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Gender Research as Labor Activism: The Women's Bureau in the New Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

Mark Hendrickson
Mark Hendrickson
Affiliation:
Colorado State University
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Extract

On June 5, 1920, Congress established the Women's Bureau, charging it to “formulate standards and policies which shall promote the welfare of wage-earning women, improve their working conditions, increase their efficiency, and advance their opportunities for profitable employment.” Support for the bureau was such that the House passed the bill by a vote of 255 to 10, and the Senate passed it without a recorded vote, though the Monthly Labor Review noted that “there was some opposition.” During a decade when policymakers celebrated the fruits of economic abundance garnered with only the lightest touch from the state, bureau leaders and investigators saw gender research as a form of labor activism that would advance the cause of all workers. The bureau provided a unique site for discourse and deliberation concerning labor standards that did not exist in any other branch of the federal government. No other organization in the federal government thought harder about how policies could be constructed to protect workers, irrespective of gender, from the continued harsh reality of employment in American industry. Along the way, advocates of protective legislation for women sought not only to protect the particular interests of women workers, but also to drive a wedge through a post-Adkins understanding of the “right to contract” and to expand the number of issues that should be seen as affected with a public interest.

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Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , October 2008 , pp. 482 - 515
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Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 2008

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References

Notes

1. 66th Cong., H.R. 13229, “An Act to Establish in the Department of Labor a Bureau to be Known as the Women's Bureau,” republished in all Women's Bureau bulletins during the 1920s.

2. Monthly Labor Review, “Women's Bureau in the United States Department of Labor,” Monthly Labor Review 11 (07 1920): 174–175Google Scholar. Congress, House, Committee on Appropriation, Sundry Civil Bill, 1920, Part 2, 65th Cong., 3d sess., 10 February 1919, 1556–71. “Woman Now Directs Nation's Women Workers,” New York Times, 3 February 1918, 56. Originally named the Woman in Industry Service (wis) and designed as a war emergency program that would develop public policies concerning women and connect women workers with wartime employment, wis supporters advocated that the service be transformed into a permanent bureau within the Department of Labor (dol). In hearings and the press, the wis was referred to as the wis, the Women's Bureau, and the women's committee. I refer to the organization before it achieved formal bureau status in 1920 as the wis. After 1920 I refer to it as the Women's Bureau. For a more complete summary of these hearings, see Kessler-Harris, Alice, In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America (New York, 2001), 35–42.Google Scholar

3. For an analysis of the National Consumer League's efforts to use female protective legislation as an opening wedge, see Sklar, Kathryn Kish, “Two Political Cultures in the Progressive Era: The National Consumers' League and the American Association for Labor Legislation,” in U.S. History as Women's History: New Feminist Essays, ed. Kerber, Linda K., Kessler-Harris, Alice, and Sklar, Kathryn Kish (Chapel Hill, 1995), 51.Google Scholar

4. Van Kleeck, Mary, “Women's Invasion of Industry and Change in Protective Standard,” Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in City of New York 8 (02 1919): 11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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6. In addition to the Women's Bureau, some of the many groups that contributed to this rethinking of the economic relations included the well-publicized efforts of engineers in the Federation of American Engineering Societies and experts in the U.S. Public Health Service to frame the inefficiencies in the twelve-hour day as an aspect of harmful economic waste, and the work by the National Bureau of Economic Research and the American Federation of Labor Research Bureau to place workers' wages and consumption at the center of efforts to smooth the business cycle. For a sample of the voluminous literature generated by labor and economic research organizations in government and the nonprofit sector concerning waste and the twelve-hour day, see Federated American Engineering Societies, The Twelve Hour Shift in Industry (New York, 1922), 224–227Google Scholar; Annual Report of the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1919), 41–43Google ScholarPubMed; U.S. Public Health Service, “Comparison of an 8-hour plant and a 10-hour plant,” Public Health Bulletin 106 (Washington, D.C.: 1920)Google Scholar. The Public Health Service conducted other studies that focused more specifically on the chemical effects of industrial fatigue on workers. See “The Physiology of Fatigue,” Public Health Bulletin 117 (Washington, D.C., 1921)Google Scholar; Annual Report of the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1920), 37–38Google ScholarPubMed; Annual Report of the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1921), 32Google ScholarPubMed; Annual Report of the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1924), 26Google ScholarPubMed. For evidence of the impact of this research on the public's understanding of hours issues, see “Twelve Hour Steel Day Must Go,” New York Times, 4 December 1920, 17; “Billions Lost to Waste,” New York Times, 23 November 1922, 6; “Engineers Oppose Twelve-Hour Day,” New York Times, 19 November 1922, 44; “Finds Eight-Hour Day Aids Steel Mills,” New York Times, 7 June 1923, 10; “The Twelve Hour Day,” New York Times, 20 September 1922, 16; and “The Eight-Hour Shift in Continuous Industries,” New York Times, 18 June 1923, 12.

