Saturday, September 26, 2020

Willie Ray’s Brings Smiles to the Community Following the Storm


Iowa Legendary Rye

Willie Farley, of Willie Ray’s Q Shack, is the definition of someone who brings smiles and a ray of light in dark times. Willie is a prime example of someone who values and contributes to his community. He started the restaurant because ribs are his “signature move” in terms of cooking. He saved up his own money from his previous delivery business and was able to start up the shack. 

A dangerous wind storm swept over Iowa in August. This storm ruined crops, farms, houses, and left a depressive haze over the state. Willie’s first thought wasn’t to worry about his own problems or complain about his losses. Willie drove into the storm and after cleaning up the rubbish at the restaurant, he took the leftover ribs he had in his freezer, got out his grill, cooked them, and the following day the community ate well. 

community - willie rays q shack

Taking Care of His Community – Smiles and BBQ!

While talking to Willie, you start to notice how genuinely kind he is. He didn’t boast about the acts he did, or say how much he helped everyone, but he saw people in need and did everything he could to put a smile on people’s faces. He’s a humble and down to Earth human that everyone should aspire to be. 

His acts of good don’t end there, the day we had spoken to him, he had just got back from handing out 30 free meals to a homeless shelter and had plans to go to another one in need the very next day. 

A Strong Community is a Strong Foundation

Community is everything to Willie and his business. He shared with us how important it is and how he feels that you can’t run a business without a community. Community is the thing that brings people together to have a sense of pride and importance in what they do. The actions he takes every day to assist the people around him further exemplify the value the community has to him. 

People like Willie are the motivation behind our mission here at Iowa Legendary Rye! We believe that our success and our #Legendary rye whiskey is largely due to the astounding resilience and support of our community. 

Community is Ingrained in the History of Iowa Legendary 

Our story began with one woman’s inspiration to provide for her most important community of all: her family. Thanks to Grandma Sextro’s entrepreneurial nature and her determination to support her family through the Great Depression, we have the timelessly delicious recipe for our rye whiskey that we have been using for nearly a century. Every batch of Sextro’s recipe was produced by the family with the intention of “Feeding their family and paying for their farm” says Rich Eggers, the creator of Iowa Legendary Rye. 

We believe that our most important asset is the community in which we operate. That is why we are so proud to label every bottle of our spirits with “Distilled from rye mash in Carroll County.” Our roots are in Iowa and that means that we are too. Iowa Legendary Rye is proud of its Iowan heritage and works to make sure that one day it is known around the world for being the home of the best rye whiskey on the market. 

Sustainable and Community Oriented Values Are Still Strong Today

Another key objective for Iowa Legendary Rye is this: sustainability. This is the reason that we source the rye for our rye mash from a nephew of Grandma Sextro. We are pretty big on keeping it in the family! The farm is located less than six miles from the distillery, ensuring that we are supporting our local farmers. And, as of last month, that farm is now 100% certifiably organic. We believe this is a key milestone in our mission of creating sustainable and locally-minded homemade spirits. 

Iowa Legendary Rye loves its community. And we make sure that we give back to these incredible individuals that make up that community. That is why we are so grateful to Willie and the astounding acts of service he has provided in the wake of the natural disaster that ravaged our area recently. Do you want to be a part of our community? Just grab a bottle of Iowa Legendary Rye and #BeLegendary!

Iowa Legendary Rye - Rye Whiskey Distillery
Monica Caserta


Willie Ray’s Brings Smiles to the Community Following the Storm published first on https://iowalegendaryrye.com/

Iowa’s Carrol County and Templeton, Rye Prohibition Years


Iowa Legendary Rye

“In 1928 Prohibition was still the law of the land, but like everywhere else in the country, it was hard to convince many people in Iowa to obey something so obviously silly.”

-Behind the Badge: Stories and Pictures from the Des Moines Police Department

Prohibition was a controversial policy in the early 1900s that made the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages illegal. During World War I at the height of the Prohibition debate, Iowa’s Senator William Kenyon asked Congress: “Why should the country permit working men to be employed in the useless manufacture of intoxicating liquor when there is a shortage of labor in the important and necessary work to carry on the war?”

Iowa Ahead of the Country on Prohibition

The senator’s opinion was shared by many people in the United States and in Iowa during the early 1900s. For a long time, the idea of Prohibition was supported by many people who passionately believed in their cause. The passage of the 18th Amendment marked their success. Iowans had led the way, one of three strong Prohibition states along with Kansas and Maine. In fact, Iowa had statewide prohibition in 1916, four years before the national policy of 1920.

