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Knights Of The Labor Movement In The 1870s And 1880s

899 Words4 Pages

How would you like to work for little to no pay and over 60 hours a week? In today's day in time some people would call that abuse or over work, but that’s exactly what was going on in the 1870s and 1880s. This is where the labor movement started, with people being over worked and little to no pay. As you can imagine people started to get upset with how things were going so that started violent outbreaks along with strikes all across the United States. In the 1880s, a group was formed to help the working man, this group was called the Knights of Labor. By 1886 the Knights of Labor had over 700,000 members (United States History 3). Unlike any other labor union, the Knights of Labor encouraged blacks to join. So, by 1886 over 60,000 blacks had joined. The Knights of Labor participated in many famous riots to get what they wanted from the labor laws, which was reasonable hours and safer working conditions. The nights also carried out their own strikes and as time went on they ended up joining to form the American Federation of Labor. Samuel Gompers was elected president of this group, and was reelected every year but one until his death in 1924. He was a part of the Cigar Makers' …show more content…

The transforming economy changed the visions of the Labor Unions. The result, early labor leaders chose to make two distinct classes, the rich and the poor. With goals of reaching every person they could do join the unions. Some of the goals the unions had was to increases income, this helps to insure a fair pay for the work they do, while also staying with the rising cost of living (Davoren 1). While increasing income the union tries to strive to improve working conditions, they demand shorter working or work weeks along with secure working environments, such as safety. These few things would help any person living in any day in

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