7. Sealander, Judith, As Minority Becomes Majority: Federal Reaction to the Phenomenon of Women in the Work Force, 1920–1963 (Westport, Conn., 1983), 9Google Scholar. For an analysis of the post–World War II Women's Bureau, see Laughlin, Kathleen A, Women's Work and Public Policy: A History of the Women's Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor, 1945–1970 (Boston, 2000).Google Scholar

8. Michel, Sonya, Children's Interests/Mothers' Rights: The Shaping of America's Child Care Policy (New Haven, 1999), 93.Google Scholar

9. Kessler-Harris, In Pursuit of Equity, 35.

10. Ibid., 42.

11. “Finds Women's Pay Far Less Than Men's,” New York Times, 2 October 1927, W21. Publications that specifically cited Women's Bureau reports frequently drew attention to the bureau's conclusion that women workers come to the workforce out of necessity; for example, see Pruette, Lorine, “Women in American Industry Reach 8,500,000,” New York Times, 6 11 1927, XX4Google Scholar; “Married Women Workers Doubled in 30-Year Period,” New York Times, 14 December 1928, 46; “The Ratio of Married Women in Industry Is Increasing,” New York Times, 26 February 1928, 129; “Finds Woman's Lot Is Growing Harder,” New York Times, 6 January 1929, 29; Cook, Cara, “Women Workers,” American Federationist 33 (04 1926): 454Google Scholar; Anderson, Mary, “Mary Anderson on Women's Work,” American Federationist 33 (Mary 1925): 333Google Scholar; Anderson, , “The Women Workers,” American Federationist 32 (11 1925): 1073Google Scholar; Breckinridge, S. P., “The Home Responsibility of Women Workers and the Equal Wage,” Journal of Political Economy 31 (08 1923): 536CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anderson, Mary, “Importance of Women in Industry,” The Personnel Journal 6 (02 1928): 329–330Google Scholar; Anderson, , “Recent Investigations by Government Bureaus,” Proceedings of the National Conference on Social Work(April 1920): 140–142Google Scholar. When federal government census directors harkened back to the “pin money theory” and suggested that married, working women be excluded from the unemployment census in July 1929, they met with a swift and harsh rebuke from Director Anderson; see “Demands Working Housewives be Included in Coming Federal Census on Employment,” New York Times, 18 July 1929, 3; “The Two-Job Woman,” New York Times, 19 July 1929, 13.

12. For a similar assessment of the struggle for protective legislation, but with a focus on the National Consumer's League, see Sklar, Kathryn Kish, “Two Political Cultures in the Progressive Era: The National Consumers' League and the American Association for Labor Legislation,” in U.S. History as Women's History: New Feminist Essays, ed. Kerber, , Kessler-Harris, , and Sklar, , 51.Google Scholar

13. Boris, Eileen and Kleinberg, S. J., “Mothers and Other Workers: (Re)Conceiving Labor, Maternalism, and the State,” Journal of Women's History 15 (Autumn 2003): 91CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The earlier conception of protective legislation viewed labor standards for women as the product of a long-standing separate spheres discourse—a “domestication” of a sphere of policymaking, to use Paula Baker's terminology. See Baker, Paula, “The Domestication of Politics: Women and American Political Society, 1780–1920,” American Historical Review 89 (06 1984): 620–647CrossRefGoogle Scholar. During the 1990s a number of historians and political scientists explored policymaking through the lens of separate spheres and maternalism. See Skocpol, Theda, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cambridge, 1992)Google Scholar; Koven, Seth and Michel, Sonya, “Womanly Duties: Maternalist Politics and the Origins of Welfare States in France, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States, 1880–1920,” American Historical Review 95 (10 1990): 1067–1108CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gordon, Linda, Pitied But Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare (Cambridge, Mass., 1995; reprint New York, 1994)Google Scholar; Muncy, Robyn, Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890–1935 (New York, 1991).Google Scholar

14. For a review of the move from maternalism to citizenship in work on gender, race, and public policy, see Boris, Eileen, “On the Importance of Naming: Gender, Race, and the Writing of Policy History,” Journal of Policy History 17 (2005): 75–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; See also Boris and Kleinberg, “Mothers and Other Workers”; Sklar, Schüler, and Strasser, Social Justice Feminists in the United States and Germany; Kessler-Harris, In Pursuit of Equity; and Goodwin, Joanne L., Gender and the Politics of Welfare Reform: Mothers' Pensions in Chicago, 1911–1929 (Chicago, 1997), 8–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Many of these works draw explicitly on T. H. Marshall's analysis of ideas of citizenship from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Marshall, T. H., Class, Citizenship, and Social Development, with an introduction by Seymour Martin Lipset (New York, 1964), 65–122Google Scholar. For an analysis that takes into account the influence of race, class, gender, and nation of origin on the changing nature of “a braided citizenship” in the United States, see Kerber, Linda, “The Meaning of Citizenship,” Journal of American History 84 (12 1997): 833–854.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15. Michel, Sonya, Children's Interests/Mother's Rights: The Shaping of America's Child Care Policy (New Haven, 1999), 91.Google Scholar

16. “Conference of Trade-Union Women Under Auspices of U.S. Department of Labor,” Monthly Labor Review 8 (11 1918): 190–191Google Scholar. See also Anderson, Mary, “Will Women Retire from Industry with Return of Peace?” Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York 8 (02 1919): 13–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anderson, , “Wages for Women Workers,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 81 (01 1919): 123–129CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Van Kleeck, Mary, “Federal Policies for Women in Industry,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 81 (01 1919): 87–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The wtul, which maintained a close connection to the bureau through Anderson, echoed these demands in its publications and annual meetings. “Seventh Biennial Convention of the National Women's Trade Union League,” Modern Labor Review 9 (07 1919): 267–272Google Scholar. For a similar assessment of the bureau's advocacy of women's workplace rights, not only in the 1920s but also after World War II, see Blackwater, Julia, Now Hiring: The Feminization of Work in the United States, 1900–1995 (College Station, Tex., 1997), 78–79, 135–37.Google Scholar

17. Silverberg, Helen, “Introduction: Toward a Gendered Social Science,” Gender and American Social Sciences: The Formative Years (Princeton, 1998), 3.Google Scholar

