EARLY ORIGINS

Of all the causes organized labor fought for, arguably none is more misunderstood today than the pursuit of equal rights for working women. For its contemporary advocates, the proposed Women’s Eight-Hour Act wasn’t just a protection of female health or well-being (although it certainly included those things); it was an active assertion by a vital and underrepresented part of the American workforce that they had a right to the same liberties and securities that their male counterparts already enjoyed. It was also labor’s “toe in the door,” a precedent establishing the right of laborers to be free from overwork. This fact was not lost on employers, who attacked the bill with more ferocity—and money—than any other single piece of pro-labor legislation. It was the crusade against women’s labor protections that first caused employers in Illinois to organize, spawning the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association.

For over a quarter of a century, this battle was waged with an uncanny regularity, argued in every session of the Illinois General Assembly from 1909 to 1937. But what was the Women’s Eight Hour bill? How did it come to be so important, and what did it mean to the working women of Illinois? And how would Reuben take on this task?

WHO WAS AFFECTED

It may seem odd to modern Americans that early progressives like Soderstrom sought bills creating special rules singling out working women. For many early feminists and their supporters, however, such legislation wasn’t about treating women differently. Just the opposite; these bills sought to ensure fairness. In early twentieth century America, women often failed to receive equal protection under the law (this was, after all, a society that had only recently recognized the right of female suffrage). Many factory owners exploited this vulnerability by working female laborers far longer than men for considerably less pay. Reuben and his fellow progressives, including prominent social reformers like Jane Addams and Agnes Nestor, supported the Women’s Eight Hour bill not because they believed that women should work less than men—in fact, Reuben and the Illinois State Federation of Labor (ISFL) supported hour limitation bills for all workers—but because they sought to empower them in the workplace.

From its earliest, the story of women at work in America is rife with tales of discrimination, scapegoating, and abuse. As early as 1820, employers were hiring women and children as a way to cut wages without shorting hours.[1] By 1837, women could be found in the workshops of over 100 different industries, largely forced into factory life by bouts of economic depression.[2] According to their own writings and testimony, these ladies routinely worked fourteen to sixteen hours a day—longer than their male peers—for less than two dollars a week. At that wage, many of them were “forced to abandon their virtue” simply to survive.[3] Social pariahs, these “factory girls” enjoyed few prospects and even fewer protections. The damp factory air was rife with disease, the “constant din of clattering looms” covering the “low, hollow cough [which] told that consumption was busy.”[4] Others were maimed by machinery, their hands “mangled so that they could never use them again.”[5] Those lucky enough to avoid such fates still had to deal with near-constant abuse from the factory overseer. “Oh, it gets worse and worse,” Miss B., a 20-year veteran of the factory system, told a reporter in 1844. “We are worried all the time—we live in fear of his abuse.”[6]

Over time, some working women began to organize. Many of these early unions, such as the Female Labor Reform Association, were formed specifically to establish limits on the women’s workday. Working in concert with working men’s associations, these groups secured 10-hour workday laws in some early states, but progress was slow and unsteady. They also shared a complicated relationship with their male counterparts, who tended to view them as competition. Despite this tension, the male-dominated American labor movement largely worked hand-in-hand with working women, particularly in the push for hour limitation laws. By 1900, thirteen states had laws limiting the hours of women in factories.[7]

Illinois had been one of the early adopters of women’s labor legislation. In 1892, the General Assembly, responding to pressure from the Illinois State Federation of Labor (ISFL) and Jane Addams of Hull House, enacted an Eight Hour Women’s bill. Its success was short-lived, however. Outraged employers formed the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association (IMA) specifically to undo the law. They took the law to court, and two years later the Illinois Supreme Court found it unconstitutional on the grounds that it violated the rights of women—who supported the law in overwhelming numbers—to freely make contracts with employers.[8]

