A late 19th-century American labor union owed much of its origin and ritual to Freemasonry.

Photo: Library of Congress

The Noble and Holy Order of Knights of Labor has been well described as "the most important and by far the largest secret society in the United States organized in the interest of industrial workers."¹ Established in 1869 as an oath-bound secret society with a ritual which borrowed heavily from Masonry, the Knights removed most of their secret elements in 1882, only to restore them in 1895.²

Membership reached an all-time high of 729,677 in July 1886.³ This number included 95,000 African–Americans.⁴ By 1897, total membership had dropped to 175,000.⁵ Never regaining their former strength, they continued to operate as a secret society until 1917, when they were officially dissolved. One historian of the order correctly observed that the Knights were "born ‘noble and holy’ and died in the same state of grace."⁶

Throughout their 48-year history, the Knights of Labor consistently identified with the working class. Their political platform called for improved safety regulations, mechanics’ liens, the eight-hour workday, public ownership of utilities, regulation of public transportation, regulation of child labor, an end to convict leasing, the establishment of bureaus of labor statistics and postal savings banks, and equal rights for women. They also called for the establishment, when feasible, of cooperative institutions to supersede the wage system.⁷

Uriah Smith Stephens

The belief in "an ideal society in which all individuals would be bound by a brotherhood grounded in a production ethos" and "a most perfect government in which an injury to one is the concern of all" was quite visionary during the late 19th century.⁸ But such a vision guided the life and work of Uriah Smith Stephens, the founder of the Knights of Labor.

Stephens was born on August 3, 1821, in Cape May County, New Jersey. Deeply religious, he studied at a Baptist seminary but never entered the ministry. There can be no doubt, however, that he developed a practical theology which he employed in his mission to improve the quality of life of the working class. In 1846, he moved to Philadelphia, where he worked as a tailor and became quite active in politics. An abolitionist, he took the stump for John C. Fremont in 1856 and for Abraham Lincoln in 1860. He ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1878 on the Greenback–Labor ticket.⁹ He was responsible for the incorporation of the word "labor" in this party’s name.¹⁰

Stephens was initiated an Entered Apprentice Mason in Kensington Lodge No. 211 in Philadelphia on December 9, 1864; passed to the Degree of Fellowcraft on February 25, 1865; and raised to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason on March 24, 1865. He was also a member of Keystone Lodge No. 2, Knights of Pythias, and Fidelity Lodge No. 138, Independent Order of Odd Fellows.¹¹

Stephens’ involvement with Masonry began during the same period of his initial involvement with organized labor. In 1862, he helped to organize the Garment Cutters’ Union, which survived for only seven years. At his invitation, a few members of the recently demised union met at his home on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1869. At this meeting, he unfolded his plan for the "Noble and Holy Order of Knights of Labor" as a "brotherhood of toil" open to every laborer, mechanic, and artisan who wanted to improve his mind and condition, regardless of country, creed, or color. At the new order’s second meeting on December 28, 1869, Stephens’ ritual, Adelphon Kruptos (Secret Brotherhood), was officially adopted.¹² In this opus, Stephens expressed his conviction that the "Everlasting Truth sealed by the Grand Architect of the Universe" is that "everything of value, or merit, is the result of creative Industry." Ritualistic work included lectures on the nobility of labor and the evils of wage slavery, monopoly, and accumulation. Stephens selected an equilateral triangle within a circle as the new order’s emblem, embellishing it with symbolism from the various lodges to which he belonged.¹³

The Knights of Labor elected Stephens as the first local Master Workman, the first District Master Workman, and the first Grand Master Workman. By 1879, there were 23 district assemblies and 1,300 local assemblies. At that time, Stephens resigned the highest office in the order. The decision resulted from a great blow he had experienced the previous year, when the General Assembly, largely due to pressures exerted by Roman Catholic members, had voted to make public the name of the order, omit scriptural quotations from the ritual, and modify the initiation ceremonies to make them less offensive to the Catholic Church. On January 1, 1882, after five years of debate regarding the wisdom of secrecy, the Knights of Labor became a public organization.¹⁴

