tes, who succeeded in having Mrs. Barry appointed general
investigator.

One of the most active and devoted women in the Knights of Labor was
Mrs. George Rodgers, then and still of Chicago. For a good many years
she had been in a quiet way educating and organizing among the girls
in her own neighborhood, and had organized a working-women's union
there. For seven years she attended the state assembly of the Knights
of Labor, and was judge of the district court of the organization.
But it is by her attendance as one of the sixteen women at the 1886
National Convention, which was held in Richmond, Virginia, that she is
best remembered. She registered as "housekeeper" and a housekeeper
she must indeed have been, with all her outside interests a busy
housemother. There accompanied her to the gathering her baby of two
weeks old, the youngest of her twelve children. To this youthful trade
unionist, a little girl, the convention voted the highest numbered
badge (800), and also presented her with a valuable watch and chain,
for use in future years.

One cannot help suspecting that such an unusual representation of
women must have been the reward of some special effort, for it was
never repeated. Subsequent conventions saw but two or three seated to
plead women's cause. At the 1890 convention, the occasion on which
Mrs. Barry sent in her letter of resignation, there was but one woman
delegate. She was the remarkable Alzina P. Stevens, originally a mill
hand, but at this time a journalist of Toledo, Ohio. The men offered
the now vacant post of general investigator to her, but she declined.
However, between this period and her too early death, Mrs. Stevens was
yet to do notable work for the labor movement.

During the years that the Knights of Labor were active, the women
members were not only to be found in the mixed assemblies, but between
1881 and 1886 there are recorded the chartering of no fewer than one
hundred and ninety local assemblies composed entirely of women. Even
distant centers like Memphis, Little Rock and San Francisco were drawn
upon, as well as the manufacturing towns in Ontario, Canada. Besides
those formed of workers in separate trades, such as shoe-workers, mill
operatives, and garment-workers, there were locals, like the federal
labor unions of today, in which those engaged in various occupations
would unite together. Some of the women's locals existed for a good
many years, but a large proportion are reco