When it comes to criticizing how we govern ourselves, there’s nothing more annoying than suggesting that the government needs to be run like a business.
I will never understand why people have accepted this idea, let alone promoted it. It’s a simple concept—businesses exist to generate a profit, while the government exists for the common good. If we ran the government as a business, we would experience a system controlled by “the market,” and “the market” would determine who wins and who doesn’t.
This week, we celebrate the enactment of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which took place on October 24, 1940, a perfect example of the government actually liking the government and serving the people’s best interest.
After the Civil War, veterans and once-enslaved people flooded the workforce. Over the next few decades, America’s economy went from rural farming to urban industrialization. This shift was significant for a variety of reasons, but not always so great for the people, like women and children, who went to work in textile mills for long hours and little pay.
By the turn of the 20th century, it was common for the average American to work almost 60 hours a week. Employers would give workers Sunday off because of the Lord, and sometimes, people got a half-day on Saturday. But during the week, people grinded away for 12—to 14-hour work days.
Labor reformers were hopeful to change the overall structure of the work week, but they were helped by an unlikely ally who showed how work could be done that benefited everyone.
Henry Ford incorporated the Ford Motor Company in 1903. Then, in 1908, he introduced the first mass-produced vehicle. By 1916, he kept going and announced that he would pay people $5 an hour for a five-day work week. People may have thought that Henry Ford eliminated two days from the work week because they couldn’t believe it.
Despite “The Market” doing something that helped Labor, the five-day work week still had a long way to go before it became a settled matter. What helped it along was an economic disaster in late 1929, which ushered in President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his determination that Americans get a New Deal.
As part of solving the labor problem of 25% unemployment, and those who did work did so under terrible conditions and long hours, FDR needed a woman to make all of this disappear. So he appointed Frances Perkins, the first woman cabinet member, Secretary of Labor.
They went to work immediately, passing laws that curbed the hours of child labor and raised the minimum wage. The Supreme Court struck down much of the progress, but Perkins—well, she persisted.
Eight hours for labor, eight hours for recreation, and eight hours for sleep is now the standard, even if it doesn’t feel like the standard.
Okay, let’s highlight what else happened this week. As a reminder, these events celebrate their anniversary, ending in 5 or 0. Here’s what I got:
1. 25,000 women marched in New York City, demanding the right to vote on October 23, 1915. Women secured the right to vote in 13 states, and by the time tens of thousands descended Fifth Avenue and walked five miles to demand that we skip to the end and make it a national thing. The referendum they hoped to pass in New York failed, and it would take another four years before the 19th Amendment was ratified (#5 in the OKH Amendment rankings).
2. Rosa Parks died on October 24, 2005. The Civil rights activist rose to fame for her refusal to move to the back of a public bus when a white man got on and told her to move, as the law at the time allowed. Her defiance launched a movement and terrible analogies that continue to this day, where every perceived grievance is a “Rosa Parks” moment. She was 92.
3. The US Supreme Court ruled to allow teachers to spank students even against their parents’ wishes on October 20, 1975. I attended public school until the third grade, and the 6th-grade teacher at the elementary school was a notorious paddler. I still have traumatic flashbacks of kids lining up against the hallway like they were about to be frisked by police, but instead were going to be beaten by a wooden object from a public employee. Can you believe we allowed this nonsense to happen? Oh wait, beating students is still permitted in Texas, Tennessee, Lousiana, are you seeing a pattern here, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Oklahoma, I’m going to stop.
Okay, two more anniversaries that I can’t pass up.
On October 26, 2005, the Chicago White Sox swept the Houston Astros to win their first World Series in 88 years. Game 1 had a special guest: longtime White Sox fan Robert Prevest, who, twenty years later, would become Pope Leo XIV.
Can my Cleveland Guardians get this divine intervention at some point, please?
One last thing - The Erie Canal opened on October 26, 1825. The waterway connected Lake Erie to the Hudson River. It helped make New York City the biggest port in the country, as goods became cheaper because distribution became easier. The canal system expanded further when the Ohio-Erie Canal connected Cleveland and Lake Erie to Portsmouth, Ohio, and the Ohio River. My hometown in Ohio is named after the Canal, and it used to roll right in the middle of it. Now, you can enjoy some bad bar food at a place called Shade on the Canal.
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It’s traveling week. We are having some work done on our house today and tomorrow, and then we are traveling down to Charlottesville, VA, to look at trees, if I understood the assignment from Anonymous. But I will be back with an interesting Unyielding edition, so just a heads up, only paid subscribers will see the entire essay.
Have a great week, and thanks again for supporting Okay History.
Okay,
Chris