18. Sealander, As Minority Becomes Majority, 28.

19. For an analysis of similar staffing patters in the Bureau of Labor Statistics and its predecessors in the federal government, see Keyssar, Alexander, Out of Work: The First Century of Unemployment in Massachusetts (Cambridge, 1986)Google Scholar; Furner, Mary, “Knowing Capitalism: Public Investigation and the Labor Question in the Long Progressive Era,” in The State and Economic Knowledge: The American and British Experiences, ed. Furner, Mary O. and Supple, Barry (Cambridge, 1991), 246–268Google Scholar; and Leiby, James, Carroll Wright and Labor Reform: The Origin of Labor Statistics (Cambridge, Mass., 1960).Google Scholar

20. According to the bureau, “The function of the Minnesota Bureau of Women and Children … included the inspection of work places, the preparation of reports on conditions of employment of women and children, the enforcement of labor laws, and the inauguration and development of legislative programs for the protection of employed women and children, and the investigation of truancy and deforcement [sic] of the compulsory education law and other laws for the protection of children including investigation and the filing of petitions in Juvenile Court in connection with delinquency and cases involving dependency of children.” Eleanor Nelson, comp., Public Information Division Articles 1918–1955, Women's Bureau, RG 86, Box 11, File 331, National Archives (hereafter cited as na).

21. According to bureau biographical information, “To them are delegated such important tasks as the selection of the most significant problems confronting women workers, the choice of the industries or localities to be studied, the routing of the work, the selection of the firms to be investigated, the making of contacts, cooperation with the interested State agencies and organizations, and at times the actual writing of the reports.” Ibid.

22. M. Carey Thomas (president of Bryn Mawr College) to President Wilson, 28 March 1921; Margaret Drier Robins (former president of wtul) to Secretary James J. Davis, 21 March 1921; Secretary Wilson sent a number of responses to organizations and individuals who endorsed Anderson, but whose original letters were not preserved. Secretary of Labor to Harriet Taylor Upton (vice chairman, National Republican Committee), 25 March 1921; Secretary of Labor to Mary W. Dewson (National Consumers' League), 23 March 1921. All letters RG 174, General Records of the Department Labor, General Records, 1907–42 (chief clerk's office), file 156/6 Mary Anderson, 1918–23, na.

23. “Mary Anderson,” in Fink, Gary M., ed., Biographical Dictionary of American Labor (Westport, Conn., 1974), 88–89Google Scholar; Anderson, Mary as told to Winslow, Mary, Woman at Work (Minneapolis, 1951; reprint Westport, Conn., 1973)Google Scholar. The voluminous correspondence between Van Kleeck and Anderson and other bureau leaders provides evidence of Van Kleeck's continued influence on the bureau well beyond the end of her tenure as director in 1920. Officially, Van Kleeck served as chairman of the Women's Bureau Technical Committee, along with Mrs. Frank B. Gilbrath and Charles P. Neill (former Bureau of Labor Standards commissioner). On the committee, see letter to Anderson from Technical Committee and signed by Van Kleeck, 2 April 1926, Sophia Smith Collection, mvk Papers (hereafter cited as mvk Papers), Smith College, Box 71, Folder Women's Bureau Correspondence. Letters between Van Kleeck and Anderson convey a warm friendship and wide agreement on labor issues. The tone of the letters suggests that Van Kleeck continued to play a mentoring role to Anderson, who frequently sought out Van Kleeck's advice and approval. It is worth repeating in this context that Van Kleeck, prior to being called into the service of the state during the war, had transformed the Russell Sage Foundation's Department of Industrial Studies from an investigatory body focused exclusively on women to one that examined all workers. For correspondence between Anderson and Van Kleeck, see Boxes 64 and 71, mvk Papers, which contain the majority of their correspondence.

24. The report listed one male employee in the bureau. His salary was less than $1,860 per year. Women's Bureau, “The Status of Women in the Government Service,” Bulletin 53 (1926), 5–6, 45.Google Scholar

25. Women's Bureau, Fifth Annual Report of the Director of the Women's Bureau (Washington, D.C., 1923), 20Google Scholar. The salary problem was one that Anderson discussed frequently in the annual reports. In the 1921 Annual Report, Anderson authored a section entitled “Bureau Crippled by Legislative Restriction,” which described the $1,800 salary cap as a mechanism that caused “discrimination against a few highly trained people who are doing most valuable work at a rate of pay considerably less than that paid for similar work in other departments and in other sections of the Department of Labor itself.” Anderson suggested, “Because of the disastrous results which may follow the establishment of such a precedent of discrimination against women by the Federal government, it is earnestly recommended that every effort be made to relieve the bureau of this restriction.” Women's Bureau, Third Annual Report of the Director of the Women's Bureau (Washington, D.C., 1921), 22.Google Scholar

26. Women's Bureau, “The Status of Women in the Government Service,” 39–41, 44–45.

27. Women's Bureau, “The New Position of Women in American Industry,” Bulletin 12 (1920), 16.Google Scholar

28. Women's Bureau, “The Occupational Progress of Women,” Bulletin 27 (1922), 3.Google Scholar

29. Domestic and personal-service occupations included servants, waitresses, laundresses, barbers, hairdressers, manicurists, bootblacks, elevator tenders, janitors, laundry operatives, porters, bartenders, and other like occupations.

30. Women's Bureau, “The Occupational Progress of Women,” 8–9.

31. Industries with 50,000 women workers in 1910 included servants, dressmakers, milliners, schoolteachers, boardinghouse keepers, stenographers and typists, musicians, nurses, laundresses, clothing-factory operatives, and textile-mill operatives. “New” industries that in 1920 employed 50,000 workers included saleswoman, bookkeepers and cashiers, retail dealers, cigar-factory operatives, shoe-factory operatives, clerks in stores, and clerks in offices. Women's Bureau, “The Occupational Progress of Women” 19–20.

