Lizabeth Cohen is one of our most prominent historians of the mid-20th century. Now that we are in the early stages of what looks like the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, we are hear
Above: General Electric president Gerald Swope David Leonhart had a piece in the Times yesterday that repeats a commonly-held notion about the mid-century American economy: that CEO’s were kindl
On July 28, 1933, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins gave a speech in Homestead, Pennsylvania. When the town’s political leaders discovered she wanted to speak to workers outside the designated
Above: Works Progress Administration project, Utah Mittens’ daughter is pretty bright. From open borders to government-guaranteed jobs, today’s Democrats are no longer the party of FDR. ht
Above: Elsie Parrish On March 29, 1937, the Supreme Court decided the case of West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish. This 5-4 decision upheld Washington’s minimum wage law for women as constitutio
This is the grave of Hugh Johnson. Born in Fort Scott, Kansas in 1881, Johnson’s grew up in Oklahoma. His family worked to get him into West Point, which the young man desperately wanted. When i
On May 17, 1933, Rep. Robert Houghton, a North Carolina Democrat, introduced H.R. 5755 into the House. This would become the National Industrial Recovery Act, the first comprehensive attempt to fix th
On April 2, 1937, workers at the Hershey Chocolate Corporation in Hershey, Pennsylvania sat down on the job. Following the lead of the General Motors workers in Flint, Michigan a few months earlier, t