BIBLIOGRAPHY.—FOr the history, organisation and theories of Trade Unionism, the chief works are:—Sidney and Beatrice Webb, The History of Trade Unionism (new ed. 2920), and Industrial Democracy (New Edition, 1920) ; C. M. Lloyd, Trade Unionism (new edition, 1921). (These works contain bibliographies) ; G. D. H. Cole, Organised Labour; an Introduction to Trade Unionism (1924). The general setting of Trade Unionism in British History is to be found in G. D. H. Cole's A Short History of the British Working Movement, 1789-1927 (3 vols. 1927) .
Special Studies. There are some special studies in Trade Unionism. See G. D. H. Cole and R. Page Arnot, Trade Unionism on the Railways (1927) ; E. Selley, Village Trade Unions in Two Centuries (1920) ; Mrs. Barbara Drake, Women in Trade Unions (1920) ; R. W. Postgate, The Builders' History (1923) ; Sidney Webb, The Story of the Durham Miners; Industrial Negotiations and Agreements (Joint Labour Publications Dept.) ; and G. D. H. Cole, Labour in the Coal Mining Industry, 1914-1921.
Probably as many as 6,000,000 American employees were in 1939 members of labour organizations. This is the largest mem bership ever claimed by American unions and exceeds the previ ous peak, reached in 192o, by some i,000,000 members. There are three groups of unions to which these organized employees belong —those affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (C.I.O.), and the unaffiliated unions, predominantly composed of railroad employees. Many of the largest unions have come into existence since 1935, the date of the organization of the C.I.O., when extensive organizing cam paigns resulted in the establishment of strong unions particularly in the steel, automobile, and textile industries. In addition to the powerful organizations that already existed in the building, coal-mining, and railroad industries, the advent of the C.I.O. was followed by the unionization of hitherto unorganized indus tries. By 1939 unions with considerable membership were to be
found in the metal industries, as well as among farm labourers, clerical workers, the employees of retail stores and public utilities, and numerous professional and service groups.
Knights of Labor.—As a continuous, more or less unified movement, with its peculiar philosophy and strategy, trade union ism in the United States cannot be said to have become estab lished before 1880. In the preceding decades several of the large national unions had been organized and occasionally more gen eral uprisings had taken place only to die out after a few years, usually in the wake of business depression. By 188o, the Knights of Labor, organized in 1869 and pursuing since then a secret existence, had appeared in the open as a union of all workers, skilled and unskilled, manual, clerical and professional, and even of the small business man. During the next ten years there was unfolded one of the most dramatic and significant episodes in the history of American labour. Hardly known at the beginning of the period the Knights achieved by 1886 a membership of close to I,000,000 and an influence far transcending its size.
The Knights had set out first to organize all workers. For this slow and gigantic task, the organization had neither the financial resources nor an adequate staff of organizers. It depended on the spontaneous uprisings of men and women. Such uprisings occurred often in the few years from 188o to 1886. But when strikes ended in failure and strikers lost their jobs and when there was no place to turn for the sinews of war, it became more diffi cult to arouse enthusiasm and action. At the same time much of the attention and energy of the officers of the organization was dissipated in carrying out the ambitious economic program of the Knights, which ran from simple trade union action over wages to vast co-operative schemes or plans for the reorganization of the currency and banking system of the country. To these sources of weakness, was added the inevitable conflict for jurisdiction between the Knights and the established craft unions. The episode of the Haymarket bomb in 1886 brought the Knights of Labor into disrepute but only hastened the end.