32. Ibid., 26–30; Women's Bureau, “Facts About Working Women,” Bulletin 46 (1925), 6–7Google Scholar; Benson, Susan Porter, Counter Cultures: Saleswomen, Managers, and Customers in American Department Stores, 1890–1940 (Urbana, Ill., 1986).Google Scholar

33. For examples, see Women's Bureau, “Health Problems of Women in Industry,” Bulletin 18 (1921), 6Google Scholar; Women's Bureau, “Women in Kentucky Industries,” Bulletin 29 (1923), 80–85Google Scholar; Women's Bureau, “The Share of Wage-Earning Women in Family Support,” Bulletin 30 (1923)Google Scholar; Women's Bureau, “Family Status of Breadwinning Women in Four Selected Cities,” Bulletin 41 (1925)Google Scholar; Women's Bureau, “Women in Ohio Industry,” Bulletin 44 (1925), 8Google Scholar; Women's Bureau, “Women Workers and Family Support,” Bulletin 49 (1925).Google Scholar

34. Women's Bureau, “Health Problems of Women in Industry” 6; Anderson, Mary, “Recent Investigations by Government Bureaus,” Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work (Chicago, 1920), 141.Google Scholar

35. Women's Bureau, “Women's Wage in Kansas,” Bulletin 17 (1921), 21, 53–82.Google Scholar

36. Women's Bureau, “The Family Status of Breadwinning Women: A study of material in the census schedules of a selected locality,” Bulletin 23 (Washington D.C.: GPO, 1922), 4Google ScholarPubMed. According to Anderson, the Bureau chose Passaic “because the population was not so large as to render the work of scrutinizing each schedule too expensive and yet possessed a sufficient number of breadwinning women to warrant statistical analysis.” Ibid., iv.

37. Women's Bureau, “Family Status of Breadwinning Women in Four Selected Cities,” 8–9. According to Anderson, after the publication of the Passaic, New Jersey study, “Many requests were received by the bureau for a more extensive study.” Ibid., ix. This revised and expanded version of the Passaic, New Jersey study incorporated an analysis of Jacksonville, Florida; Wilkes-Barre and Hanover Township, Pennsylvania; and Butte, Montana.

38. Ibid., 17.

39. Women's Bureau, “Women in Rhode Island Industries,” Bulletin 21 (1922).Google Scholar

40. Women's Bureau, “Women in Kentucky Industries,” 55–57. The lack of remuneration for experience received by black women in Kentucky industries was consistent with the Women's Bureau findings in other states. Bureau analysis of black women workers' experience and earnings in Alabama industries indicated that they “were employed in low-skilled work in the performance of which experience was no asset, and stability resulted in an almost inappreciable increase in wages.” See Women's Bureau, “Women in Alabama Industries,” Bulletin 34 (1924), 54Google Scholar. In Tennessee, where white women's wages rose with experience, the bureau reported that although black women's “highest earnings accompanied the greatest amount of experience and the lowest earnings the shortest period in the trade, the progression with intervening periods of service” was not as regular as that of white women. Women's Bureau, “Women in Tennessee Industries,” Bulletin 56 (1927), 44.Google Scholar

41. Regarding the decline of women's wages after ten years, bureau investigators remarked, “This is not an unusual situation, as in the group with the longest experience there are naturally included a greater proportion of older women who may have passed the peak of their efficiency and whose earnings may have correspondingly decreased.” In the following New Jersey industries, less than 15 percent of the female employees had less than one-year of experience: felt hats, cigars, shirts and overalls, handkerchiefs, underwear, silk goods, general mercantile, hosiery and knit goods, clothing, miscellaneous manufacturing, cotton goods, and metal products. Women's Bureau, “Women in New Jersey Industry,” Bulletin 37 (1924), 33.Google Scholar

42. Women's Bureau, “Women in Delaware Industries,” Bulletin 58 (1927), 35–36Google Scholar. The bureau conducted one study that directly compared the wages of women workers with men workers. In 1920, it issued a study of women workers in government service. The report revealed that women working in government received significantly lower wages than their male counterparts. Women's Bureau, “Women in the Government Service”; “Women in Government Service,” The Survey, 12 June 1920, 378.

43. Women's Bureau, “Women's Wages in Kansas,” 31.

44. Women's Bureau, “Women in Georgia Industry,” Bulletin 22 (1922), 7.Google Scholar

45. Ibid., 31.

46. Ibid., 32. For other studies that included similar data on wage discrepancies between black and white women, see Women's Bureau, “Women in Arkansas Industries,” Bulletin 26 (1923), 6, 27–47Google Scholar; Women's Bureau, “Women in Kentucky Industries,” Bulletin 29 (1923), 29–57Google Scholar; Women's Bureau, “Women in South Carolina Industries,” Bulletin 32 (1923), 12–14Google Scholar; Women's Bureau, “Women in Alabama Industry,” Bulletin 34 (1924), 52–70Google Scholar; Women's Bureau, “Women in Tennessee Industries,” Bulletin 56 (1927), 5, 39–44Google Scholar; Women's Bureau, “Women in Delaware Industries,” Bulletin 58 (1927), 68Google Scholar; and Women's Bureau, “Women in Mississippi,” Bulletin 55 (1926), 5, 18.Google Scholar

