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Terence Vincent Powderly—An Appraisal
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2011
Extract
T. V. Powderly, Grand Master Workman of the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor from 1879 to 1893, has been portrayed in many different ways—as idealist, reformer, humanitarian, windbag, renegade, crook, imposter, agitator, introvert, self-seeker, charlatan, cheap politician, turncoat, rabble rouser, and drippy sentimentalist. Some claim that he was a great labor leader; others just as vigorously maintain that he was utterly lacking in the qualities of leadership—that he was, in reality, an insignificant nobody swept along by the changing currents of the American labor movement. It is not the purpose of this short article to paint a full-length portrait of Powderly but rather, on the basis of newly discovered data, to indicate briefly which, if any, of the above characterizations fit the man.
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- Copyright © The Economic History Association 1941
References
1 Powderly's letters to John W. Hayes are especially important. Hayes was one of Powderly's closest friends until 1893 when Hayes played a leading role in the coalition which forced Powderly out of the Knights of Labor. Hayes joined the Knights in 1874 and was probably connected with the Order as a prominent official longer than any other individual, serving on the Journal of the Knights of Labor, the General Executive Board, as Secretary-Treasurer, and, finally, as Grand Master Workman from 1902 until the central office of Knights was given up in 1916.
2 Of the several labor papers of the period, John Swinton's Paper, 1883–1887 (New York), ranks high for its impartialityGoogle Scholar.
3 Notably, Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4th annual Report; Kansas Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2d annual Report; Missouri Bureau of Labor Statistics, 8th annual Report; Ohio Bureau of Labor Statistics, 7th annual Report; Pennsylvania Bureau of Labor Statistics, 10th annual Report; and “Report of the House Select Committee on Labor Troubles in Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas and Texas,” House Doc., 49th Cong., 2d Sess., 1886–1887, No. 7174.
4 This autobiography was published in 1940 by Columbia University Press under the title Powderly himself had chosen for it: The Path I Trod. It was edited by Harry J. Carman, Henry David, and Paul N. Guthrie.
5 Between seventy-five and a hundred thousand Powderly letters were released to the editors of Powderly's autobiography for study and publication by his widow just before her death. In 1872 Powderly married Hannah Dever, who died in 1901. Eighteen years later he married Emma Fickenscher who had been his invaluable secretary when he was at the head of the Knights of Labor. Mrs. Powderly died February 24, 1940, at the age of eighty-four.
6 For the Commons point of view, see John R. Commons and associates, History of Labour in the United States, Vol. II, Part VI, especially Chapters VII-XII; Ware's interpretation is set forth in his article on “Trade Unions,” Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, XV, 40–45, and in his The Labor Movement in the United States 1860–1895 (New York, 1929)Google Scholar.
7 The prevailing notion that Powderly was of Irish extraction is not entirely true. On his paternal side he was descended from Huguenot stock. Hugo Poudrele, the first of his ancestors to land in Ireland, left France shortly after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. See T. V. Powderly, The Path I Trod, 5.
8 For brief sketches of Powderly's career, see Dictionary of American Biography, XV, 142–143; T. V. Powderly, The Path I Trod, editor's introduction; and Norman J. Ware, The Labor Movement in the United States, 1860–1895, 80–91. Ware's account stresses Powderly's connection with the Knights of Labor.
9 T. V. Powderly, The Path I Trod, 415–416.
10 Powderly's chapter entitled “Ecclesiastical Opposition” in The Path I Trod is one of the most illuminating in the book. Norman J. Ware who is a sharp critic of Powderly —too sharp in the light of the new material on Powderly—says that Powderly showed great dignity and ability in his handling of the problems of the Knights of Labor and the Catholic Church. See The Labor Movement in the United States, 1860–1895, 102.
11 Powderly to Joseph R. Buchanan, Powderly Mss.
12 Ware, op. cit., 90–91.
13 No one would employ him, however, on the ground that he would be a disturbing element. Everywhere he sought work he was advised to go into the saloon business. Instead he turned to law, the study of which he had begun just before being chosen Grand Master Workman. In 1894 he was admitted to the bar in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Seven years later he was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States. His experience as a lawyer convinced him that a multiplicity of technicalities, delays, and discriminations hampered the administration of justice. See Powderly, The Path I Trod, 286–294.
14 See article on “Knights of Labor,” Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, VIII, 581–584.