The falling off of
the largest district assemblies in 10 large cities practically equalled
the total loss of the Order, which amounted approximately to 191,000. At
the same time the membership of the smallest district assemblies, which
were for the most part located in small cities, remained stationary and,
outside of the national and district trade assemblies which were formed
by separation from mixed district assemblies, thirty-seven new district
assemblies were formed, also mostly in rural localities. In addition,
state assemblies were added in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana,
Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia, and
Wisconsin, with an average membership of about 2000 each.
It thus becomes clear that by the middle of 1887, the Great Upheaval of
the unskilled and semi-skilled portions of the working class had already
subsided beneath the strength of the combined employers and the
unwieldiness of their own organization. After 1887 the Knights of Labor
lost its hold upon the large cities with their wage-conscious and
largely foreign population, and became an organization predominantly of
country people, of mechanics, small merchants, and farmers,--a class of
people which was more or less purely American and decidedly middle class
in its philosophy.
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