Hayes, John William, 1854-1942

John Hayes was born in Philadelphia the day after Christmas, December 26, 1854. He lived with his Irish immigrant parents in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, until he moved to Illinois and worked briefly as a farm hand in 1871. Later that year he moved to Ohio and worked for a short period of time as a brakeman for the Dayton and Michigan Railroad. An unemployed Hayes moved back with his family who had resettled in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The following year (1872) Hayes obtained a position as a brakeman at the Pennsylvania Railroad in Trenton, New Jersey. In 1874 Hayes joined the Knights of Labor District Assembly #49 (New York City) and received an organizer's commission from the Knights of Labor Grand Master Workman, Uriah Stephens. Formed as a secret society with lengthy and obscure rituals, the Knights of Labor (originally the Holy Order of the Knights of Labor) grew slowly from its founding in 1869 until the early 1880s. The organization experienced a sudden and surprising growth in membership soon after eliminating its secret rituals in 1882. The growth was a response to the Order's new openness as well as a series of successful national railroad strikes in the mid 1880s. The membership of the Knights swelled from a mere 71,000 in 1884 to over 700,000 in 1886. In the midst of this phenomenal growth Hayes, who had grown close to Grand Master Workman Terrence V. Powderly after losing his arm, was elected to the General Executive Board (1884) and then Secretary (1886) of the Knights of Labor. Two years later, in 1888, Powderly merged the Secretary and Treasurer jobs creating a single more powerful General Secretary-Treasurer position. With Powderly's support, Hayes was elected to the new position. He conspired with New York socialists, led by Daniel DeLeon, and mid west farmers, led by Iowan James Sovereign, to depose Powderly as the Grand Master Workman. This anti-Powderly faction then placed Sovereign as Grand Master Workman in 1893. In 1895 DeLeon led the socialist and most of the urban elements out of the Knights. After DeLeon left, the Knights returned to the ritual secrecy practiced during its early years. As the Knights became increasingly rural and farmer oriented it also became heavily attached to the populist uprising during the last decade of the 19th century. In 1892 both Powderly and Hayes were delegates to the Populist Party Convention in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1897 Henry Hicks replaced Sovereign as the Grand Master Workman. Hayes continued as General Secretary-Treasurer under Grand Master Workman Sovereign (1893-1897) and Hicks (1897-1902) and was elected Grand Master Workman in 1902, a position he maintained until the Knights of Labor closed its central offices in 1916. In the 1870s he briefly owned a grocery store in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Hayes developed a process for manufacturing illuminating gas from soft coal (the Hayes Process) which was used by a number of cities in the late 1890s. His most successful business venture was a real estate development project, the North Chesapeake Beach Land and Improvement Company, that commenced in 1907 and was located in North Beach, Maryland. Hayes was president of the North Chesapeake Beach Land and Improvement Company when he died in North Beach in 1942 of cardiovascular disease. Hayes married Nellie Carlen in 1882.

John W. Hayes was born in Philadelphia, Penn. in 1854. He worked as a brakeman for various railroads in Ohio, New Jersey and Pennsylvania until an 1878 railroad accident severed his right arm. He then worked for the American Union Telegraph Company until 1883, when he was fired for union activity. Hayes first joined the Knights of Labor in 1874, soon becoming an organizer and being elected to successively higher posts in the organization, becoming a member of the General Executive Board in 1884, general secretary-treasurer of the Knights in 1888 and, in 1902, general master workman, the Order's highest office. While involved with the Knights, Hayes also managed the Atlantic Gas Construction Company in Philadelphia. He was president of the North Chesapeake Beach Land and Improvement Company until his death in 1942.

The Knights of Labor constituted the most powerful force in American labor in the nineteenth century. It was the first national labor organization to recruit extensively and as a matter of policy both women and blacks, to organize throughout the country, and to attempt to unify industrial and agrarian workers. Between 1869 and 1896 the Order spanned the United States with fifteen thousand Local Assemblies. By the time of Hayes' tenure as secretary-treasurer and general master workman, the Order was in decline.