dreamingggf What Might Be: The Knights of Labor in Ontario, 1880-1900
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

40 Ibido ’ 6-80

5. Norman Ware, The Labor Movement in the United States: 1860-1895
(New York: Vintage Books, 1929).

 

6. Gerald Grob, Workers and Utopia: A Study of Ideological Conflict
in the American Labor Movement 1865-1900 (Evanston: Northwestern Univ-
ersity Press, 1961).

7. For examples of this literature, see E.P. Thompson, The Makinggof
the English Working Class (New York: Vintage Books, 1963) and Herbert
Gutman, Work, Culture, and Society in IndustrializingyAmerica: Essays
in American History (New York: Vintage Books, 1977).

 

8. Leon Fink, "The New Labor History and the Powers of Historical Pes
Pessimism: Consensus, Hegemony, and the Case of the Knights of Labor,"
The Journal of American History, 75 (June 1988).

9. Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knoledge (New York: Harper &
Row, 1976).

 

10. LaCapra, Dominik, History and Criticism. (Ithaca, Cornell Univer-
sity Press, 1985). p.36

 

11. Joan Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1988). p.53

 

12. Bryan Palmer, Descent into Discourse: The Reification of Language
in the Writing of Social History (Philadelphia: Temple University Press
1990).

13. Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the
American Workihg Class, 1788-1850 (Oxford: Oxford University, 1984).

 

 

14. Leon Fink, "The New Labor History" and the Powers of Histo

68

 

69

15. The most importan works on the Knights that ignore Christianity are,
Leon Fink, Workingman's Democracy: the Knights of Labor and American Pol-
itics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983)., Susan Beth Levine.,
Labor's True Woman: Carpet Weavers, Industrialization and Labor Reform in
the Gilded Age (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984).

 

 

 

16. E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, 392.

 

17. Herbert Gutman, Work, Culture, and Society, 79.

 

18. For examples of this literature see, Henry May, Ideas, Faiths and
Feelings: Essays on American Intellectual and Religious History, 1952-
1982 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), especially chapter 7.,
John Wilson, Public Religion in America (Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 1979)., John Wilson et al., eds., REligion in America:Interpretive
Essays (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1978).

 

 

19. Henry May, Ideas, Faiths, and Feelings, 81.

 

20. Ibid., 156.

21. Ken Fones-Wolf, Trade Union Gospel: Christianity and Labor in Indust-
rial Philadelphia, 1865-1915 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,-1989).

22. Clark Halker, "Jesus was a Carpenter, Labor Song-Poets, Labor Protest
and True Religion in Gilded Age America," Labor History, (Spring 1991),
274.

 

23. For examples, see Norman Pollack, The Just Polity: Populism, Law, and
Human Welfare (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987)., The Humane
Economy: Populism, Capitalism, and Democracy (New Brunswick: Rutgers Univ-
ersity Press, 1990).

 

 

24. USSC, Report [1885] vol 2 p.85.
25. USSC, Report [1885] vol 2 p.592.

26. Herbert Gutman, Work Culture and Society, 106., Ken Fones-Wolf Trade
Union Gospel, 65.

 

27. Henry May, Protestant Churches and Industrial America (New York: Har-
per & Row, 1949), 204.

 

28. The Labor Leaf (Detroit) January 20, 1886.

 

29. JUL (Philadelphia) November 8, 1888.
30. USSC, Report [1885] vol 1 p.50.
31. USSC, Report [1885] vol 1 p.83-84.

32. My ideas about what constitutes a structural critique of capitalism

70

has been shaped most importantly by the works of Norman Pollack.

33.
34.
35.
36,
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

JUL (Philadelphia) July 5, 1888.
USSC, Report [1885] vol 1 p.359.

Knights of Labor (Chicago) December 11, 1886.

 

JUL (Philadelphia) July 5, 1888.
USSC, Report [1885] vol 2 p. 595.

Knights of Labor (Chicago) December 11, 1886.

 

USSC, Report [1885] vol 2 p.593.
USSC, REport [1885] vol 2 p.594.
JUL (Philadelphia) September 13, 1888.

Knights of Labor (Chicago) November 13, 1886.

 

Ibid.,
JUL (Philadelphia) September 20, 1888.

Knights of Labor (Chicago) December 11, 1886.

 

USSC, Report [1885] vol 1 p.51.

Labor Leaf (Detroit) April 28, 1887.

 

JUL (PHiladelphia) November 10, 1886.

Labor Leaf (Detroit) May 12, 1886.

 

JUL (Philadelphia) December 10, 1885.

Labor Leaf (Detroit) April 28, 1886.

 

For a discussion on Henry Ward Beecher see, William G. McLoughlin

The Meaning of Henry Ward Beecher: An Essay on the Shifting Values of

 

a Mid Victorian America, 1840-1870 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970).

 

53.

54.

55.

56.

Labor Leaf (Detroit) December 8, 1886.
JUL (Philadelphia) May 24, 1886.

Knights of Labor (Chicago) November 20, 1886.

