National Eight-Hour Day Proposed for Working Women
Federal legislation seeks to ban interstate shipment of goods produced under long-hour conditions.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Washington.—Senator Robinson of Arkansas and Representative Keating of Colorado have introduced identical bills to prohibit interstate shipment of goods made in whole or in part by women employed more than eight hours a day or more than six days a week. The bills, drawn on the lines of the federal child labor law, would nationalize conditions for working women which now prevail in the District of Columbia, Arizona, California, Colorado, and Washington. It would apply to women over 16 years of age. Enforcement would be prescribed by a board to consist of the attorney general, the secretary of commerce, and the secretary of labor.
“The bills, drawn on the lines of the federal child labor law, would nationalize conditions for working women.”
This 1917 push for federal labor standards mirrors the ongoing struggle for living wages and equitable working conditions in Washington's modern service and agricultural sectors. The attempt to use the 'commerce clause' to enforce state-level labor protections at a national scale remains a central strategy in contemporary labor rights discourse.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.