Since 1912, Eleanor Roosevelt and other social reformers
rallied for the passage of legislation establishing a minimum
wage and a forty-hour work week, as well as the abolishment
of child labor. ER's service on New York's Factory Investigation
Commission, which was established after the Triangle Shirtwaist
Company fire in 1911, contributed to her knowledge of and
dedication to labor reform. ER also testified before state
committees on the matter of protective labor legislation
during the time FDR
was governor of New York
During the second half of the 1930s, FDR struggled to continue
to pass his New Deal legislation. This difficulty can be
attributed to growing conservative opposition, as well as
the regional and sectional tensions of the Democratic party.
Nevertheless, in 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act, which
contained many of ER's labor concerns passed through the
Congress. The act prohibited child labor and required industry
to adopt in stages a forty-cent hourly minimum wage, as
well as established a forty-hour work week. The act did
exempt the agriculture industry, domestic service, and certain
other service categories. The FLSA ended up being the last
piece of New Deal legislation passed.
Sources:
Beasley, Maurine, Holly C. Schulman and Henry R. Beasley,
eds. The Eleanor Roosevelt Encyclopedia. Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001, 295.
Black, Allida. Casting Her Own Shadow: Eleanor Roosevelt
and the Shaping of Postwar Liberalism. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1996, 18.
Cook, Blanche Wiesen. Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume Two,
1933-1938. New York: Viking Press, 1999, 266, 515-16.
Kennedy, David. Freedom From Fear: The American People
in Depression and War, 1929-1945. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1999, 344-6
For more information on the Fair Labor Standards
Act, visit the following web site:
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