« Un chaînon incontournable au Québec »: les Chevaliers du travail, 1882–1902

Abstract

Because it has been generally studied superficially or examined using a fairly small number of documents, the Order of the Knights of Labor in Quebec again and again escapes the understanding of experts. The picture historians, sociologists and industrial relations experts were able to deliver resulted in very negative assessments: the Quebec wing of the American trade union center is viewed as an utopian movement, too far from the immediate needs of workers and the reality of the industrial world. Using a wide variety of new sources, we present an entirely new portrait of its organizational structure and course. Not only is the Quebec Knights’ experience remarkable, but it also shaped a generation of workers and probably more. In the most laborious and capricious Canadian landscape, Montreal, they began an intense collaboration between Francophones and Anglophones. Seeking to strengthen labor’s power, they focused on craft unionism, while experimenting with industrial unionism on a scale unimagined by historiography. Also open to immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, as well as to women, the Knights thus challenged the existing order. That is why, more than any other Quebec labor movement that preceded it, the Order faced the Catholic clergy’s hostility. However, Catholicism also played in the opposite direction when, following the release of Rerum Novarum, workers were inspired by the legitimacy given to labour organization and revived the movement in the 1890s.

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