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Lowell Female Labor Reform Association
Following a similar movement in Britain, the Lowell textile factory girls began the Lowell FLRA with a petition for a reduction from twelve- to ten-hour workday. The initial petition failed, but they pressed on continuously. Though New Hampshire did pass law for ten-hour workdays in 1847, it was not enforced. Though the official union dissolved in 1848, workers did succeed in securing eleven-hour days in 1853. -
Anti-Coolie Act
Less popularly known as "An Act to Protect Free White Labor Against Competition with Chinese Coolie Labor, and to Discourage The Immigration of the Chinese into the State of California". The Anti-Coolie Act imposed a significant monthly tax on the high population of Chinese immigrants in California during the Gold Rush. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
In response to the large influx of Chinesee immigrants during the California Gold Rush and the building of the First Transcontinental Railroad, this act threatened deportation for Chinese miners that competed for jobs. Though at first written to last ten years, it was extended several times. -
Japanese in Hawaii
Hawaiian consul Curtis P. Iaukea arrives in Japan with an emigration proposal for Japanese labor. Japan selects 1000-odd laborers to work in Hawaii. Though never a majority population(<3%), Americans share the fear they held with Chinese "coolies" in California. -
Contract Labor Law
This law forbidded paid passage to America in return for labor. However, it did make exceptions for “Professional actors, artists, lecturers, or singers, nor to persons employed as strictly personal or domestic servants.” The O'Neill Bill in February 7, 1887 amended the Contract Labor Law because, though comprehensive, it could not be enforced. Dominion was given to the secretary of the treasury. -
Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association
Initially founded in 1895, the HSPA began to actively campaign the immigration of foreign workers into Hawaii. Since Chinese immigration was banned, most of these imports were cheap Filipino laborers from the territory won from the Spanish-American War. -
Muller v. Oregon
Attorney Louis D. Brandeis forces Supreme Court to recognize protection of women from strenuous work hours, presented by results of factory labor on weaker bodies. Progressives were happy, but equal-rights feminists saw it as sexist. -
Westmoreland County Coal Strike
In the Irwin Gas Coal Basin of Pennsylvania, the Westmoreland Coal Company had quickly established a virtual monopoly of the coal industry. Beginning with the Progressive welfare movement in 1900, the workers pushed for improved wages and working conditions. Though led by native Anglos, 70% of the strikers were comprised of Slovakians. The coal companies began to import Eastern Europeans en masse in order to break the strike. The strike ended July 1, 1911, unable to continue funding itself. -
United States Children's Bureau
Founded by President Taft and headed by Julia Lathrop, this was the first national government office in the world which focused solely on the welfare of children and their mothers. This was also the first government office headed by a woman. -
Eighteenth Amendment
Part of the temperance movement, this amendment practically amounts to a Prohibition law. Organizations such as the Anti-Saloon League and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, fueled by Progressive welfare reform and nativist patriotism, targeted cities and immigrant populations.
