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In Harm's Way: Wisconsin Workers And Disability From The Gilded Age To The Great Depression, Karalee Donna Surface

Dissertations (1934 -)

During the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, the American workplace proved especially dangerous to its workers’ lives and limbs. The introduction of mass-production, coupled with a lack of safeguards on mechanized equipment and a dearth of workplace safety or sanitation regulations, ensured that an ever-growing number of workers were maimed or killed. Wisconsin legislators initially sought to remedy the issue of workplace violence by issuing a series of safety laws in the late 1870s and early 1880s. This, however, failed to stem the number of accident victims. Furthermore, the common law liability system through which injured workers could seek restitution from …