Career
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 He ran for the United States Congress in 1878 on the Greenback–Labor ticket, but lost.
Stephens was initiated an Entered Apprentice Mason in Kensington Lodge Number.
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. 2, Knights of Pythias, and Fidelity Lodge Number.
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 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 (Secret Brotherhood), 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.
The Knights of Labor elected Stephens as the first local Master Workman, the first District Master Workman, and the first Grand Master Workman. By 1879, there were 23 district assemblies and 1,300 local assemblies.
At that time, Stephens resigned the highest office in the order and was replaced by Terence V. Powderly.
On January 1, 1882, after five years of debate regarding the wisdom of secrecy, the Knights of Labor became a public organization. Stephens died on February 13, 1882. He was buried in the Odd Fellows Cemetery in Philadelphia.
At the time of his death, he was estranged from the order he had founded and guided for nearly a decade.
Nevertheless, he was still revered by many Knights.