 

JUL (Philadelphia) April 21, 1888.

 

71
57. JUL (Philadelphia) April 21, 1888.

58. Labor Leaf (Detroit) February 23, 1889.

 

59. Henry Browne, The Catholic Church and the Knights of Labor (Wash-
ington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1949), 234.

60. Ibid., 241.

61. Henry May, Protestant Churches, 177.

 

62. Labor Leaf (Detroit) January 5, 1887.

 

63. Knights of Labor (Chicago) November 27, 1886.

 

64. Knights of Labor (Chicago) December 18, 1886.

 

65. USSC, Report [1885] vol 1 p.354.

66. Norman Pollack provides a discussion of the Populists revernce for
private property in his above menetioned books.

67. Labor Its Rights and Wrongs. Statements and Comments by the Leading

Men of our Nation of the Labor Question of Today (Westport Connecticut,
Hyperion Press, 1975).

68. JUL (Philadelphia) October 22, 1887.
69. UUUU, Report [1885] vol 1 p.360.

70. UUUU, Report [1885] vol 2 p.84.

71. JUL (Philadelphia) May 19, 1888.

72. Knights of Labor (Chicago) December 23, 1886.

 

73. Pamphlets in American Histogy, Knights of Labor Ritual and Regul-
ation (18??) L3265.

74. Knights of Labor (Chicago) August 14, 1886.

 

75. Labor Leaf (Detroit) August 26, 1885.

 

76. Labor Leaf (Detroit) March 2, 1889.

 

77. JUL (Philadelphia) April 16, 1887.
78. JUL (Philadelphia) June 15, 1880.
79. Knights of Labor (Chicago) August 14, 1886.

80. For a discussion on Evangelicalism and social reform, see Ronald

72

G. Walters, American Reformers: 1815-1860 (New York: Hill and Wang,
1978)., Barbara Epstein, The Politics of Domesticity: Women, Evangal-

ism, and Temperance in Nineteenth Century America (MIddletown: Wesley
Press, 1981).

 

 

81. Knights of Labor (Chicago) November 6, 1886.

82. Labor Leaf (Detroit) September 29, 1886.

 

83. JUL (Philadelphia) June 15, 1880.
84. JUL (Philadelphia) September 10, 1885.

85. Labor Leaf (Detroit) February 2, 1887.

 

86. Susan B. Levine has provided the most comprehensive study on
women and the Knights of Labor in her study, Labor's True Woman:
Carpet Weavers, Industrialization, and Labor Reform in the Gilded

Age (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984). In The Fall of

the House of Labor: the Work place, the State, and American Labor
Activism, 1865-1925 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).,
David Montgomery gives a very brief explanation for the Order's
acceptance of women; he argues this was possible because the ,
organization was concerned with family and was not based on occupation
Kealey and Palmer argue the Order challenged women's roles but provide
very little analysis or explanation of this issue in their work,
Dreaming of What Might Be.

 

 

87. For a discussion of women's activism, see Nancy Hewitt, Women's
Activism and Social Change: Rochester, New York 1822-72 (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1984)., and Barbara Epstein, The Politics
of Domesticity.

 

88. Susan B. Levine, "Labor's True Woman: Domesticity and Equal
Rights in the Knights of Labor," Journal of American History, 70
(September, 1983) : 325.

 

89. For a discussion on the ideology of womanhood in the nineteenth
century, see Barbara Welter, "The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860,"
American Quarterly, 18 (Summer 1966) : 151-74.

 

90. JUL (Philadelphia) February 12, 1887.
91. JUL (Philadelphia) October 10, 1887.
92. JUL (Philadelphia) January 8, 1887.
93. JUL (Philadelphia) June 25, 1885.

94. JUL (Philadelphia) April 4, 1885.

95. JUL (Philadelphia) August 6, 1887.

 

73

96. Knights of Labor (Chicago) September 11, 1886.

 

97. For a discussion of the ideology behind women's suffrage, see Ellen
Carol Dubois, Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent
Women's Movement in America, 1848-1869 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1978).

 

98. JUL (Philadelphia) October 29, 1887.
99. JUL (Philadelphia) December 24, 1887.
100. JUL (Philadelphia) May 12, 1887.
101. JUL (Philadelphia) April 25, 1886.
102. JUL (Philadelphia) January 29, 1887.

103. Knights of Labor, (Chicago) January 15, 1887.

 

104. Labor Leaf (Detroit) December 15, 1888.

 

105. JUL (Philadelphia) November 22, 1888.

106. For a discussion of Barry, see Susan B. Levine, "Labor's True
Woman: Domesticity and Equal Rights in the Knights of Labor," Journal
of American History 2 (September, 1983)., and Susan B. Levine, Labor's
True Woman: Caypet Weavers, Industrialization, and Labor Reform in the
Gilded Age (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984).

