"In 1920, Old Glory boasted only 48 stars, the country was two years removed from the First World War and it was the year of the 19th Amendment — which allowed women to make their voices heard at the voting booth. In that same year, Congress passed a law establishing the first government institution in the United States dedicated solely to the economic prosperity and well-being of women in the workplace, the Women’s Bureau.
At the time, the public may have considered a Women’s Bureau or even women’s suffrage a radical idea, but decades of brave women entering public life had already permanently altered American culture. In just a decade, from 1910 to 1920, the number of women in the workforce increased from 5 million to 8 million. In an era when the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire — where 123 women and girls lost their lives — was still fresh in the American psyche, it was evident that women deserved and were entitled to representation.
With Mary Anderson as its first leader, the Women’s Bureau charged forward representing women in industry and labor. In its first decade, the Women’s Bureau performed 87 studies on women in the workforce, including 16 state studies on women working in textile mills. According to Women’s Bureau Bulletin No. 63, published in 1929, women were nearly three times as likely to miss work because of home duties as men were.
A century later, the Women’s Bureau continues to study and address the challenges facing women. Today, those challenges include:
- What is the long-term impact of a pandemic on women workers?
- How does access to child care affect women’s careers?.."
Working women
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