Uriah Smith Stephens

Who was Uriah Smith Stephens?

Uriah Smith Stephens was a U.S. labor leader. He led nine Philadelphia garment workers to found the Knights of Labor in 1869, a more successful early national union.

Stephens longed to be a Baptist minister but never entered the field. In 1846, he moved to Philadelphia, where he worked as a tailor and became very active in politics. He ran for the United States Congress in 1878 on the Greenback–Labor ticket, but lost. He was responsible for the incorporation of the word "labor" in this party’s name.

Stephens was initiated an Entered Apprentice Mason in Kensington Lodge No. 211 in Philadelphia on December 9, 1864; passed to the Degree of Fellowcraft on February 25, 1865; and raised to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason on March 24, 1865. He was also a member of Keystone Lodge No. 2, Knights of Pythias, and Fidelity Lodge No. 138, Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

Stephens’ involvement with Masonry began during the same period of his initial involvement with organized labor. In 1862, he helped to organize the Garment Cutters’ Union, which survived for only seven years. At his invitation, a few members of the recently demised union met at his home on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1869. At this meeting, he unfolded his plan for the "Noble and Holy Order of Knights of Labor" as a "brotherhood of toil" open to every laborer, mechanic, and artisan who wanted to improve his mind and condition, regardless of country, creed, or color. At the new order’s second meeting on December 28, 1869, Stephens’ ritual, Adelphon Kruptos, was officially adopted. In this opus, Stephens expressed his conviction that the "Everlasting Truth sealed by the Grand Architect of the Universe" is that "everything of value, or merit, is the result of creative Industry." Ritualistic work included lectures on the nobility of labor and the evils of wage slavery, monopoly, and accumulation. Stephens selected an equilateral triangle within a circle as the new order’s emblem, embellishing it with symbolism from the various lodges to which he belonged.