Women's Bureau
The Women's Bureau was originally a government office organized in 1918 as a war agency of the Department of Labor and named the Women in Industry Service. As part of its initial mission the Women's Bureau developed the first U.S. standards for the employment of women workers during World War I. After the war, women's organizations successfully lobbied Congress to establish the bureau permanently, and Congress established the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor on June 5, 1920.
Its functions, as specified in the act (41 Stat.L., 987), were "to formulate standards and policies which shall promote the welfare of wage-earning women, improve their working conditions, increase their efficiency, and advance their opportunities for profitable employment". Mary Anderson, a member of the Chicago boot and shoe union and a founder of the Chicago Women's Trade Union League, was the first director. Anderson's papers are held at the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America.
Historically, the Bureau has been linked to middle-class women's organizations and working-class trade unions. These organizations were for the most part made up of white women and committed to what historians term "maternalist" policies designed to protect women workers. The Bureau had little success in lobbying for minimum wage legislation and other protections for women throughout the 1920s and 1930s. However, it worked in collaboration with organizations such as the National Consumer's League and the Women's Educational and Industrial Union to produce a large body of ground breaking research on women wage earners and advocate on behalf of women workers and their families. The Bureau's data on women workers aided both the National Recovery Act during the New Deal Era and the National War Labor Board during World War II.
The Women's Bureau is still working today.
For the current mission of the Women's Bureau see: The US Department of Labor Women's Bureau, Mission and Vision Statements.
For its most recent history see: Milestones: The Women's Bureau Celebrates 70 Years of Women's Labor History.
Bibliography of the History of the Women's Bureau in the Open Collections Program
Weber, Gustavus Adolphus. The Women's Bureau: its history, activities, and organization. Baltimore, MD.: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1923.
The Women's Bureau. Activities of the Women's Bureau of the United States. Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1931.
The Women's Bureau. Annual report of the director of the Women's Bureau for the fiscal year ended June 30. Washington: G.P.O., 1920-1932.
The Women's Bureau. Fact Finding with the Women's Bureau. Bulletin no. 84. [N.p., n.d.].
Bulletins of the Women's Bureau in the Open Collections Program