A key piece of Progressive Era legislation, the Adamson Act in 1916 provided railroad workers with new protections. The turn of the 20th century had witnessed unparalleled expansion in U. S. industrial activity that in turn led to renewed growth of trade unionism. Already by 1904, more than two million workers were trade union members.
These new members rallied for expanded rights, and the years between 1905 and 1910 saw the rise of the New Unionism. Massive strikes, public protests, and political activism brought the labor question into the forefront of political debate. In the 1912 presidential election, the American Federation of Labor, under the leadership of Samuel Gompers, supported the Democratic Party. Its demands for a new antitrust act that excluded labor unions, for an eight-hour day for federal employees, and for workmen’s compensation laws made their way into the Democratic platform.
Once in office, President Woodrow Wilson was aware that organized labor was a significant part of his constituency. To that end, he tried appealing to them as the “backbone of the nation.” At the same time, Wilson was suspicious of large organizations in the American economy, whether business or labor. In creating a Department of Labor (1913), passing the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, and establishing the Industrial Relations Commission to look into recent labor violence, Wilson sought compromises between labor’s demands and the open hostility of corporations and small businesses toward recognizing organized labor. Prior to the entry of the United States into World War I, labor had attained other victories as well in the areas of child labor and workmen’s compensation. Working conditions and wages, however, continued to be areas of contention.
Fearing a growing militancy on the railroads and facing the possibility of going to war, the Wilson administration worked to mediate labor disputes on the nation’s rails. In 1916, “to protect the pockets of our men,” the railway brotherhoods threatened to strike on Labor Day for an eight-hour day. Fearing for both his Preparedness program and his reelection, Wilson pushed for Congress to pass the Adamson Eight Hour Act, which mandated an eight-hour workday on the nation’s railroads. The law limited only the working hours of railroad labor, but its influence spread to other industries as well. After World War I ended, there were setbacks. Despite the defeat suffered in the Railroad Shopmen’s strike of 1922, however, the Adamson Act and experiments with federal mediation of railroad labor disputes during the war gave railroad workers a continued and powerful union voice in improving their pay and working conditions.
See also labor and labor movement; Railroad Administration.
Further reading: Joseph McCartin, Labor’s Great War: The Struggle for Industrial Democracy and the Origins of Modern Labor Relations, 1912-1921 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997).
—Annamarie Edelen
Addams, Jane (1860-1935) American social worker One of the leading figures in Progressive Era reform, Jane Addams won worldwide recognition for her work in establishing the Hull-House settlement house and as a peace advocate. Throughout her life, she dedicated herself to improving the lives of needy men, women, and children. Born in Cedarville, Illinois, Addams grew up in a politically active household, with a father who served as a state senator for 16 years. She was graduated from Rockford Female Seminary in 1881 and spent the next six years traveling, studying, and contemplating a career. Struggling against the restrictions placed on women at the time, Addams spent these six years searching for a meaningful career that was open to her as a woman. During her travels to London, England, Addams visited a settlement house and discovered her life’s ambition. In 1889 she and Ellen Gates Starr leased a home in an underprivileged area of Chicago and established Hull-House with the purpose of providing “a center for higher civic and
Jane Addams (Library of Congress)
Adkins v. Children's Hospital 3
Philanthropic enterprises and to investigate and improve the conditions in the industrial districts of Chicago.”
At Hull-House, Addams developed a variety of programs aimed at improving the poor conditions in which working-class immigrants lived. She hoped that the immigrants could learn middle-class social and cultural ways as a means to improving their lives. The programs at Hull-House included kindergarten classes, cooking classes, club meetings, art and English classes. As attendance swelled, Addams expanded into neighboring buildings until Hull-House encompassed a city block. The additions included an art gallery, a public kitchen, a coffee house, a gymnasium, a swimming pool, a bookbindery, an art studio, a circulating library, an employment bureau, and a labor museum.
Under Addams, Hull-House became one of the focal points of American reform. Its influence spread beyond the neighborhood which it served. Many of the key figures in Progressive Era reform, including Florence Kelley and Grace Abbott, started their careers at Hull-House under Addams’s tutelage. In addition, she led investigations into juvenile delinquency, poverty wages, midwifery, narcotics use, milk supplies, sanitary conditions, and working conditions, particularly for women and children. These investigations spurred numerous improvements in the lives of working Americans.
Addams was an ardent opponent of war, a position for which she suffered public criticism during World War I. She gave her first speeches against war in 1906, and by 1915 she was chairperson of two peace organizations. Addams publicly opposed America’s entrance into the war in 1917, and she was attacked in the press for her position. Despite her opposition to the war, she served in the U. S. government’s program to provide relief for European citizens affected by the war. Addams suffered a heart attack in 1926 after which she never fully regained her health. In 1931 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her lifetime of work helping the unfortunate. She died in 1935 from heart-related ailments and cancer.
See also social work.
Further reading: Jane Addams, Twenty Years at House: With Autobiographical Notes (New York: Macmillan, 1910); Allen F. Davis, American Heroine: The Life and Legend of Jane Addams (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973).
—Michael Hartman
World History
