The most numerous strikes were in the building trades, but there were severe struggles in many other industries.

There was, for example, an interruption of business on the New York elevated railway and on the street railways of New York, Brooklyn, and other cities.
But the greatest public anxiety was caused by the behavior of the Knights of Labor, an organization then growing so rapidly that it gave promise of uniting under one control the active and energetic elements of the working classes of the country.

It started in a humble way, in December, 1869, among certain garment cutters in Philadelphia, and for some years spread slowly from that center.

The organization remained strictly secret until 1878, in which year it held a national convention of its fifteen district assemblies at Reading, Pennsylvania.

The object and principles of the order were now made public and, thereafter, it spread with startling rapidity, so that in 1886 it pitted its strength against public authority with a membership estimated at from, 500,000 to 800,000.