Terence Vincent Powderly

Photo courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Terence Vincent Powderly is remembered best for leading the Knights of Labor, a nationwide labor union that had approximately 10,000 members when he served as Grand Master Workman (1879–1893). He is the author of Thirty Years of Labor, 1859–1889 (1890). His second memoir was published posthumously as The Path I Trod: The Autobiography of Terence V. Powderly (1940).

Powderly’s legacy is decidedly mixed. He proved a poor administrator for the Knights of Labor, and was blamed for the violence of the Haymarket Riot in Chicago in 1886. He campaigned for the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Alien Contract Labor Law of 1885, fearing that immigrants would take jobs away from American citizens and drive down wages. He was ambivalent about the use of strikes as a tool of labor action, and intervened to end strikes against the railroads and meatpacking industries that historians believe labor could have won. In the wake of these actions, the Knights were increasingly upstaged by the American Federation of Labor, under the leadership of Samuel Gompers.

Powderly served two terms as mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and was appointed by President William McKinley to U.S. Commissioner General of Immigration (1897–1902) and Chief Information Officer of the U.S. Bureau of Immigration (1907–1921). He was inducted in the U.S. Department of Labor Hall of Fame in 2000.

Powderly’s home in Scranton, Pennsylvania is a National Historic Landmark. This address was where he lived at the end of his life. An avid amateur photographer, his collection of photographs is held in the archives at The Catholic University of America. Powderly is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery.