The coopers began to be menaced by machinery about the middle of the
sixties, and about the same time the machinists and blacksmiths, too,
saw their trade broken up by the introduction of the principle of
standardized parts and quantity production in the making of machinery.
From these trades came the national leaders of the Knights of Labor and
the strongest advocates of the new principle in labor organization and
of the interests of the unskilled workers in general. The conflict
between the trade unions and the Knights of Labor turned on the question
of the unskilled workers.
The conflict was held in abeyance during the early eighties. The trade
unions were by far the strongest organizations in the field and scented
no particular danger when here or there the Knights formed an assembly
either contiguous to the sphere of a trade union or even at times
encroaching upon it.
With the Great Upheaval, which began in 1884, and the inrushing of
hundreds of thousands of semi-skilled and unskilled workers into the
Order, a new situation was created. The leaders of the Knights realized
that mere numbers were not sufficient to defeat the employers and that
control over the skilled, and consequently the more strategic
occupations, was required before the unskilled and semi-skilled could
expect to march to victory.
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