With the passage of the 18th Amendment which outlawed the manufacturing and selling of liquor, came the illegal manufacture and sale of liquor. Illegal activities occurred all over the country including Iowa. And most of these activities were dangerous.

Iowa Bootleggers

Crime and violence increased during the 1920s. In Iowa, bootleggers (people who illegally made and sold alcohol) created profitable businesses. They had easy access to a key ingredient for the manufacture of alcohol—rye. And many Iowa bootleggers set up their businesses in rural areas, away from law officials. At there height Iowa’s bootlegging families which consited with over 14 large producing familes distilled over 300 gallons of rye whiskey a day. Which ultimately let to there demise as the federal government was able to track the surgar used in the making of this spirit. Templeton’s rye whiskey families produces so much whiskey that there sugar consumption was the same as a major city. Which produced an investigation to the area.

Illegal whiskey was made on farms in northwest Iowa near the small town of Templeton. The reddish colored “Templeton rye” was popular in speakeasies across the country from Chicago to Kansas City to New York City.

Bootlegging in Templeton, Iowa and the risks

Since alcohol was not manufactured in factories that were regularly inspected for cleanliness, alcohol consumption could be a dangerous activity. Bootleggers didn’t always worry about following safety guidelines when they “cooked up” their liquor recipes. Sometimes the liquor was contaminated. Health problems could result from drinking bad alcohol. Dangers from contaminated liquor could lead to paralysis or other ills. Terms used to describe the effects of bad alcohol were “swell head” or “limber neck” and also “jake paralysis.” Other risks included harm from the explosion of alcohol cookers.

Iowa’s bootleggers made moonshine, whiskey, rye whiskey, wine, gin and home brew beer. These beverages were simply raw alcohol. If Iowans wanted to purchase illegal liquor, they went to speakeasies or to criminals in alleys or back doors. Bootleggers charged $16 to $25 per “gallon of alky” in the early days of Prohibition. Later, as competition increased, the price dropped to about $5 a gallon.

Rye Whiskey in Templeton

Davenport was one Iowa city that had a lot of moonshine activity. In 1923 the federal officers (“feds”) raided one residence and found two stills with daily production capacities of 100 gallons. One successful Iowa sheriff, Frank Christen of Winneshiek County, seized 23 whiskey stills in his first two weeks on the job during Prohibition. Bootleggers always tried to dispose of their liquor quickly, usually dumping it down the drain, before law officials arrived. “I could not find a still at one place,” Christen recalled, “until I noticed that there were no bees buzzing around the farmer’s hives. I checked one hive and found a five-gallon still.”

The first aerial bootleggers were caught in Marshalltown in 1928 when they tried to land a plane loaded with illegal liquor. Usually, officers chased bootleggers in dangerous high-speed automobile chases. Police often looked for cars that were heavily loaded as transport vehicles.

 Fines for Bootlegging Rye Whiskey

If caught, bootleggers usually had to pay a $500 fine or serve six months in jail. Few people could afford to pay the fine and usually served their jail time. Courts were packed all over the nation with more than 20,000 people going to jail in the last half of 1931 alone.

Some law officials worried that Des Moines might turn into a “little Chicago.” Al Capone, nicknamed “Scarface,” was a notorious gangster from Chicago. He controlled most alcohol distribution in the Midwestern states as well as gambling and prostitution operations. Charlie Gioe, nicknamed “Cherry Nose,” oversaw much of Capone’s liquor, gambling and prostitution ring in Des Moines from 1928 through 1936. A minimum price of $8.50 per gallon was set in 1931 with $1.50 going to organized crime for “protection.”

Carrol Country bootleggers made liquor in caves, basements, wood lots, hog houses, barns, and in there fields underground within the crop they where currently farming. Stories of both gangsters and bootleggers often made headline news in The Des Moines Register.

Although Iowa was once very supportive of the policy, in 1933 the state’s residents voted to pass the 21st Amendment, which repealed the 18th Amendment. The “Bible Belt” of Iowa had remarkably voted to repeal Prohibition 13 years after it started.

