1. 1. Working Conditions in the late 1800s
Work was dangerous with long hours:
In 1910, 70% of industrial laborers worked hours per week, six days a week
Average wage: $1.50 per day while women, children, and minorities earn less
1/3 of workers lived in poverty
1/5 of children worked
High rate of industrial accidents; for example 25% of the work force of a Pittsburgh steel mill were injured or killed every year from – 1910.

2. Industrial Working Conditions

3. 2. Impact of Laissez Faire Capitalism
Business was unregulated by the government
Business actually got support from gov’t through protective tariffs, support against striking workers, Sherman Antitrust Act ignored etc.

4. 3. Progressive Reformers called for laws:
8 hour work day
minimum wage
safer conditions
an end to child labor

6. Muckrakers
John Spargo’s Bitter Cry of the Children (1906) refers to working conditions as the “enslavement of children”
Florence Kelley
Started in 1893, Illinois law to prohibit child labor
1904, helped organize National Child Labor Committee

7. 5. Key Event: Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City had a fire on March 25, 1911
The company had locked all but one door to prevent theft
146 women – mostly young immigrants - died
Led to New York legislature enacting the nation’s strictest fire-safety code

8. Solution: limit the power of big business
Trust-busting lawsuits (Roosevelt and Taft)
Clayton Antitrust Act to prohibit monopolies (Wilson)

9. Solution: New laws change working conditions:
Adamson Act reduced railroad workday from 10 to 8 hours.
Muller v. Oregon 1908: Curt Muller, the owner of a laundry, was convicted of violating Oregon labor laws because he required a female employee to work more than ten hours in a single day. Muller was fined $10. Muller appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court and then to the U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court upheld the Oregon law limiting women’s work days to 10 hours
Later in Bunting v. Oregon (1917) the Supreme Court rules in favor of a 10 hour work day for men

10. Solution: New laws to change working conditions:
Congress created the Department of Labor to enforce labor laws; established safety laws
Federal Workman’s Compensation Act: provide benefits to federal workers injured on the job.
States begin passing workman’s comp / death benefit laws in 1902
But it was not until 1938 that Congress passed a national minimum wage law

11. Solution: limit child labor
By 1912, 39 states had passed child labor laws limiting hours or requiring that children be able to read before going to work (enforcement of laws was lax)
Keating-Owen Child Labor Act of 1916: outlawed interstate sale of products produced by child labor (later declared unconstitutional)
Not until the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938), which set limits for child labor.