Frances Perkins

Class Date: July 30

Location: Your couch! See your weekly e-mail for Zoom link!

This week we’re looking at the life of Frances Perkins, a member of Franklin Roosevelt’s cabinet. Her work changed the course of labor and regulations.  But before we get there, it’s important to have a little background of the time:

• 1886 - Samuel Gompers founds the American Federation of Labor

A variety of small craft unions united under the leadership of Samuel Gompers to form the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The AFL gave each of the more 100 unions in the organization ‘exclusive jurisdiction’ over a craft. They did not engage in national political issues, but focused on collective bargaining for wages, benefits, hours, and working conditions. 

• 1881 - Tuskegee University founded

The beginning of this Historically Black Colleges and University (HBCU) can actually be credited to Lewis Adams, a formerly enslaved man, who never received a day of formal education, though he could read and write. W.F. Foster was running for Alabama Senate reelection and asked Adams to help him with the support of the Black community. Instead of asking for money, Adams asked that Foster help establish an educational institution for the Black population. To read more about this and how they recruited Booker T. Washington to teach at the Institute, click here: 

https://www.tuskegee.edu/about-us/history-and-mission

• December 29, 1890 - Wounded Knee Massacre

Despite the Ft. Laramie Treaty years before that promised peace between Native Nations and the United States, the U.S. Calvary fired on scores of gathered Lakota people at Wounded Knee. The massacre effectively ended organized resistance to U.S. encroachment on Native Lands and showed other Native Nations that treaties with the United States were not reliable.

• May 1894 - Pullman Strike begins

At its peak, approximately a quarter million workers were on strike. Ultimately, the federal government intervened to put down the strike, violently. The strike represents a major turning point in labor relations in the United States. To read an overview of the strike and its significance, click here: https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/blog/on-this-day-the-pullman-strike-changes-labor-law 

• 1892 - Muir establishes the Sierra Club

After successfully campaigning for the protection of Yosemite, John Muir turned his focus to protecting more natural spaces from the fast pace of industrialization and expansion. He established the Sierra Club to advocate for natural spaces. However, Muir’s advocacy for preservation wasn’t necessarily for all to enjoy. Very much a product of his time, Muir saw many, including indigenous peoples and African Americans, as not worthy of having access to natural spaces or their ancestral homelands. To read about how the Sierra Club is grappling with the racist origins of some of its work, check out this Smithsonian article here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/sierra-club-grapples-founder-john-muirs-racism-180975404/

• May 1894 - Pullman Strike begins

At its peak, approximately a quarter million workers were on strike. Ultimately, the federal government intervened to put down the strike, violently. The strike represents a major turning point in labor relations in the United States. To read an overview of the strike and its significance, click here: https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/blog/on-this-day-the-pullman-strike-changes-labor-law

• 1897 - The first subway

The first underground public transportation in North America opens in Boston, Massachusetts. To read more about it, click here: https://historyofmassachusetts.org/boston-first-subway-america/

• 1899 - Newsies strike in New York

Highlighting the issues surrounding child labor, children working for Pulizter and Hearst organized a newsboy strike. To see a musical dramatization of the strike, you can catch the movie ‘Newsies’ on Disney+. (My sisters and I watched the movie constantly as kids and I still sing the songs occasionally!)

• 1906 - The Jungle is published

Another muckraker, Upton Sinclair exposed food safety practices (or lack thereof) in the meat processing industry. His descriptions of rotten and contaminated meat shocked the American public and prompted new federal legislation on food safety. 

• March 25, 1911 - The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire is one of the most infamous industrial accidents in history. Located on the 8th-10th floors of the Asch building in Manhattan. The sweatshop employed teenaged immigrant girls, most of whom did not speak English, working elbow to elbow at sewing machines for 12 hours a day, every day. The building had 4 elevators up to the factory floors, but only 1 of them was working in 1911. There were 2 stairways to the street, but one was locked from the outside to prevent theft and the other only opened inward. There was a small fire escape, but it was so narrow it would have taken hours to empty the factory of people. The owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, had a suspicious history of their factories burning down in off hours for fire insurance. They refused to install sprinklers or other fire safety measures, possibly because they might need to burn their factory again. 

On March 25th, a Saturday afternoon, there were 600 workers in the factory. The fire started in a rag bin and found ready fuel in oil soaked fabric (sewing machines were regularly oiled to keep them running smoothly). The manager couldn’t use the fire hose to put out the flames because the valve was rusted shut and the hose was rotted. The only working elevator broke after only 4 trips (holding 12 people each). In total, after the fire burned for 18 minutes, 146 people, most of them teenaged workers, died in the fire.

The horror of the fire would spurn a wave of reforms. 

• 1913 - Federal Segregation begins

President Woodrow Wilson, newly inaugurated, began implementing a policy of racial segregation across the federal government. A Southerner himself, he had appointed several segregationists to his Cabinet and they were eager to separate employees along racial lines. This action would prove to have far reaching consequences, especially on the economic development of the Black community. To read more about this program and these effects, click here: https://theconversation.com/segregation-policies-in-federal-government-in-early-20th-century-harmed-blacks-for-decades-145669

• 1913 - Federal Reserve Act of 1913

Congress and President Wilson attempted to stabilize the financial system after a series of financial crashes. Instead of private bankers controlling fiscal policy, a public board with voting power spread across 12 member banks. . The structure demonstrated the belief that government policy should manage competition to maintain equality of opportunity among different size businesses and different regions of the nation.

• 1928 - St. Francis Dam failure

Located in northern Los Angeles County, California, the St. Francis Dam was a concrete gravity dam constructed between 1924 and 1926. With little oversight and poor planning, the dam showed stress almost immediately upon completion. But nothing prepared anyone in the area for its sudden and catastrophic failure in the wee hours of March 12, 1928. At least 431 people were killed as the wave swept for miles toward the ocean. The failure ended the career for chief engineer William Mulholland and spurred more investigations and reform. 

• 1929 - Stock Market Crash

Known as ‘Black Tuesday’, on October 29, 1929, investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange and billions of dollars were lost. Thousands of investors were wiped out and the United States, as well as the rest of the industrialized world plunged toward the Great Depression, the longest-lasting economic downturn up to that point in the Western world. To read more about the crash, its causes, and the aftermath, click here: https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/1929-stock-market-crash

• 1930 - Start of the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Disaster

Construction began on the 3 mile long tunnel to reroute the Kanawha River to drive a hydroelectric plant for Union Carbide. Though Union Carbide knew that the material being removed was almost pure silica that had devastating health effects when inhaled, safety equipment was withheld from the predominantly Black workers. Ultimately, hundreds would die from silicosis, though Union Carbide would never face repercussions. 

That’s where our timeline leaves us for the week. Tune in to learn more!

To read more about this period, here are some great books to get you started: 

For kids: 

For Adults: 

https://www.britannica.com/topic/American-Federation-of-Labor-Congress-of-Industrial-Organizations

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hull-House

https://connecticuthistory.org/ida-tarbell-the-woman-who-took-on-standard-oil/

https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/timeline

https://www.lareviewofbooks.org/article/children-dammed-st-francis-dam-disaster/

https://www.infoplease.com/history/world/1800-1899-ad-world-history

https://www.ushistory.org/declaration/revwartimeline.html