Sources:

  • Deemer, Lee. Esther’s Town. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1980.
  • Mills, George. A Judge and a Rope and Other Stories of Bygone Iowa. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1994.
  • Odegard, Peter H. Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League. New York, New York: Octagon Books, 1966.
  • State Historical Society Library and Archives. Prohibition Clippings Folder.
    Quad-City Times, 24 June 2001
    Des Moines Register, 25 January 1979
    Des Moines Register, 16 January 1979
  • Zeller, John, research editor. Behind the Badge: Stories and Pictures from the Des Moines Police Department. Des Moines, Iowa: Peglow Art & Design Publishing,
    1999.
  • Iowa Pathways, written by Lisa Ossian on Iowa’s Prohibition years, 1920-1933.

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Iowa’s Carrol County and Templeton, Rye Prohibition Years published first on https://iowalegendaryrye.com/

Monday, September 21, 2020

66 Rye Whiskey Cocktails


Iowa Legendary Rye

Rye Whiskey Cocktails and Mixed Drinks History

Long before the bourbon boom, rye whiskey was America’s spirit. Rye was what George Washington himself distilled at Mount Vernon Estate, and if it weren’t for The Prohibition Era when bootlegged Canada whisky took the place of rye, Americans may have never lost their drive for this spicy and bold spirit.

Today, Americans’ palate for rye whiskey which must be made from at least 51% rye grain is restored. Market & Sales volumes reported gains by more than 1,000% between 2009 and 2018, according to the Distilled Spirits Council. In 2018, 1.1 million cases of rye were sold. (townandcountrymag.com)

In this article, I’m going to teach you a little about rye whiskey cocktails. Some of there roots, and a lot about what to mix it with to produce some of the most fabulous classical cocktails to date.

Cocktail Recipes and Rye Whiskey

So if you have got a bottle of rye and are wondering how to use it? Here are we are going to educate your palette with some of our favorite rye cocktails, including both simple and the classics, like the Old Fashioned and the Manhattan, with less common ingredients, like simple syrup, maraschino liqueur, or even lemon juice.

The New York Brooklyn Cocktail

 This Manhattan signature drink variation keeps the 2:1 ratio of rye and vermouth, but swaps sweet vermouth for dry and compensates with a little maraschino liqueur and Amer Picon, a French aperitif in your cocktail glass. (seriouseats.com)

 Brooklyn A Manhattan variation, this cocktail calls on the bitter orange spirit called amer picon, as well as maraschino liqueur, to lend added depth to this fabulous recipe.

Cocktails with a whiskey sour approach work great with rye 

Whiskey Drinks with rye have been around for centuries, The Boston Sour for example. There is a lot of debate when it comes to the classic cocktail how to make and serve whiskey sours, but it’s widely accepted that with the namesake cocktail a whiskey sour with egg white and served up, is a classic and it’s called a Boston Sour. (bonappetit.com)

Sticking with a more traditional approach

Chris Powell Brand Ambassador with Iowa Legendary Rye says, If you’re more of a cocktail person, classics like the Manhattan, Boulevardier, Whiskey Sour, and Sazerac is your calling for a more traditional approach. Too using an “all natural rye whiskey” like Iowa Legendary Rye. Which, will bring out that smooth taste; that only rye can bring. 

Now Vieux Carré New Orleans drinking culture wouldn’t be what it is without a few of these classic drinks that this city is known for, including the Ramos Gin Fizz, the Sazerac, and, of course, the Vieux Carré. (foodandwine.com)

Defining your cocktail for your nightcap

Sipping a strong cocktail like the whiskey neat or with an ice cube on the rocks is an always option, especially if you like the peppery flavor for which rye is known. If you’re more of a cocktail person, classics like the Manhattan, The Old Fashioned Cocktail, Boulevardier, Vieux Carré, and Sazerac all call for rye whiskey. It can fit into a Whiskey Daisey recipe, too, depending on the imbiber’s preference for a sweeter version (made with bourbon) or a spicier variety, with captivating alluring spice notes (that only rye) can provide.

You can use many types of bar mixing glass but in regard to the glasses for serving this cocktail. However, I do *not* recommend using champagne flutes or martini glasses. Unless you have small ice cubes, there will not be enough room for your most, if not, all of your drink.

Collins glasses and rocks glasses are my favorites go-to glasses for this drink. Just enough room for ice cubes and your spirits!