47. Women's Bureau, “Women in Missouri Industries,” Bulletin 35 (1924), 8.Google Scholar

48. For more on Van Kleeck's advocacy of Irvin and the need for labor expertise concerning black women, see Van Kleeck, Mary, “New Standards for Negro Women in Industry,” Life and Labor (06 1919): 134–135Google Scholar; Van Kleeck to Secretary Wilson, 3 September 1918, Van Kleeck to Secretary Wilson, 18 April 1919, Women's Bureau, RG 86, File Correspondence of the Director, 1918–1920, Van Kleeck, A-M, na. On Van Kleeck's continued interest in issues concerning black workers and her relationship to the National Urban League, see Parris, Guichard and Brooks, Lester, Blacks in the City: A History of the National Urban League (Boston, 1971), 200–203Google Scholar. For an overview of Van Kleeck's career, see Alchon, Guy, “Mary Van Kleeck and Scientific Management,” in A Mental Revolution: Scientific Management Since Taylor, ed. Nelson, Daniel (Columbus, Ohio, 1992), 102–129Google Scholar; and “The ‘Self-Applauding Sincerity’ of Overarching Theory, Biography as Ethical Practice, and the Case of Mary van Kleeck,” in Engendering Social Science: The Formative Years, ed. Silverberg, Helen (Princeton, 1998), 293–325Google Scholar. In 1932, Emma Penn Shields completed her M.A. at New York University with a thesis entitled “Vocational Adjustment Problems of Negro Women in New York City.” Wilkerson, Doxey A., “Section D: The Vocational Education and Guidance of Negroes,” Journal of Negro Education 9 (04 1940): 265.Google Scholar

49. Fink, ed., Biographical Dictionary of American Labor, 88–89.

50. Boris and Kleinberg, “Mothers and Other Workers,” 92–93.

51. For the nation, 35.7 percent of black women employed outside the home worked in agricultural occupations and 53 percent worked in domestic occupations. As of the 1920 census, only 7 percent of black women found employment in manufacturing occupations. By the time of bureau investigations, this number likely grew as a result of wartime employment and the migration. Employment numbers from Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census, Fourteenth Census, Occupations. For more on the long-standing opposition to inquiry into the condition of black workers, see Lewis, David Levering, Du Bois, W. E. B.: Biography of a Race (New York, 1993)Google Scholar; Stanfield, John H., Philanthropy and Jim Crow in American Social Science (Westport, Conn., 1985)Google Scholar; Leiby, Carroll Wright and Labor Reform; and Moye, William T. and Goldberg, Joseph P., The First Hundred Years of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (Washington, D.C., 1985).Google Scholar

52. Quoted in Sealander, Judith Anne, “The Women's Bureau, 1920–1950: Federal Reaction to Female Wage Earning” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1977), 39–40Google Scholar; Foner, Philip S., Women and the American Labor Movement: From World War I to the Present (New York, 1980), 125–126.Google Scholar

53. “Trade Union Conference of the Woman in Industry Service of the United States, Department of Labor, 4 October 1918,” reel 4 of Records of the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor, 1918–1965: Part I,” frame 1040–42. For a further description of widespread abuse of these laws in the South, see White, Walter F., “‘Work or Fight’ in the South,” New Republic, 1 03 1919, 144–146Google Scholar. On the effort to mobilize black women for the war effort, see Breen, William, “Black Women and the Great War: Mobilization and Reform in the South,” Journal of Southern History 44 (08 1979): 421–440.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54. Division of Negro Economics, The Negro at Work During the World War and Reconstruction: Statistics, Problems, and Policies Relating to the Greater Inclusion of Negro Wage Earners in American Industry and Agriculture (Washington, D.C., 1921; reprint, New York, 1969), 133.Google Scholar

55. Taken from Irvin's address before the National Conference on Social Work, republished as Irvin, Helen Brooks, “Conditions in Industry as They Affect Negro Women,” in Proceedings of National Conference of Social Work (Chicago, 1919), 523Google Scholar. Haynes, Elizabeth Ross, “Negroes in Domestic Service in the United States: An Introduction,” Journal of Negro History 8 (10 1923): 385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56. “Occupations for Negroes,” Southern Workman 52 (05 1923): 11.Google Scholar

57. Haynes was the wife of Division of Negro Economics head George E. Haynes, and she was a graduate student in political science at Columbia University. She served as a dollar-a-year worker for the Woman-in-Industry Service under Van Kleeck and a domestic-service employment secretary for uses from January 1920 to May 1922. Elizabeth Ross Haynes grew up in Lowndes County, Alabama, graduated from Fisk University with an A.B. in 1903, and attended summer-school classes at the University of Chicago in 1905 and 1907. In 1924 she was the first African American elected to the national board of the ywca, and in 1935 was elected co-leader of Harlem's 21st Assembly District. She also served as an executive member of Tammany Hall. John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, ed., American National Biography, 1999, s.v. “Elizabeth Ross Haynes.” Haynes, Elizabeth Ross, “Two Million Negro Women at Work,” Southern Workman (02 1922), 66Google Scholar. Also Haynes, “Negroes in Domestic Service in the United States: An Introduction,” 384–442. The latter publication is Haynes's M.A. thesis in political science at Columbia University.

58. Women's Bureau, “Negro Women in Industry,” Bulletin 20 (1922), 11.Google Scholar

59. Ibid., 28. Of the firms surveyed, Shields noted fifteen firms employing 3,000 black women “in quarters which had been vacated by white women.” Shields makes a similar point in Emma L. Shields, “Negro Women and the Tobacco Industry,” Life and Labor 6 (May 1921): 143.

60. Women's Bureau, “Negro Women in Industry,” 29.

61. Ibid., 30. See also “American Girl's Travels,” New York Times, 9 April 1922, 90.

62. “Summary of the Tenth Annual Report of the Director of the Women's Bureau: Part II, Comments and Recommendations,” 1923, reel 4 of Records of the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor, 1918–1965: Part I,” frame 877.

63. Women's Bureau, “Negro Women in Industry in 15 States,” Bulletin 70 (1929), 47Google Scholar. Like other bureau investigators, Pidgeon came to the bureau with a wealth of experience. She had previously worked with the Children's Bureau as well as the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago. Mary Anderson to mvk, 10 February 1928, mvk Papers, Box 71, Folder 1107, “Women's Bureau-Correspondence.”

