The Unseen Toll of Industrial Labor
Federal statistics reveal that American workers face casualty rates in factories and mines comparable to the carnage of the Civil War, with thousands dying annually from preventable accidents.
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.
The total number of accidents in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor, is incredibly high. Accidents not resulting in death, but serious enough to be reported, number 35,000 annually. This is among a total of 26,072,952 persons above the age of 16 who are engaged in gainful occupation. The number of killed and wounded during the four years of the Civil War was 816,000 on the Union side and 589,000 on the Confederate side. About one man in every six enlisted was killed or wounded. Most of the fatal accidents are caused by gearing, belts, shafting, pulleys, elevators, hoists and cranes. Of the fatal accidents not caused by machinery, a majority are caused by hot liquids, acids, steam, explosives, collapse of buildings, falling objects, and animals. The death rate in the United States from accidents is much greater than in other nations, largely because the U.S. lacks legislation requiring employers to protect machinery and provides practically no compensation to the injured, leaving the only remedy as an expensive lawsuit where courts favor the employing class. It is the conclusion of the Bureau of Labor that it would be possible, by intelligent methods and rational factory inspection, to save at least one-half of these lives.
“It is against such as this that other civilized nations have legislation.”
This report captures the era of 'industrial carnage' before the advent of OSHA and workers' compensation. Today, while workplace safety has been transformed, the rhetoric about 'expensive lawsuits' and the tension between corporate liability and worker protection remains a cornerstone of American labor discourse.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.