Below are 66 of the best rye whiskey cocktails to date so gather your Lemon juice, lime juice, orange juice, sparkling wine, orange liquors, or Angostura Bitters and let us begin to construct one of your favorite cocktail recipes for today tomorrow and the next day enjoy and as always drink responsively.

  • All
  • Rye Cocktails
Rye Whiskey Los Angeles Cocktail Recipe

Los Angeles

How to Make a Los Angeles Cocktail Egg, Lemon Juice, Simple Syrup, …

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Rye Whiskey Parity Cocktail Recipe

Parity Cocktail

How to Make a Parity Cocktail Cocktail Calvados, Grenadine, Orange Juice, Rye …

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Soul Kiss Cocktail Recipe

Soul Kiss

How to Make a Soul Kiss Cocktail Dry Vermouth, Orange Juice, White …

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Rye Whiskey Lotus Club Special Cocktail Recipe

Lotus Club Special

How to Make a Lotus Club Special Cocktail Bitters, Pastis, Rye Whiskey, …

Read More →

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Sunday, September 20, 2020

Bartending 101 Mixologist Tricks and Tips


Iowa Legendary Rye

Bartending Tips from a Master Mixologist

Table of Contents
lemon drop cocktail

1. Adding a Twist


When you are going to use a twist, rub the rim of the glass with the twist and then twist it and drop it over the drink to add a little bit of oil.

2. Blending


If you don’t have a commercial blender, I suggest that you use crushed ice. Crushed ice is easier to blend. Place your drink ingredients into the blender cup first. If you are using fruit for your drink, blend that first and then add the crushed ice. Start blending at a low speed and gradually increase to medium. Blend until smooth.

Tip: To keep the texture of your drink for a longer period of time, use a chilled glass.

3. Drink Too Thin


If you see a big hole in your drink when you are blending it, that means that your drink is too thin and you need to add a little bit of ice.

4. Drink Too Thick


If your drink is not moving when you are blending it, that means that your drink is too thick and you need to add more juice.
Perfect Blend: If your drink is moving and you see a little hole in your drink while blending it, that means that your drink is ready.

5. Coating the Rim of a Glass

Coating with Salt: Place kosher salt on a plate. Moist the outside of the rim of a glass with a lime wedge. Dip the outside edge of the glass into the salt.

Coating with Sugar: Use the same technique as with the salt but use an orange wedge or a lemon wedge if you are making a lemon drop.
Be Careful: Be very careful not to put salt or sugar inside of the glass. It might fall into your drink and make it salty or sugary.

6. Flaming


I don’t recommend it. It is dangerous. You might burn yourself or the person that is drinking the flaming drink. If a customer burns trying to drink a flaming drink, he/she might sue the place.
Caution: When flaming, make sure you have baking soda and a wet towel in case of an accident.
To get alcohol to flame successfully, heat it in a saucepan over medium heat. Warm it until you see bubbles beginning to form on the edge of the saucepan. Use a long match to ignite the liquor and then pour it into a drink.

7. Flaming Brandy:

  • First, heat the brandy snifter.
  • Then, pour warmed brandy into the snifter and ignite.

Tip: You may preheat liquor in the microwave for about 12 seconds.

8. Floating and Layering


Floating is when you add a layer of liquor or liqueur on top of a drink.
Layering is when you add many liquors or liqueurs one on top of the other without mixing them. To make layered drinks, you have to pour the heaviest (highest density) liquors or liqueurs first, then slowly pour the lighter ones on top. Use the back of a bar spoon when layering.
You may use a Specific Gravity Chart to view the density of liqueurs and liquors.

Useful Tip: If you don’t have a bar spoon, use cherry to make your layers.

Frosting and Chilling Glasses

Frosting a Glass: 

To frost a glass, just put it in the freezer for about an hour. If you want it really frosted, dip the glass in water (shake off any excess water) and put it in the freezer for about an hour. Always handle the glass by its stem or bottom.

10. Chilling a Glass: 

The best way to chill a glass is by putting it in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes. If you don’t have time, you can put ice in your glass and fill it with water. Let it sit for a minute and dump the ice and water.

11. Muddling


To muddle means to mash, to jumble, to mix or to crush ingredients. To muddle ingredients, you need a cocktail muddler (wooden rod). Place the ingredients into a glass and muddle them (push down and twist) to release their juices.

Equipment Tip: If you don’t have a muddler, use the handle of a big plastic spoon.

