Dreaming of What Might Be: The Knights of Labor in Ontario, 1880-1900

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, 1982 - Business & Economics - 487 pages
As Canada's most industrialised province, Ontario served as the regional centre of the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, an organisation which embodied a late nineteenth-century working-class vision of an alternative to the developing industrial-capitalist society. The Order opposed the exploitation of labor, and cultivated working-class unity by providing an institutional and cultural rallying point for North American workers. By 1886 thousands of industrial workers had enrolled within the ranks of Ontario's local and district assemblies. This book examines the rise and fall of the Order, providing case studies of its experience in Toronto and Hamilton and chronicling its impact across the province.
 

Contents

Introduction
1
Overview
25
5
30
The structure of the Knights
57
4
65
8
71
12
80
1
86
The struggle against monopoly
116
Factionalism and failure
127
4
135
Taking the bad with the good
171
The challenge of 18831887
204
The conflicts of decline
248
Forging a culture
277
Class conflict and the Knights of Labor
330

The local setting
93
A great awakening
99
Ritual and education
107
Conclusion
377
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