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“With Wages So Low How Can a Girl Keep Herself?” Protective Labor Legislation and Working Women’s Expectations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2015

Katherine Turk*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina

Abstract

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Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Donald Critchlow and Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

The author wishes to thank Pegeen Bassett, Deborah Dinner, Erik Gellman, the anonymous reviewers, and the Journal editors and staff.

References

NOTES

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17. Lehrer, Origins of Protective Labor Legislation for Women, 93; Beinhauer, “State Labor Laws Applicable to Women,” 60, 112; Clara M. Beyer, “History of Labor Legislation for Women in Three States,” Women’s Bureau Bulletin 66-I1, 1932, 55; Jane Walstedt, “State Labor Laws in Transition: From Protection to Equal Status for Women,” Pamphlet No. 15, U.S. Department of Labor (Washington, D.C., 1976), 4; Kessler-Harris, Out to Work, 196.

18. Baer, The Chains of Protection, 6; Blackwelder, The Feminization of Work in the United States, 5, 143–44; Cobble, The Other Women’s Movement, 11–3, 57, 105–6; Hill, Anne Corinne, “Protection of Women Workers and the Courts: A Legal Case History,” Feminist Studies 5 (Summer 1979)Google Scholar, 250, 254, 257, 260; Kessler-Harris, Out to Work, 277; Laughlin, Women’s Work and Public Policy, 12–40, 69–92; Lehrer, Origins of Protective Labor Legislation for Women, 6–7; Mettler, “Federalism, Gender, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938,” 640–41; Sealander, As Minority Becomes Majority, 5, 22–23, 95, 103, 140; Sklar, “Two Political Cultures in the Progressive Era,” 61; Storrs, Civilizing Capitalism, 4, 9, 179.

19. On the National Consumers League’s campaign to strengthen southern protective labor laws for women in the late 1920s and early 1930s, see Storrs, Civilizing Capitalism, 61–90.

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21. Beinhauer, “State Labor Laws Applicable to Women,” 41–42; Kessler-Harris, “The Paradox of Motherhood,” 226–27.

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29. Mary Anderson to John Andrews, 24 July 1940, folder: “American Association for Labor Legislation,” box 2, WB-GC; Clara M. Beyer, “History of Labor Legislation for Women in Three States,” Women’s Bureau Bulletin No. 66-I1 (1932), 49–50; Beinhauer, “State Labor Laws Applicable to Women,” 13–20, 36, 40, 63, 71, 89–91 and appendix 68, 100–104 and 149; Hart, Bound by Our Constitution, 67; Kessler-Harris, “The Paradox of Motherhood,” 226, 235; Kessler-Harris, Out to Work, 191, 196; U.S. Women’s Bureau, “State Laws Affecting Working Women,” Bulletin No. 16 (1921), 1–5, 10, 12, 49; “State Laws Affecting Working Women,” Bulletin No. 63 (1927), 1–6; U.S. Department of Labor, Growth of Labor Law in the United States (Washington, D.C., 1962), 80, 116; Storrs, , Civilizing Capitalism, 2, 42–43Google Scholar; Walstedt, , “State Labor Laws in Transition: From Protection to Equal Status for Women,” 4Google Scholar.

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31. Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor, “State Laws Affecting Working Women,” Bulletin No. 16 (Washington, D.C., 1921), 7; Summary of State Labor Laws for Women, August 1944, Conference on Postwar Adjustments of Women Workers, 4–5 December 1944 folder, box 175, Division of Research and Manpower Program Development, 1940–45, Record Group 86, NARA; Frieda Miller to Hetty Gregory, 13 March 1947, and Frieda Miller to Mabel Hick, 29 January 1947, Florida folder, box 12, WB-GC.

32. “Seats to Be Furnished for Employees in Stores,” The Revised General Statutes of Florida Prepared Under Authority of Chap. 6930, Acts 1915, Chap. 7347, Acts 1917, and Chap. 7838, Acts 1919, Laws of Florida 2494 (1920), Chap. 4762, Acts 1899, sec. 1, 5067–68.

33. “An Act to Regulate the Business of Private Employment Agencies in Florida,” House Bill 340, Chap. 24080, sec. 10, vol. 2, pt. 1, State Laws of Florida, 1947, 31st Regular Session, 922–23.

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40. Blanche Defossi to Frances Perkins, 21 June 1938, and Anderson to Defossi, 27 June 1938, Massachusetts folder, box 13, WB-GC.

41. Irene Porter to Frances Perkins, 1 July 1938, and Anderson to Porter, 16 July 1938, Massachusetts folder, box 13, WB-GC.

42. Eleanor Gray Agins to Francis Perkins, 14 July 1941, Anderson to Agins, 17 July 1941, and Louis Stitt to Mary Galouki, 15 July 1944, Illinois folder, box 12, WB-GC.

43. Martha Davis to U.S. Women’s Bureau, 29 October 1943, Louis Stitt to Mary Galouki, 15 July 1944, and Anderson to Davis, 7 November 1943, Illinois folder, box 12, WB-GC.

