| This dissertation examines the first federal labor policy in American history. It concentrates on the programs devised by policymakers during the World War I era. It argues that labor policymakers fashioned a set of "soft" labor policies separate from hard-nosed dispute resolution. While mediation aimed to resolve conflict, soft labor policy sought to prevent it.; Chapters One and Two trace the new policy from the origins of the Labor Department to the first Wilson administration. Proponents of a labor agency argued both that it was just and would help reduce unemployment and labor strife. The first Labor Department struggled to find its way amid the ambivalent Wilson administration. Still, peacetime labor policy exhibited a tendency to respond only to crisis.; Chapter Three discusses the government's response to the crisis of wartime labor shortage. Labor officials borrowed from progressive business leaders when creating the first program to coordinate the labor market, and when fostering industrial training, employment management, wage stabilization, and propaganda initiatives aimed to maximize production and minimize dissent.; Chapters Four and Five explore Washington's policies toward women, Black, and Mexican workers. In each case, the government worked to minimize threats to labor market stability and to prevailing racial and gender systems. Chapter Six examines the first federal housing program for working-class Americans. Businessmen and reformers joined to create working-class communities intended to spur production, to promote thrift and to foster social cohesion.; Although political retrenchment and the return of the buyer's market for labor effectively ended wartime programs by 1920, wartime soft labor policy claims a significant position in twentieth century America. The nation's first labor policy also reveals much about the relationship between the state, labor, and capital. In its pursuit of higher worker productivity and lower levels of social disruption, the government chose an agenda that meshed well with the interests of employers. Many of the soft labor initiatives including the housing program and the promotion of employment management grew from employer experiments and left a mark on private sector development. Wartime labor policy set a tone that would persist into the 1930s. |