Stephens died on February 13, 1882. He was buried in the Odd Fellows Cemetery in Philadelphia.¹⁵ At the time of his death, he was estranged from the order he had founded and guided for nearly a decade. Nevertheless, he was still revered by many Knights. As a result, when the General Assembly convened in Richmond, Virginia, in 1886, they voted to appropriate $10,000 to erect a home for the family of their founder.¹⁶

While Stephens did not live to see his organization at its peak of influence, he laid the foundation for much of what followed. The work of the Knights of Labor and the accomplishments of later unions were fulfillments of the vision of this great man, who embodied the best of both Freemasonry and organized labor.

Terence Vincent Powderly

"I have tried to so lead my life as to injure no man in word or deed, to help others and, in so doing, recognize no creed, clime, condition or color. I claim the right as an American, freeborn and under the tongue of good report, to serve God in dealing fairly and squarely by all of His children with whom I come in contact." These beautiful words well express the philosophy of Terence Vincent Powderly, the second Grand Master Workman of the Knights of Labor. A long-time Roman Catholic who became a Mason at the age of 52, Powderly never found a good and sufficient reason for the church’s opposition to Masonry.¹⁷

Powderly was born on January 22, 1849, in Carbondale, Pennsylvania. As a young man, he was terminated from employment as a machinist by an unjust foreman and "blacklisted" at the time of the panic of 1873. His experiences during this period contributed to the empathy which he always expressed toward the unemployed. Thus, he later recalled: "Only the man who stands utterly alone, friendless, moneyless, ill-clad, shirtless, and hungry can know what it is to be a real tramp. The experience was mine, through no fault of my own."¹⁸

Recognizing the need for working people to organize for protection of their rights, Powderly joined the Machinists’ and Blacksmiths’ Union, for which he served as an organizer for Western Pennsylvania. His initiation into the Knights of Labor occurred in Philadelphia on September 6, 1876. Rising rapidly within the order, he was elected Grand Master Workman in 1879 and maintained this office until 1893.¹⁹

The Knights of Labor experienced their greatest growth in membership and inclusiveness under Powderly’s leadership. During the 1886 General Assembly in Richmond, the Grand Master Workman was introduced by Frank Ferrell, a popular African–American Knight from Brooklyn, New York.²⁰ Powderly was also instrumental in persuading the Knights to admit women. Believing that skilled workers should assist in organizing the unskilled, he opposed the trade-union form of organization. He insisted that wage slavery was no less evil than chattel slavery.²¹

Powderly always took Catholic teachings quite seriously. He declared that labor unions would not have been necessary if Christian teachers had followed Jesus Christ in word and deed. Powderly spoke of Christ as "the world’s greatest, most sublime agitator."²² He had a good relationship with a number of Catholic leaders, including Baltimore’s James Cardinal Gibbons. However, he always made it clear that he did not take orders from Rome.²³

Following his resignation as Grand Master Workman, Powderly served as U. S. Commissioner General of Immigration and later held a number of positions in the U. S. Department of Labor.²⁴ In 1900, he was visited in his office in Washington, D.C., by a committee of three members of the Knights of Columbus (a Catholic fraternal order), who invited him to join. He was appalled by the church’s apparent double standard of allowing the Knights of Columbus to practice secret rites, while condemning such in the Knights of Labor. He never completed the application for Knights of Columbus membership.²⁵