44. Mrs. Thomas Briley to U.S. Attorney General Homer Stille Cummings, 7 September 1937; Mary Anderson to Briley, 12 October 1937; Mary Anderson to Mrs. N. D. Goodman, 24 October 1941; Director of the Division of the Minimum Wage to Mr. E. C. Cooley, 19 August 1942; Mary Anderson to Annie Mae Buchanan, 10 September 1942; Frieda Miller to Hazel Broom, 30 September 1946; Josephine Hays to Frances Perkins, 27 April 1945; Mary A. Connor to FDR, 9 July 1937; Mary Anderson to Mary A. Connor, 16 July 1937; Mary Anderson to Arlene Jones, 23 August 1940, all in Illinois folder, box 12, WB-GC.

45. Mrs. W. W. Etherington to U.S. Women’s Bureau, 22 March 1946, Florida folder, box 12, WB-GC.

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47. Blanche van der Broeck to U.S. Department of Labor, 31 December 1940, Florida folder, box 12, WB-GC.

48. Committee of Waitresses and Counter Girls to National Labor Relations Board, 24 September 1945, Florida folder, box 12, WB-GC.

49. Dorothy Firman to Department of Labor, 1 June 1942, Florida folder, box 12, WB-GC.

50. Mrs. R. T. Humphrey to Francis Perkins, 20 October 1941, and Mary Anderson to Humphrey, 27 October 1941, Florida folder, box 12, WB-GC.

51. Florence Carder to Mary Anderson, 5 July 1943, and Anderson to Carder, 15 July 1943, Florida folder, box 12, WB-GC.

52. Mary Anderson to Ruth Brickley, 12 February 1940, Florida folder, box 12, WB-GC.

53. Mrs. W. W. Etherington to U.S. Women’s Bureau, 22 March 1946, and Frieda Miller to Etherington, 22 March 1946, Florida folder, box 12, WB-GC.

54. Anderson to Carder, 15 July 1943, Florida folder, box 12, WB-GC.

55. Hazel Brown to U.S. Department of Labor, 17 July 1946, Massachusetts folder, box 13, WB-GC.

56. Frieda Miller to Libby Kathryn Johnson, 6 February 1948, Illinois folder, box 12, WB-GC. In her study of letters written to Eleanor Roosevelt, Dauber compared the letters’ content with their authors’ census records to demonstrate that only half of the African American correspondents mentioned their race. Dauber suggests that they “may have worried . . . that revealing their race would weaken their case for assistance and kept it to themselves.” Dauber, The Sympathetic State, 198.

57. Livia M. Izzo to Frances Perkins, 15 August 1938, Massachusetts folder, box 13, WB-GC.

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61. Miss G. Ferguson to Secretary of Labor, undated, c. February 1946, Massachusetts folder, box 13, WB-GC.

62. Laura E. Carson to Frieda Miller, 3 June 1948, Massachusetts folder, box 13, WB-GC.

63. Jeannette Soule to Labor Board, 9 October 1944, Massachusetts folder, box 13, WB-GC.

64. Marie J. Floesser to Women’s Bureau, 30 October 1947, Illinois folder, box 12, WB-GC.

65. Laura E. Carson to Frieda Miller, 3 June 1948, Massachusetts folder, box 13, WB-GC.

66. Josephine Hays to Frances Perkins, 27 April 1943, Illinois folder, box 12, WB-GC.

67. Mary Anderson to Josephine Hays, 8 May 1943, Illinois folder, box 12, WB-GC.

68. Mary Sears to U.S. Department of Labor, 28 February 1947, Illinois folder, box 12, WB-GC.

69. Mrs. R. T. Humphrey to Francis Perkins, 20 October 1941, Florida folder, box 12, WB-GC.

70. Mrs. Marvin Kanouse to Department of Labor, 29 May 1940, Illinois folder, box 12, WB-GC.

71. D. Julia Harmon to Secretary of Labor Schellenbach, 14 November 1945, Illinois folder, box 12, WB-GC.

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75. Alice Leopold to Millard Cass, Deputy Undersecretary of Labor, re: New Proposals for 1961 Legislative Program, 20 September 1960, Legislation folder, box 133, Women’s Bureau General Correspondence, 1948–63.

76. Pub.L.88-352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted 2 July 1964. Title VII also banned workplace discrimination on account of religion, color, and national origin. Bird, Robert C., “More than a Congressional Joke: A Fresh Look at the Legislative History of Sex Discrimination in the 1964 Civil Rights Act,” William and Mary Journal of Women and the Law 3 (1997) 137–61Google Scholar; Jo Freeman, “How ‘Sex’ Got into Title VII: Persistent Opportunism as a Maker of Public Policy,” Law & Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice 9 (1990–91): 163–84; Harrison, On Account of Sex, 176–82; Clinton Jacob Woods, “Strange Bedfellows: Congressman Howard W. Smith and the Inclusion of Sex Discrimination in the 1964 Civil Rights Act,” Southern Studies 16 (Spring–Summer 2009): 1–32.

77. Esther Peterson Address to Training Seminar on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 8 July 1965, folder 2672, box 126, Esther Peterson Papers, 1884–1998, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.

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