POWDERLY, TERENCE V.

born Jan. 22, 1849, Carbondale, Pa., U.S. died June 24, 1924, Washington, D.C. in full Terence Vincent Powderly American labour leader who led the Knights of Labor from 1879 to 1893. The son of Irish immigrants to the United States, Powderly went to work at the age of 13 for the railroad in Carbondale, Pa. At 17 he became a machinist's apprentice and then worked at that trade until age 28. He meanwhile had joined the Machinists' and Blacksmiths' Union in 1871 and steadily rose in the organization. In 1874 he joined the secret order of the Knights of Labor, in which he advanced rapidly. In 1879 he was chosen grand master workman (after 1883, general master workman), the union's highest post. In addition to his union activities, Powderly was elected mayor of Scranton, Pa., three times as a Greenback-Labor candidate, serving from 1878 to 1884. Like his predecessor, Uriah Stephens, Powderly saw the Knights as a vehicle to lead the workers of America out of the bondage of wage labour. He presided over the Knights in the period of their greatest numerical strength-the mid-1880s-but never understood that much of the Knights' appeal derived as much from the weakness of traditional trade unions as from the distinctiveness of the Knights' approach, which emphasized secrecy and the disavowal of strikes. In the spring of 1886, the Knights claimed a membership of 700,000; but, within a year, counterattacks led by men such as financier Jay Gould began to dissipate the organization's tenuous strength, and membership began a decline that was never arrested. Powderly became absorbed in internal disputes and finally resigned in 1893. In the remaining years of his career, he practiced law, tried his hand at business, and served in several government posts. His first book, Thirty Years of Labor, was published in 1889; his autobiography, The Path I Trod, was published posthumously in 1940.