Chapter 21, Section 2“Reforming the Workplace”

Children in the Work Force

• Children provided cheap labor for manufacturers

• Some were paid as little as $.40 an hour

• Boys sold newspapers and shined shoes

• Girls cooked and cleaned for boarders living in their homes or worked at home sewing or making handicrafts

• By 1900 1.75 million children ages 15 and under were working in factories, mines, and mills

Attempts to Improve Working Conditions

for Children

• Florence Kelley worked in Illinois to get a law passed ending child labor there

• The National Consumers’ League became the most important lobbying group for women’s and children’s labor issues

• In 1912 Massachusetts passed the first minimum wage and set up a commission to establish rates for child workers

• Congress passed laws in 1916 and 1919 that banned products produced with child workers from being shipped from on state to another (though the Supreme Court struck them down)

New Laws Promote Workplace Safety

Triangle Shirtwaist Fire• Who? – Jewish and Italian immigrant

teenage women• What? – a fire in the Triangle Shirtwaist

Company clothing factory killed 146 workers mostly due to a lack of fire escapes, locked doors, and no fire drills

• When? – March 25, 1911• Where? – New York City• Why Important? – led to the passage

of laws improving factory safety standards

Workers’ Compensation Laws – laws pushed for by labor leaders and reformers that would guarantee a portion of lost wages to workers injured on the job (first one was passed in Maryland in 1902)

Businessmen Oppose New Labor Laws

• Businessmen believed the economy should operate without any govt. interference

• Lochner v. New York – 1905 Supreme Court decision that declared a N.Y. state law unconstitutional that limited bakers to a 10 hour work day

• Muller v. Oregon – 1908 Supreme Court decision that upheld laws restricting women’s work hours

Capitalism v. Socialism

• capitalism – an economic system favored by businessmen in which private businesses run most industries and competition determines the price of goods

• socialism – an economic system favored by some union members in which the govt. owns and operates a country’s means of production

Socialism and Labor

• Industrial Workers of the World – a union founded in 1905 led by William “Big Bill” Haywood that welcomed all workers including immigrants, minorities, and women, and had a goal of organizing all workers in one union and overthrowing capitalism