Gender Research as Labor Activism: The Women's Bureau in the New Era

Abstract

On June 5, 1920, Congress established the Women's Bureau, charging it to “formulate standards and policies which shall promote the welfare of wage-earning women, improve their working conditions, increase their efficiency, and advance their opportunities for profitable employment.” Support for the bureau was such that the House passed the bill by a vote of 255 to 10, and the Senate passed it without a recorded vote, though theMonthly Labor Reviewnoted that “there was some opposition.” During a decade when policymakers celebrated the fruits of economic abundance garnered with only the lightest touch from the state, bureau leaders and investigators saw gender research as a form of labor activism that would advance the cause of all workers. The bureau provided a unique site for discourse and deliberation concerning labor standards that did not exist in any other branch of the federal government. No other organization in the federal government thought harder about how policies could be constructed to protect workers, irrespective of gender, from the continued harsh reality of employment in American industry. Along the way, advocates of protective legislation for women sought not only to protect the particular interests of women workers, but also to drive a wedge through a post-Adkinsunderstanding of the “right to contract” and to expand the number of issues that should be seen as affected with a public interest.

Working Out Their Economic Problems Together: World War I, Working Women, and Civil Rights in the Ywca

“…37 This critical interracial research network, inside and outside the government, contributed racial and labor expertise that, as Mark Hendrickson has argued, would help expose the uneven benefits of the labor market during the conservative 1920s. 38 Their studies and discussions, which highlighted Black women's growing presence in industry and the particularly brutal conditions they faced, also helped increase the wartime YWCA budget for Colored Work. Mary Jackson and her staff created YWCA Industrial Program work for thousands of Black working women where none had existed before.…”

Gender and the Personal Shaping of Public Administration in the United States: Mary Anderson and the Women's Bureau, 1920–1930

“…The most important agency in the context of Anderson's career became the Women in Industry Service, which was established by President Wilson in the summer of 1917 to increase the number of women working for the war effort and to institute standards for working women during the conflict. The first reason probably was the most important one—with millions of men enlisting or being drafted for military service, the participation of women became essential (Anderson 1951; Hendrickson 2008). But Van Kleeck saw the second reason as equally important.…”

Continuing an Alternative View of Public Administration

“…President Wilson created the Women in Industry Service for two reasons: to increase the number of women industrial workers and to institute standards for working women during the conflict. The first reason probably constituted the most important one, for with millions of men enlisting or being drafted for military service, the participation of women became essential (Anderson, 1951;Hendrickson, 2008). But van Kleeck, who served as the director of the Service from 1917 until her resignation in 1919, saw the second reason as equally important.…”

“…In the 1930s, van Kleeck oversaw numerous studies at the RSF that sparked considerable debate in the areas of unemployment and crime, worked to radicalize the field of social work, and helped draft the Frazier-Lundeen bill, a countermeasure to the Social Security Act. Not surprisingly, most aspects of van Kleeck's long and influential career have been extensively examined (e.g., Hendrickson, 2008;McGuire, 2006;Selmi & Hunter, 2001). But one period remains relatively unanalyzed: her reform activities from 1918 through 1927.…”