T. V. Powderly, Grand Master Workman of the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor from 1879 to 1893, has been portrayed in many different ways—as idealist, reformer, humanitarian, windbag, renegade, crook, imposter, agitator, introvert, self-seeker, charlatan, cheap politician, turncoat, rabble rouser, and drippy sentimentalist. Some claim that he was a great labor leader; others just as vigorously maintain that he was utterly lacking in the qualities of leadership—that he was, in reality, an insignificant nobody swept along by the changing currents of the American labor movement. It is not the purpose of this short article to paint a full-length portrait of Powderly but rather, on the basis of newly discovered data, to indicate briefly which, if any, of the above characterizations fit the man.