 

 

107. Knights of Labor (Chicago) February 26, 1887.
108. Knights of Labor (Chicago) February 19, 1887.
109. Ibid.

110. JUL (Philadelphia) March 3, 1887.

111. JUL (Philadelphia) January 22, 1887.

112. Knights of Labor (Chicago) February 19, 1887.

 

113. Susan B., Levine, Labor's True Woman: Carpet Weavers, Indust-
rialization, and Labor Reform in the Gilded Age (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1984), 135.

 

 

114. JUL (Philadelphia) February 15, 1884.

LI ST OF REFERENCES

List of References

Primary

The Journal of United Labor (Philadelphia), 1880-95.

Knightg of Labor (Chicago), 1886—89.
Labor Leaf (Detroit), 1885-89.

Labor; Its Rights and Wrongs. Statements and Comments by the
Leading Men of our Nation on the Labor Question of Today

(Westport Connecticut, Hyperion Press, 1975).

Pamphlets in American History, Knights of Labor Ritual and
Regulation (18??) L3265.

United States Senate Committee Upon the Relations Between
Labor and Capital, Re ort, 4 vols. (Washington D.C.: GPO,
1885).

Articles

Fink, Leon., "The New Labor History and the Powers of
Hi3torical Pessimism: Consensus, Hegemony, and the Case of the

.Knights of Labor," The Journal of American History 75 (June
1988).

Halker, Clark., "Jesus was a Carpenter, Labor Song-Poets,
Labor Protest, and.True Religion.in.Gilded Age.America," Labor

History (Spring 1991).

Levine, Susan B., "Labor’s True Woman: Domesticity and Equal
Rights in the Knights of Labor," Thg Journal gf Amerigan
Histgry 2 (September, 1983).

Welter, Barbara., "The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860,"
Amgrigan Quartgrly, 18 (Summer 1966).

Books

Browne, Henry., Thg Cgtholig Church and the Knights of Labor
(Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America

Press, 1949).
DuBois, Ellen., F mi m an uffra e: Th Em r n f an

Ingepgndgnt ngen’s Movement in America, 1848-1869
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978).

74

75

Epstein, Barbara., The Politics of Domesticity: Women,

Evangelism, and Temperance in Nineteenth Century America
(Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1981).

Fink, Leon., Wgrkingmsn’s Democracy: the Knights of Labor and

American Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1983).

Fones-Wolf, Ken., Trade Union Gospel: Christianity and Labor

in Industrial Philadelphia, 1865-1915 (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1989).

Foucault, Michel., The Archaeology of Knowledgs (New York:
Harper & Row, 1976).

Grob, Gerald., Workers and Utopia: A Study of Ideological
Conflict in the American Labor Movement 1865-1900

(Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1961).

Gutman, Herbert., Work, Culture, and Society in

Industrializing America: Essays in American Working glass
Social Histgry (New York: Vintage Books, 1977).

Hewitt, Nancy., Women’s Activism.and.Social Change: Rochester,
New York 1822-1872 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,

1984).

Kealey, Gregory S. and Bryan Palmer, Dreaming of What Might

Be: the Knights gf Labor in Ontario, 1880-1900
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

LaCapra, Dominik., History and Criticism (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1985).

Levine, Susan B., Labor’s True Woman: Carpet Weavers,

Industrialization and Labor Reform in the Gilded Ags
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984).

May, Henry., Protestant Churches and Industrial America (New
York: Harper & Row, 1949).

. Ideas, Faiths, and Feelings: Essays on American

Intellectusl snd Religious History, 1952-1983 (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1983).

 

McLoughlin, William G., Thg Msaning gf Hsnry Ward Bseghsr: An
E n h h‘ 'n V lu Mi Vi i n Am ri

1849-1879 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970).

Montgomery, David., Beyond Egpality: Labor and ths Radigal
Rsppblicans, 1862-1872 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967) .

. Ths Fall of the Hogse of Labor: the Work Placs,

 

76

the State, and American Labor Activism. 1865-1925
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

Palmer, Bryan., Descent into Discourse: the Reification of

Language in the Writing of Social History (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1990). ‘

Pollack, Norman., The Populist Responss to Industrial America
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962).

Ths gu st Polity. Populism, Law, and Human
Welfare (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987).

 

. Ths Humane Economy: Populism, Cspitalism, and
Democracy (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press,

1990).

 

Scott, Joan., Gender and the Politics of History (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1988).

Thompson, E. P. , Ths Making of the English Working Class (New
York: Vintage Books, 1963).

Walters, Ronald G., American Reformers: 1815-1860 (New York:
Hill and Wang, 1978).

Ware, Norman., The Labor Movement in the United States: 1860-
1895 (New York: Vintage Books, 1929).

Wilentz, Sean., Chants Democratic; New York City and ths Rise

of the American Working Class, 1788-1850 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1984).

Wilson, John F. et al., eds., Religign in America:
Interprstive Essays (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall,

1978).

Wilson, John F. Public Religion in America (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1979).

 

 

HICHIGQN STQTE UNIV. LIBRQRIES

llllllll1llll2ll|||||||l||||lllllllllllllIlllllllllllllllllllHll

93009032644