Knights Unhorsed examines the internal conflict and external pressures that drove one of America's most promising labor organizations into obscurity less than a half a century later." "This book will interest scholars and students of labor history, nineteenth century studies and American studies."--BOOK JACKET.

In the late nineteenth century, most jobs were strictly segregated by sex. And yet, despite their separation at work, male and female employees regularly banded together when they or their unions considered striking. In her groundbreaking book, Ileen A. DeVault explores how gender helped to shape the outcome of job actions—and how gender bias became central to unionism in America. Covering the period from the formation of the American Federation of Labor in 1886 to the establishment of the Women's Trade Union League in 1903, DeVault analyzes forty strikes from across the nation in the tobacco, textile, clothing, and boot and shoe industries. She draws extensively on her research in local newspapers as she traces the daily encounters among male and female coworkers in workplaces, homes, and union halls. Jobs considered appropriate for men and those for women were, she finds, sufficiently interdependent that the success of the action depended on both sexes cooperating. At the same time, with their livelihoods at stake, tensions between women and men often appeared. The AFL entered the twentieth century as the country's primary vehicle for unionized workers, and its attitude toward women formed the basis for virtually all later attempts at their organization. United Apart transforms conventional wisdom on the rise of the AFL by showing how its member unions developed their central beliefs about female workers and how those beliefs affected male workers as well.

Knights Across the Atlantic tells the story of the Knights of Labor, one of the great social movements of American history, in Britain and Ireland.

In the United States, the Knights of Labour (KOL) is part of the wreckage of labor history, a nineteenth-century organization of great promise that flamed out quickly and completely. Many scholars (wrongly) see it as little more than a failed experiment that stumbled due to misplaced idealism and antiquated notions of fraternalism. In New Zealand, the KOL’s story was strikingly different, achieving tremendous success in a remarkably short time. Knights Down Under takes an in-depth look at the organization in New Zealand, and is the first thorough comparative study of the KOL in global context. It calls into question assumptions about the newness of globalism, national exceptionalism, the uniqueness of socialist movements, how social movements develop, the nature of leadership, and the possibilities and challenges of transnational organizing. The KOL was the first labour federation to envision itself as an international body that could and should expand beyond its North American birthplace. Knights Down Under sheds light on how the KOL evolved from the remnant of a failed Philadelphia tailors’ union to an international force that helped rewrite the social agenda in far-off New Zealand. Knights immersed themselves in workplace issues, but also delved into politics, got elected to Parliament, and promoted a comprehensive program of social and labour reform. They were the envy of workers in Western industrial societies, most of which would not enact similarly sweeping changes for another four decades. Among the reforms the KOL helped enact were women’s suffrage, mandatory arbitration of labour disputes, old-age pensions, early-closing hours for retail shops, land redistribution, an equitable tax code, and the creation of a department of labour. By aiding in the development of New Zealand’s first political system, the KOL also laid the groundwork for the future birth of an independent labour party.

Focusing on the political culture forged by Rocky Mountain workers from the 1870s through the 1920s, this book shows how the unique working-class politics of the region led to remarkable successes in securing progressive labor legislation. These successes--especially in improving workers' hours, wages, and safety--in turn played a central role in transforming the nation's attitudes toward workers' rights. Examining political culture in the everyday lives of workers (from shop floors to union halls to recreation), the author uncovers a labor movement based as much on pragmatism as on ideology, and he traces how its members productively focused their efforts on political action at the local and state levels. In the process, they developed a genuinely social-democratic political culture.

Traces the history of knights from the early middle ages through the end of the fifteenth century, with information on their training, duties, the castles they lived in, and their role in medieval society.