12. How to Open a Champagne Bottle


Remove the wire and the foil around the champagne bottle. Hold the bottle at a 45-degree angle pointing away from people or valuable objects. Hold the cork with one hand and the bottle with the other. Twist the bottle to remove the cork (do not twist the cork).

Useful Tip: If you are afraid that the cork is going to shoot, place a bar towel over the cork when you are opening the bottle.

13. How to Open a Wine Bottle

  • Using a Waiter’s Corkscrew: Cut the foil around the neck with the knife of the corkscrew.
  • Remove the foil and wipe the bottle top. Insert the screw (sometimes called worm) into the cork’s center and twist clockwise until it is completely inside the cork.
  • Place the lever of the corkscrew on the lip of the bottle. Holding the bottleneck firmly, slowly pull the handle of the corkscrew straight up until the cork is removed.

14. Serving Wine to a Guest: 

When you open the bottle, present the cork to your guest and pour a little bit of wine into his/her glass. The guest will smell the cork and taste the wine. If it is to his/her satisfaction, fill the glass with wine (don’t fill the wine glass all the way).

Here is a Tip: Always have a bar towel with you to wipe the bottleneck after serving and in case of an accident.

15. Carrying a Wine Glass: 

Always carry a wine glass by its stem. If you carry it by the bowl of the wine glass, you will change the temperature of the wine.

16. Pouring (Free Pouring)

Free pouring is not a hard thing to do. You need to practice in order to master this technique.

How to Free Pour 


The first thing you should do is to get an empty 1-liter bottle and a speed pourer. Fill the empty bottle with water (don’t fill it all the way) and put the pourer. Then grab the bottle by the neck, lift it and flip it upside down to start pouring into a 1 oz jigger (do this at the sink). When pouring into the jigger, count until the jigger is full. Pour out the water and continue this process. Always count at the same speed.

Getting More Practice: 

Now that you know your count for 1 oz. You need to practice but without a jigger. Get 5 empty glasses and place next to each other forming a row. Try to pour 1 oz into each glass without stopping. Start pouring into the first glass, then you move to the next one until to get to the last one. Now, measure the water of each glass to make sure that you poured 1 oz into each glass.

Pouring Different Quantities:

 Now, you need to learn how to pour different quantities. You already know how to pour 1 oz. To pour 2 oz, all you need to do is to double your 1 oz count. If you want to pour other measurements, just modify your count to achieve the measurement desired.

Pour Counts:

How to Free Pour
How Do You Count When Pouring Alcohol?
The generally accepted free pouring technique and bartending counting method is to use a 4 count and have each number equal half an ounce poured.

But counting to four doesn’t make it the right amount. Counting to four at the right speed is what you’re after. And the key to doing that is practice. Grab a bottle (the size of a fifth of alcohol), fill it with water, add a pour spout, and get your 1-2-3-4 cadence down to equal .5 ounces per count.

A great way to practice is using wine glasses with pour lines. Pick a few up and you’ll know exactly what ounes you’re hitting during your counting.

How Many Counts Is a 1 Oz Pour?


A 1-ounce pour is 2 counts using a pour spout. A good way to get there is by using “one, one-thousand” as a counting device. So you’ll free pour count “one, one-thousand, two, one-thousand,” and then stop.

How Long of a Pour is an Ounce?


Given the above, an ounce pour is 2 counts. That’s roughly one second of pouring.

How Many Counts Is a 1.5 Oz Pour?


Using the four-count method, a 1.5-ounce pour is 3 counts using a pour spout. That means you’ll start pouring and say “one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand” and stop.

How Many Counts Is a 2 Oz Pour?


A 2-ounce pour is 4 counts using a pour spout. So you’ll count “one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, four one-thousand” and stop.

How Many Ounces Is a 4 count pour?


A 2-ounce pour is typically 4 counts. But only if you’re free pouring using a drinking spout and the free pouring technique of the 4-count.

How Many Counts Are in a Double Shot?


A double shot is 3 ounces of liquor, which is 6 counts using a free pour spout.

17. Long Pour


A long pour refers to a bartender free pour where they lift the bottle up and away from the glass and let the liquor fall farther. It doesn’t have any impact on the volume of the pour, just the aesthetics of the pouring process. Why do it, then? Some bartenders integrate it into their style. It can also be a useful trick to use to appear like someone is getting a generous pour when, in fact, they’re just getting the same amount from farther away.

