A catalyst for reform: The Women's Joint Legislative Conference (WJLC) and its fight for labor legislation in New York State, 1918--1933

Historians have usually considered the 1920s as a decade when the progressive impulse died. This dissertation argues that the Women's Joint Legislative Conference (WJLC) constituted a catalyst for reform from 1918 through 1933 by successfully passing two important measures for working women in the New York State legislature: a 48-hour bill and a minimum wage measure. The WJLC countered its conservative opposition by establishing alliances with working women and the New York State Democratic Party.; Formed in September 1918, the WJLC initially propounded an ambitious agenda of hours and minimum wage legislation for working women, as well as health insurance for all New York State private employees. The Conference's agenda stalemated from 1919 through 1922 because of the efforts of a powerful counternetwork of the state National Woman's Party (NWP), Republican legislators, and business interests. Put on the defensive, the WJLC became a cautious, middle-class organization that emphasized legislative lobbying.; By early 1925, when Conference ally Governor Alfred E. Smith vetoed a pro-business hours law, WJLC leaders realized that they needed a “new” strategy. Combining the old tactics of grassroots mobilization and legislative lobbying with a new partnership with the New York State Democratic Party, Mary Elizabeth Dreier, Rose Schneiderman and Eleanor Roosevelt successfully promoted the passage of a 48-hour bill for working women in March 1927. Six years later, Schneiderman and Molly Dewson of the Consumers' League of New York combined their efforts to promote a minimum wage for working women by the “force of law.” Despite the opposition of the state NWP and Republican legislators, Governor Herbert H. Lehman signed the Conference-sponsored measure in April 1933.; When Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in March 1933, WJLC leaders such as Frances Perkins, Schneiderman, and Dewson took the Conference's hours and wages agenda to the national stage, ultimately leading to the successful passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Thus the WJLC effectively bridged the Progressive Era and the New Deal.