MEMIC Safety Experts Podcast

Episode #53 | Published August 30, 2021

Back in 1892, President Grover Cleveland signed a law making the first Monday in September of each year the Labor Day holiday.  Do you know the history and the struggle of the American worker that pre-dates this historic day?  On this podcast, Randy Klatt, Director or Region 2 Loss Control here at MEMIC helps me explore what it was like to be a worker in the late eighteen and early nineteen hundreds and workplace injuries, fatalities, child labor, and deplorable conditions were the catalysts for fair wages, the 8 hour workday, and workplace safety.

Links and Resources:

• Wage Trends, 1800-1900 (nber.org)

•  Age of workers:

Lewis Hine - Photographer

These Appalling Images Exposed Child Labor in America - HISTORY

The Photographs of Lewis Hine: The Industrial Revolution and Child Laborers [Photo Gallery] | EHS Today

Teaching With Documents: Photographs of Lewis Hine: Documentation of Child Labor | National Archives

Search Results: "Hine, Lewis Wickes, 1874-1940" - Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (Library of Congress) (loc.gov)

Search Results: "" - Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (Library of Congress) (loc.gov) 

• Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999: Improvements in Workplace Safety -- United States, 1900-1999 (cdc.gov)

• History of Workplace Safety — SafetyLine Lone Worker

• Deadliest Workplace Accidents | American Experience | Official Site | PBS

• Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire - HISTORY

• Child Workers and Workplace Accidents: What was the Price Paid for Industrializing America? – Our Great American Heritage

• (1857) Frederick Douglass, "If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress" • (blackpast.org)

• Haymarket Riot - HISTORY

• https://www.dol.gov/general/laborday/history

• Labor Day 2021: Facts, Meaning & Founding - HISTORY

• History of Labor Day | U.S. Department of Labor (dol.gov)

• Deadliest Workplace Accidents | American Experience | Official Site | PBS

• History of the Holidays: Labor Day | History

• #82 - Comparative wages, prices, and cost of living : (from the Sixteenth ... - Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library

• History of The US Minimum Wage - From The Very First Minimum Wage (bebusinessed.com)

• Profile of work injuries incurred by young workers (bls.gov)

• History of Workplace Safety in the United States, 1880-1970 (eh.net)