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Work Injuries and Adversary Processes in Two New England Textile Mills*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Carl Gersuny
Carl Gersuny
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Rhode Island
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Abstract

Whatever the shortcomings of “no-fault” employee compensation laws, such as the one passed in Massachusetts in 1911, Professor Gersuny shows that such laws were a great improvement over what had prevailed. Working with formerly confidential files, he shows that an “adversary relationship” had existed between the employer and his insurance company, on the one hand, and often pitifully maimed employees on the other. With few exceptions, all of the advantages were on the side of the employer, and the rights of employees to more than token compensation were routinely trampled upon.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1977 , pp. 326 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1977

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References

1 Lyman Mills papers. Baker Library, vol. LAC2.

2 Lyman Mills papers, vol. PH17.

3 Pollock, Frederick and Maitland, Frederick W., The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I, vol. 2, second ed. (Cambridge, U. K., 1898), 451Google Scholar.

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9 Dwight Manufacturing Company papers, Baker Library, Harvard University, Agent (plant manager) to Insurer vol. HL2, 3/17/02. Agent to Insurer letters are in volumes HL1 to HL4 and Insurer to Agent letters in ML30 to ML44. Correspondence is footnoted by volume and date.

10 Weinstein, James, The Corporate Ideal and the Liberal State (Boston, 1968)Google Scholar; Lubove, Roy, The Struggle for Social Security (Cambridge, Mass., 1968)Google Scholar; Somers, Herman M. and Somers, Anne R., Workmen's Compensation (New York, 1954)Google Scholar.

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12 Dwight HL1, 11/6/99.

13 Dwight HL1, 7/10/01.

14 Dwight HL2, 11/6/99.

15 Dwight HL2, 4/28/06.

16 Dwight HL2, 1/8/07.

17 Dwight HL3, 3/31/08, emphasis supplied.

18 Dwight HL3, 3/10/08.

19 Dwight ML37, 8/22/05.

20 Dwight ML36, 3/15/04.

21 Dwight HL4, 7/10/11.

22 Dwight HL1, 10/14/04.

23 Dwight HL2, 1/3/07, emphasis supplied.

24 Dwight HL2, 3/21/02.

25 Dwight HL3, 2/17/10.

26 Dwight HL3, 8/8/10.

27 Dwight HL3, 2/12/11.

28 Dwight HL4, 7/11/11.

29 Dwight HL2, 3/14/02.

30 Somers, Workmen's Compensation, 9.

31 Lubove, Struggle for Social Security, 55.

32 Asher, Robert, “Business and Workers’ Welfare in the Progressive Era: Workmen's Compensation Reform in Massachusetts, 1880-1911,” Business History Review, XLIII (Winter, 1969), 452–475CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Friedman, Lawrence M. and Ladinsky, Jack, “Social Change and the Law of Industrial Accidents,” Columbia Law Review, 67 (January, 1967), 50–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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35 Lyman Mills papers, volumes LAC1 to LAC13 (injury reports) and volumes PH17 to PH20 (correspondence) were the primary data source. Payrolls from 1895 to 1910 were sampled to calculate departmental sex ratios. Professor Robert G. Layer's work sheets on textile payrolls were also helpful.

36 Lyman Mills papers, vol. EDI; Dwight Manufacturing papers, vol. DN10.

37 Eastman, Work Accidents, 14.

38 The proportion unable to speak English in the Lyman work force as a whole is not known. Hence, the comparison between injured workers charged with contributory negligence and those not charged. Among injured workers not taxed with carelessness, 71 per cent spoke English, while among those defined as careless, 39 per cent spoke English. Among the injured group as a whole, 52 per cent were English speakers.