by: Nate

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 15:02:52 +0000

hey there WO, nice to hear from you. I’m not sure on the etymology of mangle. I know that they eventually changed the name of the machine at least in England, just calling it an ironing machine, cuz of that association. More soon, I’m trying to get ready to head out of town (first thing tomorrow morning), let’s hang out after January 1! (please)
take care,
Nate

by: WO

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 02:48:08 +0000

mangled, then, is an etymological result of these sort of incidents? or was the machine known by that name because it would mangle?

by: Nate

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:39:35 +0000

[1] Arwen Mohun, Steam Laundries: Gender, Technology, and Work in the United States and Britain, 1880-1940. Baltimore: John’s Hopkins University Press, 1999; Blom v. Yellowstone, 28, 37.
[2] Blom v. Yellowstone, 46-50.
[3] Julian Go,” Inventing Industrial Accidents and Their Insurance: Discourse and Workers’ Compensation in the United States, 1880s-1910s,” Social Science History, Vol. 20, No. 3. (Autumn, 1996), 425.
[4] James Weinstein, “Big Business and the Origins of Workmen’s Compensation,” Labor History, VIII (Spring, 1967), 157.
[5] Donald Rogers, “From Common Law to Factory Laws: The Transformation of Workplace Safety Law in Wisconsin before Progressivism,” The American Journal of Legal History, Vol. 39, No. 2. (April, 1995), 179.
[6] Rogers, 189.
[7] Tomlins, Christopher, “A Mysterious Power: Industrial Accidents and the Legal Construction of Employment Relations in Massachussetts, 1800-1850,” Law and History Review, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Fall 1998), 387.
[8] See for example Alice Kessler-Harris, In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in 20th-Century America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001; Louise Tilly and Patricia Gurin, Women, Politics and Change, New York: Russel Sage Foundation, 1990.
[9] See for example Tomlins, “A Mysterious Power.”
[10] On Workers’ Compensation see Asher, Go, Weinstein, Witt. On protective and welfare legislation see Tilly and Gurin, Kessler-Harris, Novkov. I argue that in the time period this paper focuses on, women who brought suit for workplace injuries negotiated a terrain in which labor was free and freedom was masculine. I would like to be able to frame this argument more convincingly in relation to the history of freedom and capitalism in the United States, told from a perspective focused on women and gender. At this point I am not able to do so except in a somewhat speculative fashion. I am familiar primarily with two works that are relevant here , Amy Dru-Stanley’s From Bondage to Contract and Barbara Welke’s Recasting American Liberty.
[11] In Minnesota this transition took ten years. Under the 1913 Workmen’s Compensation law, district courts administered injury cases. Critics said that this replicated many of the problems of dealing with injury via private lawsuits, and so pressed for the implementation of a special Industrial Commission to hear workplace injury cases in place of courts. This was implemented in 1923. Robert Asher, “Radicalism and Reform: State Insurance of Workmen’s Compensation in Minnesota, 1910-1933,” Labor History, No. 14. (1973), 34-35.
[12] Even if that change was ultimately positive, how women’s injury cases played out prior to the change is still a neglected area of scholarship. This paper does not focus on assessing the degree to which the shift away from individual lawsuits was and was not a positive development for women and/or for male workers. I merely sketch one small part of what happened in this era, the courtroom dynamics in some women’s injury lawsuits. Another neglected area of scholarship is the degree to which women’s injury cases did or did not shape subsequent developments. I speculate on this briefly at the end of this paper. There are basically two possibilities. Either women’s injury suits played a role in subsequent developments or they stand as an option which existed and then closed, a sort of historical road not taken which did not influence later development. In either case, they do not appear to have been studied.
[13] Blom v. Yellowstone Park Association, 49.
[14] Jensen v. Regan, 19.
[15] McInerny v. St. Luke’s Hospital Association
[16] Welke, 236.
[17] Blom v. Yellowstone Park Association, 50.
[18] Blom v. Yellowstone Park Association, 11.
[19] Raasch v. Elite Laundry Co, 86.
[20] Raasch v. Elite Laundry Co, 87.
[21] Carlyn v. Kennedy, 71.
[22] Ludwig v. Spicer, 209.
[23] Ads run by laundry owners in Minneapolis newspapers for jobs available for “girls” in the female help wanted section as well.
[24] Graseth v. Northwestern Knitting Co, 1; 13.
[25] Raasch v. Elite Laundry Co., 2.
[26] Ludwig v. Spicer, 116; see also 223, 233, 245, 249.
[27] Ludwig v. Spicer, 403-429.
[28] Ludwig v. Spicer, 404.
[29] Ludwig v. Spicer, 412.
[30] Ludwig v. Spicer, 428.
[31] Welke, 235.
[32] Ludwig v. Spicer, 373-374.
[33] Jensen v. Regan, 5.
[34] Jensen v. Regan, 6.
[35] Jensen v. Regan, 7.
[36] Maki v. St. Luke’s Hospital Association, 334.
[37] Maki v. St. Luke’s Hospital Association, 336.
[38] See Stanley; Welke.
[39] Welke, 44.
[40] Stanley, 2.
[41] Blom v. Yellowstone Park Association, 67.
[42] See decision in Blom v. Yellowstone.
[43] The loss of wages also forced the “girls” to rely on their actual families. In the cases I looked at, if they had been living away from home all of the “girls” returned to live with relatives after their injury, usually their parents. The relatives helped care for the injured “girls.” Their injuries rendered them more dependent and vulnerable, more stereotypically feminine.