Be Aware: There are many different kinds of speed pourers. Every speed a pourer pours different amounts of liquor. You will have to modify your count according to the speed pourer that you are using.

18. Shaking:

 Using a Boston Shaker and Mixing Glass: 

  • Get the mixing glass and fill it halfway with ice. Pour your ingredients.
  • Place the Boston shaker over the mixing glass and give it a tap. Start shaking (up and down) for about 10 seconds.
  • Remove the mixing glass and strain the shaker into a chilled glass.
  • If the shaker and mixing glass get stuck, just tap the shaker on the side (make sure that the shaker is on the bottom and the mixing glass is on the top).

19. Standard Shakers

  • Fill the shaker halfway with ice.
  • Pour your ingredients and cover the shaker with the strainer and the lid.
  • Grab the shaker and place your index finger on top of the lid. Start shaking (up and down) for about 10 seconds.
  • Remove the lid and strain into a chilled glass.

20. Stirring

  • To stir a drink, use a bar spoon or a straw. Stir your drink just to mix the ingredients.
  • Don’t stir too much because the ice will dilute the liquor.
  • If you are drinking a carbonated drink, stir it gently to maintain the sparkle.

21. Straining

  • Using a Standard Shaker: A standard shaker has a strainer. After shaking your drink, take off the lid and strain it into a chilled glass.
  • Using a Boston Shaker and Mixing Glass: After shaking your drink, remove the mixing glass. Use a strainer to strain your drink.

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Bartending 101 Mixologist Tricks and Tips published first on https://iowalegendaryrye.com/

Friday, September 4, 2020

Labor Day History – 82 Significant Years

Our Labor for Love

For many, Labor Day signifies the end of summer and a chance to unwind during a long weekend. From relaxing by the pool to hosting a family barbecue, this extra day off allows people to catch their breath before the busy weeks ahead. However, despite how we may spend this holiday, Labor Day stands for so much more than just having good times with amazing people. 

The history of Labor Day began during the Industrial Revolution when oppressive working environments were prevalent across the nation. At the time, honest, hard-working people endured harsh work conditions like 16-hour workdays and incredibly low wages. Fortunately, since then, laws have been put in place to protect workers from similar mistreatment. Today, Labor Day stands as a symbol of that history and a reminder to honor genuine, hard-working people in our community.

Celebrating Labor Day means celebrating unconditional labors of love. Whether your labor of love is protecting your community or raising your children, there is no specific definition that controls what a labor of love looks like. That’s the beauty of it!

A labor of love could be as simple as helping your neighbor across the street or as thought-out as enlisting in the Army to serve your country. At the end of the day, it all comes back to helping out the people you love most.

Iowa Legendary Rye’s Labor for Love

In most part, this labor day signifies a re-count of what our grandmother Lorine Sextro went through during prohibition and her labor to keep her family afloat by producing our great tasting rye.

Although at that time it was illegal to produce those spirits she went above and beyond to keep and maintain her family, farm, and homestead while letting others stay with her keep those she loved and family healthy with food and a warm place to stay during a time when our great nation was building its infrastructure.

We cannot forget our history and the labors of love that paved the way for our future. 

Play Video

The Maximum Struggle for a Minimum Wage this Labor Day and our Labor of Love.

Labor Day Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938: 

When he felt the time was ripe, President Roosevelt asked Secretary of Labor Perkins, ‘What happened to that nice unconstitutional bill you had tucked away?’

On Saturday, June 25, 1938, to avoid pocket vetoes 9 days after Congress had adjourned, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed 121 bills. Among these bills was a landmark law in the Nation’s social and economic development — Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA). Against a history of judicial opposition, the depression-born FLSA had survived, not unscathed, more than a year of Congressional altercation. In its final form, the act applied to industries whose combined employment represented only about one-fifth of the labor force. In these industries, it banned oppressive child labor and set the minimum hourly wage at 25 cents, and the maximum workweek at 44 hours.1

Forty years later, a distinguished news commentator asked incredulously: “My God! 25 cents an hour! Why all the fuss?” President Roosevelt expressed a similar sentiment in a “fireside chat” the night before the signing. He warned: “Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day, …tell you…that a wage of $11 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry.”2 In light of the social legislation of 1978, Americans today may be astonished that; a law, with such moderate standards, could have been thought so revolutionary.