64. “Women in Industry,” New Republic (26 January 1921), 321.

65. Brock, William R., Investigation and Responsibility: Public Responsibility in the United States, 1865–1900 (Cambridge, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Novak, William J., The People's Welfare: Law and Regulation in Nineteenth-Century America (Chapel Hill, 1996).Google Scholar

66. Women's Bureau, “State Laws Affecting Working Women,” Bulletin 40 (1924), 1Google Scholar. See also Anderson, Mary, “Women's Work and Wages: The Women's Bureau and standards of Women's Work,” Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work (Chicago, 1921), 285Google Scholar; Winslow, Mary N., “The Effect of Labor Laws on Women Workers,” Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work (Chicago, 1927), 312–313.Google Scholar

67. In its investigation of minimum-wage legislation in Massachusetts, the nicb admitted that wages had increased as a result of legislation, but it insisted that outside Massachusetts minimum-wage laws had been established at levels about equal to what women were already receiving. Of course even if this were true, such laws would have had the added benefit of maintaining these wage levels in economic downturns. nicb, Minimum-Wage Legislation in Massachusetts (New York, 1927)Google Scholar. Anderson and the bureau publicly and privately defended the utility of wage legislation. In a letter to Maud Younger of the National Woman's Party, Anderson wrote, “Our minimum wage conferences all tell of these facts. Even with the very poor wage that the wage board sets … we find that in 95 percent of the cases the minimum wage raises the women's Wages.” Mary Anderson to Maud Younger, 20 October 1921, National Woman's Party Papers, reel 19; Hart, Vivien, Bound by Our Constitution: Women, Workers, and the Minimum Wage (Princeton, 1994), 113.Google Scholar

68. By 1927, only four states had no laws regulating some aspect of the number of hours worked by women. Women's Bureau, “State Laws Affecting Working Women,” 1. See also Anderson, Mary, “Women's Work and Wages: The Women's Bureau and Standards of Women's Work,” Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work (Chicago, 1921) 285Google Scholar; Winslow, Mary N., “The Effect of Labor Laws on Women Workers,” Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work (Chicago, 1927), 312–313.Google Scholar

69. North Carolina and South Carolina, where the textile industry dominated the manufacturing economy, placed limited restrictions on the maximum daily hours at eleven and twelve hours, respectively. The remaining states mandated between an eight- and ten-hour workday for women and some limitation on the maximum hours per week. Women's Bureau, “Iowa Women in Industry,” Bulletin 19 (1922), 19Google Scholar; and Women's Bureau, “Standard and Scheduled Hours of Work for Women in Industry,” 11–13. The bureau also examined other areas where legislation regulated the employment of women workers, Women's Bureau, “The Employment of Women at Night,” Bulletin 64 (1928).Google Scholar

70. wis, “Labor Law for Women in Industry in Indiana,” Bulletin 2 (1919), 10, 13–19.Google Scholar

71. House, Committee on Appropriations, Sundry Civil Bill, 1920, 1561.

72. Woman in Industry Service, “Labor Law for Women in Industry in Indiana,” Bulletin 2 (1919), 3Google Scholar. A similar situation arose when the Employer's Association of New York requested permission to hire women for night work in the chemical industries, and the wis led a study to consider the working conditions. According to Van Kleeck, this investigation “revealed the need for an authoritative scientific statement of the dangers of employing women in the lead trades since lead poisoning causes sterility and infant mortality.” To address this problem, Van Kleeck asked Dr. Alice Hamilton of the Bureau of Labor Standards to author an “authoritative and scientific statement of the dangers of employing women in the lead trades.” Van Kleeck indicated that the wis would “assist in securing action on its conclusions, by advocating the enactment of State laws prohibiting the employment of women in processes involving exposure to lead poisoning.” HAP-Y-2, 1561. “Women Work Risk of Women,” New York Times, 23 July 1918, 11. Woman in Industry Service, “Proposed Employment of Women During the War in the Industries of Niagara Falls, N.Y.,” Bulletin 1 (1918)Google Scholar; “Industrial Problems of Women at Niagara Falls: Woman in Industry Service Makes Recommendations for Their Solutions,” Life and Labor (January 1919): 21–22; “Proposed Employment of Women During the War in the Industries of Niagara Falls, N.Y.,” Monthly Labor Review 8 (01 1919): 231–246Google Scholar. For other wartime studies, see Women's Bureau, “Standards for the Employment of Women in Industry,” Bulletin 3 (1919)Google Scholar; Women's Bureau, “Wages of Candy Makers in Philadelphia in 1919,” Bulletin 4 (1919).Google Scholar

73. wis, “Labor Law for Women in Industry in Indiana,” Bulletin 2 (1919), 4, 11, 26–29.Google Scholar

74. Women's Bureau, “Some Effects of Legislation Limiting Hours of Work for Women,” 7. For further evidence of the bureau's advisory role to states, see Women's Bureau, “Iowa Women in Industry,” Bulletin 19 (1922)Google Scholar; Women's Bureau, “Hours and Conditions of Work for Women in Industry in Virginia,” Bulletin 10 (1920)Google Scholar; Women's Bureau, “Labor Laws for Women in Industry in Indiana”; Women's Bureau, “Women in Missouri Industries,” Bulletin 35 (1924)Google Scholar; Women's Bureau, “Women in Rhode Island Industries,” Bulletin 22 (1922)Google Scholar; Women's Bureau, “Women in Alabama Industries,” Bulletin 34 (1924)Google Scholar; and Women's Bureau, “Women in Maryland Industries,” Bulletin 24 (1922).Google Scholar

