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Full-Text Articles in Labor Relations
The Power To Protect Themselves: Gender, Protective Labor Legislation, And Public Policy In Michigan, 1883-1913, Amy Marie-Holtman French
The Power To Protect Themselves: Gender, Protective Labor Legislation, And Public Policy In Michigan, 1883-1913, Amy Marie-Holtman French
Wayne State University Dissertations
This study provides a narrative of laborers' fight for legal protection through the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Since American law was one of the most important forces in shaping and limiting workplace reform, both labor unionists and reformers used the law to try to solve labor problems. Reformers employed the law to force state control over women and children, while labor unionists attempted to craft legislation to allow working men control over industrial relations.
Although society and the law treated men as independent agents, working men were not truly free. Common law designated workers as servants. Employers denied laboring …