Frances Perkins: “Three Decades: A History of the Department of Labor”

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On March 4, 1913, when the President approved the act creating the present Department of Labor, the dream of workers for nearly half a century for a separate department to promote the welfare of workers and a Secretary in the Cabinet to speak for them became a reality. Under the act all the activities relating to labor of the former Department of Commerce and Labor were transferred to the new Department of Labor. The Bureau of Labor became the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Immigration was divided into two bureaus, the Bureau of Immigration and the Bureau of Naturalization, and the Children’s Bureau retained its original title. The Bureau of Labor Statistics was charged with the collection of “statistics of the conditions of labor and the products and distribution of the products of the same.”

The Department of Labor was created in the interest of the wage-earners of the United States, the organic act expressly declaring that “the purpose of the Department of Labor shall be to foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage-earners of the United States, to improve their working conditions, and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment.”…

During the thirty years since its creation the Department of Labor has steadfastly kept in mind the main purpose of the Department, that of service to the wage-earners of the United States. In the years following World War I the people of the nation enjoyed a period of great prosperity, emerged from a great depression and are now carrying on a greater war. The functions of the Department during these periods have developed according to the changing concept of the nation’s responsibility for the welfare of its workers.…

The Department’s service to immigrants, which on its organization was centered in two bureaus, the Bureau of Immigration and the Bureau of Naturalization, underwent radical changes during the years.… In 1933 the two bureaus were consolidated for greater efficiency and called the Immigration and Naturalization Service.…

The Children’s Bureau expanded its field so that its work covers every phase of child welfare, from prenatal care to protection of the child worker. It also administers the provisions of the Social Security Act under which federal grants-in-aid are made available to the states for maternal and child-welfare services, and also the federal funds granted for crippled children’s services, and cooperates with the states in establishing services for protection and care of homeless, dependent and neglected children and children in danger of becoming delinquent in areas of special need.…

As early as 1918 the principle of collective bargaining was recognized by the President’s Mediation Commission, of which the Secretary of Labor was chairman, and under the NRA [National Recovery Administration] in 1933–35 the principle was accepted as a policy and administrative machinery provided through the creation of the National Labor Relations Board. In recent years it has become the established policy of the government to consult with trade unions and industrial management in matters affecting their interests. The advice of labor is sought on questions of wages and working conditions and also on the broad social problems confronting the people.

The Employment Service after the war carried on its activities through cooperation with state and municipal offices, but its main service was placement of seasonal and general farmhands through the harvest season and junior placement work.… In 1933 the United States Employment Service was reorganized upon the terms of the Wagner-Peyser Act, and the special facilities for veterans and farm placement incorporated therein. Under this act USES supervises and coordinates a series of affiliated state employment services providing complete, public, free employment-office facilities to workers. In 1939 the Employment Service was transferred to the Social Security Board. In the six years the Employment Service operated under the Wagner-Peyser Act in the Department of Labor, it made over 26,000,000 placements, thus bringing together workers in search of jobs and employers in search of workers.…

The Division of Labor Standards was established in the Department of Labor in November, 1934, to encourage greater uniformity in state labor legislation and to provide facilities for research and advice available to states on matters pertaining to labor legislation, safety codes and the improvement of labor conditions. The Division has worked for improvement of labor standards through conferences and advisory committees. It promotes apprenticeship standards and encourages training a limited supply of apprentices. It also promotes safety in industry and industrial-disease prevention.

Important new functions were granted to the Department of Labor by the Public Contracts Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act, both of which were measures designed to reduce unemployment and better working conditions. The first act requires not over 40 hours and a fair minimum pay on government contracts in manufacturing, while the second establishes on a federal basis a floor to wages and a ceiling to hours, affecting an estimated 12,300,000 persons.…

In the thirty years in which the United States Department of Labor has striven to be of service to the wage-earners of the nation, it has been instrumental not only in administering ever-increasing functions of benefit to workers but in promoting social legislation and programs of inestimable service to all working people.