Women's Work and Public Policy: A History of the Women's Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor, 1945-1970

Abstract

Editorial note: The opinions expressed herein are exclusively those of the author and should not be construed as official statements of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. While the woman suffrage and prohibition amendments to the Constitution became the law of the land, the Women's Bureau came into being charged to do the empirical work on women and the workplace that Progressive Era reformers believed could reform society. Despite the many political twists and turns of the twentieth century, this battered bureau not only has provided some of the very best data for women's labor historians but also has provided important service and support for working women and their allies. Kathleen A. Laughlin's book provides ample evidence of the importance of this bureaucratic agency throughout the post-World War II period, and this history is more important than ever. President George W. Bush's recent $1.3 trillion tax cut may force the elimination of ten regional offices of the U.S. Department of Labor's Women's Bureau. One newspaper reporting on this recently described the important work the Women's Bureau still does, “closing the pay gap between men and women, increasing women's access to nontraditional occupations, and educating women about their legal protections against workplace abuse” (Robert A. Jordan, “Fallout from Bush's Tax Plan,” Boston Globe, Jan. 8, 2002, p. D4; see also Tamar Lewin, “Bush May End Offices Dealing with Women's Issues, Groups Say,” New York Times, Dec. 19, 2001, p. 23).