75. “Iowa is one of the six States which do not limit the number of hours, by day or week, that a woman may work; it is one of the 35 states permitting night work without restriction; it is one of the 34 States having no minimum wage legislation.” Women's Bureau, “Iowa Women in Industry,” Bulletin 19 (1922), 7–8.Google Scholar

76. Women's Bureau, “Hours and Conditions of Work for Women in Industry in Virginia,” Bulletin 10 (1920), 6Google Scholar. During and shortly after World War I, writers of the bureau bulletins often made very specific policy recommendations to state governments based on their investigation. Women's Bureau, “Labor Laws for Women in Industry in Indiana,” 27–29; Women's Bureau, “Women in Missouri Industries,” Bulletin 35 (1924)Google Scholar; Women's Bureau, “Women in Rhode Island Industries,” Bulletin 22 (1922), 13Google Scholar. In other cases, the bureau did not make specific policy recommendations and instead designed investigations to help state officials and private organizations develop “industrial standards as will promote occupational and ensure mental and physical health.” Women's Bureau, “Women in Alabama Industries,” Bulletin 34 (1924), 1.Google Scholar

77. Women's Bureau, “Women in Maryland Industries,” Bulletin 24 (1922), 14.Google Scholar

78. Reed, Ellery F., An Analysis of the Report of the Ohio Minimum Wage Commission (Cleveland, 1925)Google Scholar; Hammond, H. B., “Review,” American Economic Review (09 1926): 495–497.Google Scholar

79. In the study, the bureau examined thirteen states with minimum-wage legislation covering 1,080,257 women workers. Setting the stage for New Deal labor legislation, many states excluded particular occupations from minimum-wage laws, most frequently domestic and agricultural. Women's Bureau, “The Development of Minimum-Wage Laws in the United States, 1912–1927” (1928), 14Google Scholar. Some states continued to enforce minimum-wage laws after 1923. Of the thirteen states with wage legislation on the books prior to 1923, at least two states (Massachusetts and Washington) continued to enforce wage laws and New York passed a new piece of minimum-wage legislation. The study proved useful to New Dealers, who attacked “liberty of contract” rulings and was republished by the Bureau in 1934.

80. Bureau examination of mechanisms enforcing minimum-wage laws found a number of states, including Colorado, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Washington, that abolished the independent commissions that enforced and administered labor laws. Women's Bureau, “The Development of Minimum-Wage Laws in the United States, 1912–1927,” 26.

81. Ibid, 370–71. For further evidence of inadequate enforcement, see Women's Bureau, “Iowa Women in Industry,” 36, 50. Women's Bureau, “Industrial Accidents to Women in New Jersey, Ohio, and wis consin,” Bulletin 60 (1927)Google Scholar; Women's Bureau, “Women in Mississippi Industries” 5; Women's Bureau, “Women in Delaware Industries,” Bulletin 58 (1927), 7–8.Google Scholar

82. Anderson referred to the Adkins decision as “nothing short of a calamity to the women workers of this country.… As one means of remedying this situation [low wages for women workers] many of us have pinned out hopes on the operation of minimum wage laws.” “Calls Wage Ruling by Court a ‘Calamity,’” New York Times, 12 April 1923, 11.

83. Quoted in “Labor Women Carry Battle to Coolidge,” New York Times, 22 January 1926, 2.

84. Women's Bureau, “The Effects of Labor Legislation on the Employment Opportunities of Women,” Bulletin 65 (1928), xv, 54Google Scholar. In order to determine the precise impact of protective legislation on women workers, the Bureau and the Women's Party attempted to organize a U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations (cir)–style investigation of the impact of labor legislation on women. To conduct the investigation, the bureau initially organized the Women's Industrial Conference (wic), an investigatory committee modeled explicitly after the cir. The wic included a technical committee of trained industrial investigators and representatives of organizations opposing and advocating protective legislation for women. The attempt at cooperation failed, in part as a result of disagreements over whether the testimony should be closed or open to the public. The bureau and other defenders of protective legislation insisted that the hearing should be held behind closed doors in order to protect women workers from retaliation at work, whereas Paul and others insisted on an open hearing. Interestingly, the bureau made specific reference to John R. Commons's cir minority report, which, as described by the bureau, urged “that in the administration of labor legislation controversial issues would be met by having both sides represented in advisory committees.” Women's Bureau, “The Effects of Labor Legislation on the Employment Opportunities of Women,” Bulletin 65 (1928), xviGoogle Scholar. The bureau's conclusions in this study squared with some of its earlier work. For instance, in 1921, it conducted a study of the sixty-hour week in New Jersey and the fortyeight-hour week in Massachusetts' rubber and electrical appliance manufacturing industries, concluding that employers did not substitute men and children for women workers after the passage of legislation that regulated working women's hours of employment. In fact, when firms decreased hours, nearly all employers (45 of 47 responding) increased hourly or piece-rate wages. Women's Bureau, “Some Effects of Legislation Limiting Hours of Work for Women,” Bulletin 15 (1921), 8, 17, 24Google Scholar. For a sampling of press coverage of the committee and its demise, see Smith, Ethel, “Woman Worker Fights for Higher Standards,” New York Times, 17 01 1966, 6Google Scholar; “Labor Women Carry Battle to Coolidge” New York Times; “Special to the New York Times,” New York Times, 11 May 1926; and “When Women Disagree,” New York Times, 12 May 1926, 26.

85. Sklar, Kathryn Kish, “Two Political Cultures in the Progressive Era: The National Consumers' League and the American Association for Labor Legislation,” in U.S. History as Women's History: New Feminist Essays, ed. Kerber, , Kessler-Harris, , and Sklar, , 51.Google Scholar

86. This occurred in forty of forty-nine factories surveyed. Women's Bureau, “Some Effects of Legislation Limiting Hours of Work for Women,” Bulletin 15 (1921), 15–16Google Scholar. See also Winslow, Mary N., “The Effect of Labor Laws on Women Workers,” Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work (Chicago, 1927): 315Google Scholar. Many labor experts noted that men and women in industry benefited from labor standards that explicitly protected women. Mary Van Kleeck to Lillian Randall, 1 February 1927, Box 18, mvk Papers.