[44] Amy Dru Stanley, From Bondage to Contract: Wage Labor, Marriage, and the Market in the Age of Slave Emancipation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998; 59.
[45] John Fabian Witt, The Accidental Republic: Crippled Workingmen, Destitute Widows, and Remaking of American Law, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004; 35. See also Stanley 175-217; Jeanne Boydston, Home and Work.
[46] Witt, 6.
[47] Welke, 235.
[48] Judges regularly reminded jurors that they could take pain and suffering into account in the amount of damages they awarded, if they chose to find for plaintiffs. At the same time, judges also stressed to juries that they should make decisions based on the facts rather than on sympathy. This strikes me as a contradiction, in that monetary amounts for pain is precisely a calculation of relative sympathy for suffering. See for example Carlin v. Kennedy, 406-407. Daniel Lawler, a defense attorney similarly reminded the jury that while “sympathy is a great factor in human affairs,” the jury was not to judge the case on their sympathies. He described the plaintiff’s attorney as “appeal[ing] to your [the jury’s] sympathies in this case as probably very few men at the bar of this court are able to appeal,” then stated that Pinch was not the only person with sympathy for Ludwig. He expressed his own sympathy, and that of the defendant, then reminded jurors again to decide not based on sympathy but on “the cold, hard, strict rules of law.” Raasch v. Elite Laundry Co., 398-401.
[49] Compensation for lost wages is an argument which women’s and men’s injury cases have in common. I have not done the comparative research yet, but expect arguments for compensation of pain and suffering as well as a sense of welfare also are present in men’s cases, but to a lesser degree. On the last of these, welfare, it strikes me that the implied argument about welfare was ultimately an appeal that jurors should grant awards because of the fact of injury. If their statements to the jury are any indication, judges worried that this was the case. Judges reminded juries that being injured was not in itself grounds for compensation. See for example McInerny v. St. Luke’s Hospital Association, 310.
[50] Welke, 65.
[51] Blom v. Yellowstone Park Association, 49.
[52] Ludwig v. Spicer, 428.
[53] Carlin v. Kennedy, 11.
[54] Carlin v. Kennedy, 24.
[55] Carlin v. Kennedy, 70-71 in appellant’s brief.
[56] Carlin v. Kennedy, 11.
[57] Carlin v. Kennedy, 23 in respondent’s brief.
[58] Graseth v. Northwestern Knitting Co., 18-19.
[59] I take the term “gendered imagination” from Kessler-Harris.
[60] See Boydston; Stanley.
[61] Mohun described laundries as “unusual among industrial workplace” for their 70% female workforce. Mohun, 95.
[62] Mohun, Steam Laundries¸ 104.
[63] “Women Laundry Workers In New York,” in Clark and Wyatt, 183.
[64] New York Factory Investigating Committee, Preliminary Report of the Factory Investigating Committee, v3, (Albany 1912) p1951 and v1 p282. Quoted in Leslie Woodcock Tentler, Wage-Earning Women: Industrial Work and Family Life in the United States, 1900-1930. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979; 41.
[65] “Women Laundry Workers In New York,” in Clark and Wyatt, 179
[66] Richardson, 280.
[67] “Women Laundry Workers In New York,” in Clark and Wyatt, 189.
[68] Richardson 242, 246, 279.
[69] United States Senate, 15.
[70] “Women Laundry Workers In New York,” in Clark and Wyatt, 196-197.
[71] Kelley, “Industrial Democracy,” 108-109.
[72] “Women Laundry Workers In New York,” in Clark and Wyatt, 206-207.
[73] Richardson, 233-234.
[74] United States Senate, 52; 54.
[75] Welke, 196.
[76] Considered as a percentage of damages sought, damages awarded as follows: Carlin = 50%, Ludwig = 33% (approx), Raasch = 62%, Dahly =15%, McInerny =27% (approx), Graseth = 48%.
[77] Here are the cases from which the table is drawn. Small v. Brainerd Lumber Company, Shalgren v. Red Cliff Lumber Company, Hagerty v. St. Paul Brick Company, Larson v. Charles F. Haglin, Miller v. Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company, William Snyder v. Waldorf Box Board Company, Lundberg v. Minneapolis Iron Store Company, Antone Zeuli v Foot, Schulze, & Company.
[78] I do not mean to extrapolate this into a larger claim that injured women workers won suits more often and won higher awards than men. I do suspect that this is the case, but establishing that would require much more extensive research. There are several other problems with the comparisons I make. First, it’s not clear how representative the cases are. I don’t know if cases decided by lower courts have the same odds or pay rates. Second, I don’t know how the odds and awards for these injuries compare to other types of injuries by women. Third, I don’t know how representative my sample of men is. Fourth, the men’s samples are not all from the same type of machine in the way that the women were all hurt on mangles. As a result, I do not intend to make hard claims using this information but rather to generate future research questions. At this point my comparisons between men’s and women’s workplace injury cases are suggestive rather than conclusive.
[79] Considered as a percentage of damages sought, damages awarded as follows: Shalgren=100%, Hagerty=17.5%, Larson=42%, Miller=43%.
[80] Welke, 43.
[81] Witt, 9.
[82] Witt, 12.
[83] All the cases I looked at were tried in the Minnesota Supreme Court. The trial transcripts for these cases are held in the University of Minnesota Law Library. The library call number of the bound volume containing the case is listed here in brackets for those cases that I have the call number for.

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by: Nate

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