History

In the 1800’s American labor was very weak for these workers. With this labor of movement the factory workers would work six days a week and 10 hours a day for a $1.00 to $1.50 a day which we would find depressing in today’s present time. If you were a skilled worker you could make twice as much as long as you were not a woman, a child and of course an African American which was paid less. In today’s time we see workplace accidents happening day by day. During this early development of American labor organizations workers formed mutual benefit societies which would help injuries or an illness. Unemployment was very usual through this early development of working labor. On the other hand pay was to the minimum.

The Knights of labor was the most important union in the nineteen century which was founded in 1869 with workers in city of Philadelphia ((Henretta and Self 516). The Knights of Labor is known to be the first industrial union which allowed skilled and unskilled workers whether you were African American or female. The goal of Knights of labor was organize workers into fellowship that gave the opportunity to workers who had a common skill or who worked in the industry previous. The Knights had a political past in which they believed an electoral action could with some of their goals they had. The Knights had a leader Terence Powderly which opened up the national organization for the workers regardless nationally, sex or race. They wanted skilled workers who were not lawyers, gamblers, bartenders or bankers. Powderly felt that people like that lived off the labor of other such as the workers.

The growth of the Knights grew rapidly; it was like an economic change during that time. They wanted a eight hour work day, legislation to protect the safety and health of the workers, equal pay for men and women and end child labor specifically children under the age of 14. There was a decline of the Knights labor which was a strike to labor disagreement. One...