Knights of Labor

(1869 - 1949)

Uriah Smith Stephens founded what would become the most prominent labor organization of Reconstruction-era America, which functioned as a federation of unions for various craft industries and unskilled labor, on a Thanksgiving Day in Philadelphia. Membership for the group peaked in 1886, the same year the American Federation of Labor formed and the Haymarket Affair—a violent clash that began when the Chicago police intervened during a union action supporting the eight-hour workday—took place. Some blamed the Haymarket Affair on the Knights, dampening their influence.