Sovereigns of Industry

Sovereigns of Industry was a cooperative movement active in the 1870s that concerned itself with the distribution of the necessities of life. It grew out of the Patrons of Husbandry and at one time numbered forty thousand members. It maintained a number of cooperative stores, some of which followed the principles established by the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers in England. The ultimate goal of the Sovereigns of Industry, however, was to create producer cooperatives, a plan that some critics identified as communist. Though it absorbed some trade unions, the organization began to decline around 1875 and had disappeared before 1880.


Initiation Ritual