Although the United States Supreme Court eventually reversed the Illinois Court’s decision in a related case, the IMA proved to be a lasting and powerful enemy. When the ISFL and the Women’s Trade Union League of Chicago jointly introduced a Women’s Eight Hour Limitation Bill in 1909, the IMA used all available resources to ensure its defeat. They launched a shrewd campaign, casting the bill as “class warfare legislation” designed to “harm our women employees by denying them the right to use their option in working overtime.”[9] While the IMA defeated the eight hour version of the bill, labor was still able to pass a compromise 10-Hour Limitation Act. Though better than nothing, the law offered precious little protection; a decade after its passage a full 67% of women in Illinois worked nine hours or more a day, and 45% of women worked more than 48 hours per week.[10]

These long hours were particularly burdensome on women, whose work often didn’t end when they left the factory floor. As reported in a study by the Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), “The investigation proved conclusively that married women and mothers of families return to their homes at the end of the day… to meet all those duties to which the average housewife devotes most of her day.[11]” The group of affected women was as diverse as it was large. They were young and old, involved in manufacturing, agriculture, and transportation.[12] By Reuben’s time, most of these women had no choice but to work. A 1928 US DOL analysis found that only a small percentage of women reported working out of a desire to follow a chosen occupation or simply to get out of the home. Most labored simply to provide the extra income needed to keep their families out of poverty (though still far below the “American Standard”).[13] Unmarried girls frequently gave their families their entire paychecks, only getting back what was left after the families’ needs were met.[14] For the majority of working women, these jobs were not an opportunity for empowerment but a consequence of oppression. They were forced to work extraordinary hours under terrible conditions for wages they would largely never see.

Such work was not only unfair but dangerous. A 1925 DOL study found that 10% of working women suffered permanent injuries on the job, most commonly the loss of digits. Of those injured, a full 80% had no choice but to return to the same employer that had harmed them, although a quarter of them were forced to do so for less pay. Worse still, a full fifth of those maimed were fired for their loss, as employers estimated they could earn more from “fresh meat.”[15]

Those who survived disfigurement by machines still faced danger from disease. The stale air, dank water, and lack of hygiene pushed communicable illnesses to near epidemic proportions. Women working the mills were twice as likely as their non-working counterparts to die from tuberculosis, and those who didn’t die outright from disease frequently succumbed to its complications. The death rate for women in childbirth was several times greater among working women compared to those not confined to factories.[16] Unsurprisingly, these dangers followed women home. When a mother was forced to work grueling hours, the entire family often paid the price. DOL studies found the infant mortality rate among working mothers exceeded that of non-working mothers by over 40%.[17] These problems weren’t limited to urban environments. Although women laboring in big cities like Chicago received a lot of the media attention, small-town women often fared worse. Women who worked for wages in small mining towns, located in isolated sections of the state without access to “traditional” women’s work, were largely reliant on factory jobs. A study by the Women’s Bureau in 1921 discovered the problem of long hours for women had spread across the state from large cities into smaller areas.[18] Reub’s hometown of Streator was not exempt from this epidemic. Many local women and girls worked at the Hoban factory, the telephone company, numerous department stores, and other jobs out of economic necessity. Very few belonged to a union or worked under the protection of a collective bargaining agreement.

POLITICAL PARALYSIS

Given the burden this lack of women’s workplace protections placed on so many Illinois families, it’s hardly surprising that politicians of all stripes professed their support for the Women’s Eight Hour bill. Various Illinois legislators from 1910 onward proposed various eight-hour laws. Some attempted to forbid any interstate commerce by Illinois companies that employed women more than eight hours a day; others tried to apply the law to selected industries. Both major political parties declared their support for eight hour bills. The 1916 Illinois Republican platform proclaimed, “We favor a further limitation for legal hours of labor for women.”[19] Illinois Democrats followed suit with a party plank of their own, announcing, “We favor an eight hour day for all men and women engaged in industrial, non-agricultural employment, as a legal day’s work.”[20] Every legislative session, a Women’s Eight Hour bill was introduced, some by Reuben himself.

