Against Masters and Money Power

This chapter illustrates how the Knights of Labor used Civil War memory to construct organizational culture and promote specific workplace campaigns. Believing the issue of “slavery” (economic domination) unsettled, Knights saw themselves as the rightful heirs of the abolitionists and Radical Republicans. They established affiliate groups for worker-veterans, including the Blue and Gray Association of the Knights of Labor, and expanded the use of antislavery metaphors. Yet the order’s labor republicanism, and the turn by some members toward radicalism, alienated veteran-labor auxiliaries from mainstream veterans’ organizations, notably the Grand Army of the Republic.

Wolves

Chapter 6 explores the numerous fights between union leaders in the Gilded Age to show that “organized labor” was far from unified. Historians have long noted that these fights, such as those between and within the American Federation of Labor and the Knights of Labor, weakened unions during this period. This chapter, however, argues that the fights between union leadership in the Gilded Age were part of a large but disorganized effort to “purify” labor organizations of corrupt and complacent leadership. The tumult this created tore unions apart, created rival organizations like the Independent Order of the Knights of Labor, and caused workers to doubt which leaders and organizations were trustworthy. This confusion became even more pronounced during the Populist push in the 1896 national election, when rural farmers and laborers, disillusioned with the organizations and individuals who claimed to help them, could not agree on which candidate would best look after their interests.

Deceived

Chapter 1 examines the grievances many rural farmers and laborers faced, including exploitation, workplace dishonesty, and questionable stock investment procedures in the Gilded Age. Workers cast a wary eye at their bosses, bankers, stockbrokers, lawyers, and government officials, who rural workers viewed as dishonest individuals looking to take advantage of hardworking farmers and laborers. This mistrust at times extended to union organizers and officers of organizations like the Knights of Labor and the National Federation of Miners. When the leaders of these two groups tried to merge to create one large miners’ union, workers wondered whether the union representatives truly cared about the workers’ interests.

Introduction

This section presents an overview of the book. It sketches out the conflicts between corporations and Gilded Age unions, like the Knights of Labor and the United Mine Workers. It argues that workers were frequently situated between the two sides. Workers’ goals to increase their economic standings at times pulled workers into unions, but in other instances just as easily pulled them into the capitalist mindset of their employers.

Mary Harris “Mother” Jones

Born in Cork, Ireland, and reared in Toronto, Canada, Mary Harris trained as a dressmaker and teacher before she moved in 1861 to Memphis, Tennessee, where she met and married George Jones, an iron molder and member of the International Iron Molders Union. After the death of her husband and their four children in a yellow fever epidemic in 1867, she worked as a dressmaker in Chicago. There she became interested in the plight of the working class and began attending Knights of Labor meetings. After 1877, she devoted her life to improving the lot of working people, earning a reputation as a skilled and passionate orator....