87. mvk to Ethel M. Smith, 8 January 1923, Box 23, mvk Papers. Throughout the New Era, Van Kleeck continued to make the case that men and women both benefited from legislation aimed at women. In doing so, Van Kleeck often cited bureau data. See mvk to Lillian Randall, 1 February 1927, Box 18, mvk Papers; “Working Women in International Fellowship, 1919,” Address at First International Congress of Working Women, Washington, D.C., 28 October 1919 (particularly p. 6), Box 24, File 487, mvk Papers.

88. States continued to adopt and maintain minimum-wage legislation after Atkins, but they did so with varied enforcement mechanisms. For instance, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Ohio all maintained or adopted some form of minimum-wage legislation. In general, these laws provided for investigations of wages in industry. If these investigations found “wages that are oppressive and unreasonable,” a wage board was formed including representatives of employers, workers, and the public, who would recommend a fair wage. The board would issue a “directory” specifying the wage that should be paid and for what duration. Initially, the board could only use publicity to ensure compliance, but if the employer continued to resist, additional measures (fines, imprisonment) could be employed. For an analysis of efforts to conform to Adkins, see Women's Bureau, “Summary of State Hour Laws for Women and Minimum Wage Rates,” Bulletin 137 (1936), 2.Google Scholar

89. The use of an extensive brief based on data and research that conveyed the conditions of labor to justices had been part of the strategy in Muller v. Oregon 208 U.S. 412 (1908), which included voluminous research on the debilitating effects of long hours, low wages, and poor working conditions on workers. Though briefs were focused on women workers, Felix Frankfurter, who as much as anyone used the language of maternalism to defend protective legislation, noted in 1916 that in terms of the evidence in the briefs, “there is no sharp difference in kind as to the effect of labor on men and women.” Frankfurter, “Hours of Labor and Realism in Constitutional Law,” Harvard Law Review (February 1916): 367; Hart, Bound by Our Constitution: Women Workers and the Minimum Wage, 103.

90. Women's Bureau, “Summary: The Effects of Labor Legislation on the Employment Opportunities of Women,” vii

91. Women's Bureau, “Summary: The Effects of Labor Legislation on the Employment Opportunities of Women,” vii. Here the bureau separated itself from other female reform organization, such as the National Consumers League, where leaders became somewhat despondent after the Supreme Court overruled Washington, D.C.'s minimum-wage law. Hart, Bound by Our Constitution, 130–31. For further analysis of 1920s investigations into the relationship between increased productivity and better working conditions, see Hendrickson, Mark, “Steering the State: Government, Nongovernmental Organizations, and the Making of Labor Knowledge in the 1920s,” in Politics and Partnerships, ed. Clemens, Elisabeth S. and Guthrie, Doug (Chicago, forthcoming)Google Scholar. For examples of investigations, see Byington, Margaret F., Homestead: The Households of a Milltown (New York, 1910) 35, 171–72Google Scholar; Vernon, H. M., Industrial Fatigue and Efficiency (New York, 1921)Google Scholar; Collis, Edgar L. and Greenwood, Major, The Health of the Industrial Worker (Philadelphia, 1921)Google Scholar; Goodrich, Carter, The Miner's Freedom: A Study of the Working Life in a Changing Industry (New York, 1925)Google Scholar; Myers, Charles S., Industrial Psychology (New York, 1925)Google Scholar; Goldmark, Josephine, Fatigue and Efficiency: A Study in Industry (New York, 1912)Google Scholar; Frankfurter, Felix, The Case for the Shorter Work Day (New York, 1916)Google Scholar. Walker, Charles R., “The Twelve-Hour Shift,” American Labor Legislation Review 13 (06 1923): 108–118Google Scholar; and Walker, , Steel: The Diary of a Furnace Worker (Boston, 1922)Google Scholar. See also numerous studies along these same lines by the Public Health Service cited in note 8 above.

92. wis, “Labor Laws for Women in Industry in Indiana,” Bulletin 2 (Washington, D.C., 1919), 11Google ScholarPubMed; Kessler-Harris, , Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States (1982; Oxford, 2003), 200.Google Scholar

93. The bureau described one employer, “Although it probably cost him 5 cents an hour more for each girl he made this up easily in increased production because of greater efficiency, fewer mistakes, a better class of more highly skilled girls, and a lower labor cost because of the small turnover.” Women's Bureau, “Some Effects of Legislation Limiting Hours of Work for Women,” 10. For additional discussion of progressive employers' support of reduced hours and labor legislation, see Women's Bureau, “History of Labor Legislation for Women in Three States,” 8–9.

94. Women's Bureau, “Standard and Scheduled Hours of Work for Women in Industry,” Bulletin 43 (1925), 43Google Scholar; wis, Labor Law for Women in Industry in Indiana, 11, 18–20.

95. Women's Bureau, “Lost Time and Labor Turnover in Cotton Mills,” Bulletin 52 (1926), 14–18.Google Scholar

96. For an excellent overview of this scholarship and a strong case for a more intertwined explanation, see Kalman, Laura, “The Constitution, the Supreme Court, and the New Deal,” American Historical Review 110 (10 2005): 1052–1079CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the bureau's role in interpreting the effect of the decision on the labor market and women workers, see McLaughlin, Kathleen, “Inquiries on the Minimum Wage Law Flood the Women's Bureau,” New York Times, 25 04 1937, 6.Google Scholar