PROTECTIVE LABOR LEGISLATION FOR WOMEN: THE MASSACHUSETTS TEN-HOUR LAW

This dissertation explores the rationale behind legislative limitation of the work day for women in factories. The issue of protective labor legislation for women is analyzed through a case study of the Massachusetts ten hour law. This was the first enforceable legislation limiting the length of the work day for women in the U.S. Passed in 1874 and strengthened in 1879, this act served as a model for subsequent protective labor laws limiting the work day for women. Conclusions drawn from the case study reject the idea that this legislation was intended to limit or eliminate employment of women in the regulated industry. The study establishes, rather, that the subordinate social and economic status of women was used as justification for obtaining universal regulation. However, maintenance of gender based familial responsibilities was among the desired effects of the law. Legislation limiting the length of the work day and weekly hours in textile factories had broad based support. Initially demanded by mill workers and class conscious labor organizations as an aspect of social restructuring, the ten hour demand evolved into a single issue campaign. Labor leaders continued to assert the right of factory workers to a ten hour work day whereas philanthropists, clergy, and progressive business interests focused on cultural assimilation of the operative population. This latter view prevailed. The legislators enacted the ten hour law as a means of integrating the (mainly) immigrant factory workers into the New England traditions. Long hours of factory labor were seen as inimical to preservation of widespread literacy, a well developed common school system, democratic political institutions and the characteristic Yankee society. The state is shown to have intervened in the economy to promote social stability. In limiting the rights of capital and the economic exploitation of labor, the state acted to preserve traditional social characteristics, a social goal that individual firms could not pursue