How Workplace Safety Influenced Labor Day: Celebrating the American Worker with Randy Klatt

Back in 1892, President Grover Cleveland signed a law making the first Monday in September of each year the Labor Day holiday. Do you know the history and the struggle of the American worker that pre-dates this historic day? On this podcast, Randy Klatt, Director or Region 2 Loss Control here at MEMIC helps me explore what it was like to be a worker in the late eighteen and early nineteen hundreds and workplace injuries, fatalities, child labor, and deplorable conditions were the catalysts for fair wages, the 8 hour workday, and workplace safety.

Links and Resources:

• Wage Trends, 1800-1900 (nber.org)

•  Age of workers:

Lewis Hine - Photographer

• These Appalling Images Exposed Child Labor in America - HISTORY
• The Photographs of Lewis Hine: The Industrial Revolution and Child Laborers [Photo Gallery] | EHS Today
• Teaching With Documents: Photographs of Lewis Hine: Documentation of Child Labor | National Archives
• Search Results: "Hine, Lewis Wickes, 1874-1940" - Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (Library of Congress) (loc.gov)
• Search Results: "" - Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (Library of Congress) (loc.gov)

• Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999: Improvements in Workplace Safety -- United States, 1900-1999 (cdc.gov)

• History of Workplace Safety — SafetyLine Lone Worker

• Deadliest Workplace Accidents | American Experience | Official Site | PBS

• Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire - HISTORY

• Child Workers and Workplace Accidents: What was the Price Paid for Industrializing America? – Our Great American Heritage

• (1857) Frederick Douglass, "If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress" • (blackpast.org)

• Haymarket Riot - HISTORY

• https://www.dol.gov/general/laborday/history

• Labor Day 2021: Facts, Meaning & Founding - HISTORY

• History of Labor Day | U.S. Department of Labor (dol.gov)

• Deadliest Workplace Accidents | American Experience | Official Site | PBS

• History of the Holidays: Labor Day | History

• #82 - Comparative wages, prices, and cost of living : (from the Sixteenth ... - Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library

• History of The US Minimum Wage - From The Very First Minimum Wage (bebusinessed.com)

• Profile of work injuries incurred by young workers (bls.gov)

• History of Workplace Safety in the United States, 1880-1970 (eh.net)

The MEMIC Safety Experts Podcast hosted by Peter Koch will interview industry leaders on the trends, tools, and techniques that are tried, tested, or emerging in the world of workplace safety. What you learn could save your life or the life of a friend or coworker, or at least save everyone from a few unnecessary cuts, burns and bruises. Thank you for joining us in our mission to make work, and the world, a safer place.

You can find the MEMIC Safety Experts Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or right here on MEMIC.com/podcast.

Have a topic idea? Email [email protected]