Fraternalism, nevertheless, maintained its grip on Powderly. Recalling that, during his tenure as Grand Master Workman, never once was he misled or misinformed by a man who wore the Masonic emblem, he concluded that "that organization must be based on sound principles to attract such men to it."²⁶ Thus, he decided to become a Freemason and petitioned for membership in Osiris Lodge No. 26 (now Osiris–Pentalpha Lodge No. 23) in Washington, D.C. He was initiated as an Entered Apprentice on October 2, 1901; passed to the Degree of Fellowcraft on November 20, 1901; and raised to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason on December 18, 1901.²⁷ He continued his Masonic involvement in the Washington Scottish Rite Bodies, where he became a member of Mithras Lodge of Perfection, Evangelist Chapter of Rose Croix, Robert de Bruce Council of Kadosh, and Albert Pike Consistory. He received the 32nd Degree on March 30, 1907. He remained an active Mason until his death in Washington on June 24, 1924.²⁸

Throughout his career, Powderly was attacked from all sides—by trade-unionists, fellow Knights, employers, reformers, politicians, and clergymen. He held his ground despite all of these attacks and emerged as one of the most popular labor leaders of his day. There can be no doubt that the principles of Freemasonry, as he received them first in the Knights of Labor and later in the Masonic Lodge itself, helped him to endure. His contributions to both Masonry and organized labor were great indeed.

References

1Albert C. Stevens, Cyclopedia of Fraternities (N.Y.: E. B. Treat and Company, 1907), 388–89.

2Robert E. Weir, Beyond Labor’s Veil: The Culture of the Knights of Labor (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 61.

3Stevens, Cyclopedia of Fraternities, 394.

4Weir, Beyond Labor’s Veil, 46.

5Stevens, Cyclopedia of Fraternities, 394.

6Weir, Beyond Labor’s Veil, 101.

7Stevens, Cyclopedia of Fraternities, 392–93.

8Ibid., 390.

9Gary M. Fink, ed., Biographical Dictionary of American Labor Leaders (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1974), 337–38.

10Stevens, Cyclopedia of Fraternities, 389.

11"Obituary for Uriah S. Stephens," Philadelphia Public Ledger, February 15, 1882, pg. 1, and Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania membership records, Vol. 3–1, pg. 409; provided by Ill. Thomas W. Jackson, 33°, Grand Secretary, Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania.

12Stevens, Cyclopedia of Fraternities, 390.

13Weir, Beyond Labor’s Veil, 32–33.

14Stevens, Cyclopedia of Fraternities, 392.

15"Obituary for Uriah S. Stephens."

16Stevens, Cyclopedia of Fraternities, 392.

17Terence Vincent Powderly, The Path I Trod (New York: Columbia University Press, 1940), 371.

18Bruce Laurie, Artisans into Workers: Labor in Nineteenth-Century America (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 147–48.

19Fink, Biographical Dictionary of American Labor Leaders, 293.

20Weir, Beyond Labor’s Veil, 48.

21Terence Vincent Powderly, Thirty Years of Labor, 1859–1889 (Philadelphia, Pa., 1890), 281.

22Weir, Beyond Labor’s Veil, 74–75.

23Ibid., 94–96.

24Fink, Biographical Dictionary of American Labor Leaders, 293.

25Powderly, The Path I Trod, 370.

26Ibid., 371.

27Records of Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia, Free and Accepted Masons, Washington, D.C., provided by Bro. Stewart W. Miner, 32°, K.C.C.H., Grand Secretary.

28Records of the Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction, USA, Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Washington, D.C.

Robert L. Uzzel  is a member of the Scottish Rite Research Society and the Philalethes Society. He is a member of Goodwill Lodge No. 313, P.H.A., Ferris, Tex., and Dale Consistory No. 31, Dallas, Tex.; and Zakat Temple No. 164, Ancient Egyptian Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, Dallas, Tex. A Fellow and Director of Public Communication for the Phylaxis Society, he holds a Ph.D. (1995) from Baylor University in World Religions, is a Social Studies teacher at Lancaster, Tex., High School, serves as an Adjunct Instructor at Cedar Valley College, Lancaster, and pastors two African Methodist Episcopal Churches.