Despite this wealth of professed support, the Women’s Eight Hour bill failed to pass a single session of the General Assembly. For 27 years, the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association used an effective mix of backroom meetings and public theatrics to repeatedly thwart the will of the majority of Illinois citizens. Whenever the bill came up for discussion, IMA Secretary JM Glenn would march a gang of (well-compensated) women up to Springfield to plead with legislators, claiming the bill would force them to work, and earn, less than they had a right to. This was typically followed by a series of employers who asserted such legislation would prove an “outrage on the liberties of the working women of this state which deprives them of the liberty of making a contract and robs them of a fifth of their earnings.”[21] It was, they proclaimed, a law with “no practical necessity” that was “simply a professional labor issue.”[22] Year after year, the IMA’s message—that the Women’s Eight Hour bill was a cynical tool of corrupt labor leaders pushing legislation that was radical, untested, unnecessary, and potentially harmful—never wavered.

Soderstrom, of course, rejected this argument outright. He denounced the hypocrisy of manufacturers who had no qualms about untested changes when they furthered their bottom line. “The eight hour day for women is far less radical…than the radical changes in the modern way of operating plants where womankind are employed,” he wrote. He also called the assertion that any worker, male or female, was clamoring to work ten hours a day complete bunk. “No thoughtful person honestly believes that there is any need for a longer work day. In fact, the human family does not need stockings, shirts, clocks, telephone, restaurant, or hotel service bad enough to justify the employer working a woman more than eight hours a day.”[23] As for dire warnings that the bill would impact women in unforeseen and potentially disastrous ways, Reuben had a simple answer—the democratic system:

The Illinois legislature meets every two years. What is done in this session can be undone in the next legislative session. Surely an eight hour restriction…is sound enough to be given a trial. If the Women’s Eight Hour bill proves detrimental to the womankind of Illinois they can amend the act back where it was before the eight hour proposal was enacted. If employers find the restriction impossible to bear they can fight for its repeal at a future session. Obviously, there can be no grave danger in trying out an eight-hour law for women.[24]

THE WAY FORWARD

The Women’s Eight Hour bill languished in the General Assembly for over a quarter century. Despite the combined efforts of the ISFL and the Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL), the bill’s main sponsor, the General Assembly failed to further this essential protection. Women’s Rights advocates struggled their entire lives for this cause, sadly passing before realizing their dream. By 1937, the torch first carried by early luminaries like Jane Addams and Mary McDowell had been passed down to a new generation of leaders such as Chicago WTUL President Agnes Nestor and Illinois WTUL President Mary Halas.

The legislative fight for this landmark bill grew even more complex after Soderstrom’s 1936 ouster from the Illinois House. During his time in office, Reuben often worked alongside Representative Lottie O’Neil to pass bills affecting women, scouring the floor alongside her to secure votes. Although they had yet to pass the Women’s Eight Hour bill through the Senate, they had successfully passed it through their own chamber. Now, without the advantage of his seat, Reuben would be unable to work the Illinois House floor at those crucial moments. Despite this, there was still much working in Soderstrom’s favor. While his seat was gone, the 1937 legislature was more labor-friendly than it had ever been. Democrats held record majorities in the House and Senate, providing a golden opportunity for those seeking to pass the bill. Furthermore, while Soderstrom was not allowed on the floor himself, he still had lieutenants ready to act on his behalf. In many respects, Reuben’s loss was labor’s gain; free from his responsibilities in the House, Soderstrom could now give his full attention to the more problematic Senate.

Most importantly, Soderstrom had the support of working women across the state. By 1937, the women’s movement was more energized and optimistic than ever before. Buoyed by the firm conviction that history was on their side, they acted with renewed enthusiasm and optimism. This “victory spirit” carried through in their speeches and marches, and could even be heard in their rallying songs. Pairing well-known tunes with activist lyrics, these little ditties offered a tongue-in-cheek celebration of the cause. One of the most popular of these, sung to “Working on the Railroad,” illustrated both the longevity and wit of the cause:

We’ve been working down in Springfield Twenty-seven years We’ve been working down in Springfield Just to get the members’ ears When the house would heed our story Some Senators were goats, Twenty-seven years we’ve labored, Just to get twenty-six votes![25]

This year, Reuben declared, labor would win those twenty-six votes.

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