Courting disaster

The Supreme Court had been one of the major obstacles to wage-hour and child-labor laws. Among notable cases is the 1918 case of Hammer v. Dagenhart in which the Court by one vote held unconstitutional a Federal child-labor law. Similarly in Adkins v. Children’s Hospital in 1923, the Court by a narrow margin voided the District of Columbia law that set minimum wages for women. During the 1930s, the Court’s action on social legislation was even more devastating.3

New Deal promise. In 1933, under the “New Deal” program, Roosevelt’s advisers developed a National Industrial Recovery Act (NRA).4 The act suspended antitrust laws so that industries could enforce fair-trade codes resulting in less competition and higher wages. On signing the bill, the President stated: “History will probably record the National Industrial Recovery Act as the most important and far-reaching legislation ever enacted by the American Congress.” The law was popular, and one family in Darby, Penn., christened a newborn daughter Nira to honor it.5

As an early step of the NRA, Roosevelt promulgated a President’s Reemployment Agreement “to raise wages, create employment, and thus restore business.” Employers signed more than 2.3 million agreements, covering 16.3 million employees. Signers agreed to a workweek between 35 and 40 hours and a minimum wage of $12 to $15 a week and undertook, with some exceptions, not to employ youths under 16 years of age. Employers who signed the agreement displayed a “badge of honor,” a blue eagle over the motto “We do our part.” Patriotic Americans were expected to buy only from “Blue Eagle” business concerns.6

In the meantime, various industries developed more complete codes. The Cotton Textile Code was the first of these and one of the most important. It provided for a 40-hour workweek, set a minimum weekly wage of $13 in the North and $12 in the South, and abolished child labor. The President said this code made him “happier than any other one thing…since I have come to Washington, for the code abolished child labor in the textile industry.” He added: “After years of fruitless effort and discussion, this ancient atrocity went out in a day.”7

A crushing blow. On “Black Monday,” May 27, 1935, the Supreme Court disarmed the NRA as the major depression-fighting weapon of the New Deal. The 1935 case of Schechter Corp. v. United States tested the constitutionality of the NRA by questioning a code to improve the sordid conditions under which chickens were slaughtered and sold to retail kosher butchers.8 All nine justices agreed that the act was an unconstitutional delegation of government power to private interests. Even the liberal Benjamin Cardozo thought it was “delegation running riot.” Though the “sick chicken” decision seems an absurd case upon which to decide the fate of so sweeping a policy, it invalidated not only the restrictive trade practices set by the NRA-authorized codes but the codes’ progressive labor provisions as well.9

As if to head off further attempts at labor reform, the Supreme Court, in a series of decisions, invalidated both State and Federal labor laws. Most notorious was the 1936 case of Joseph Tipaldo.10The manager of a Brooklyn, N.Y., laundry, Tipaldo had been paying nine laundry women only $10 a week, in violation of the New York State minimum wage law. When forced to pay his workers $14.88, Tipaldo coerced them to kick back the difference. When Tipaldo was jailed on charges of violating the State law, forgery, and conspiracy, his lawyers sought a writ of habeas corpus on grounds the New York law was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court, by a 5-to-4 majority, voided the law as a violation of the liberty of contract.11

The Tipaldo decision was among the most unpopular ever rendered by the Supreme Court. Even bitter foes of President Roosevelt and the New Deal criticized the Court. Ex-President Herbert Hoover said the Court had gone to extremes. Conservative Republican Congressman Hamilton Fish called it a “new Dred Scott decision” condemning 3 million women and children to economic slavery.12

A switch in time. Wage-hour legislation was a campaign issue in the 1936 Presidential race. The Democratic platform called for higher labor standards, and, in his campaign, Roosevelt promised to seek some constitutional way of protecting workers. He tried to pave the way for such legislation in his speeches and news conferences in which he spoke of the breakdown of child labor provisions, minimum wages, and maximum hour standards after the demise of the NRA codes.

When Roosevelt won the 1936 election by 523 electoral votes to 8, he interpreted his landslide victory as support for the New Deal and was determined to overcome the obstacle of Supreme Court opposition as soon as possible. In February 1937, he struck back at the “nine old men” of the Bench: He proposed to “pack” the Court by adding up to six extra judges, one for each judge who did not retire at age 70. Roosevelt further voiced his disappointment with the Court at the victory dinner for his second inauguration, saying if the “three-horse team [of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches] pulls as one, the field will be plowed,” but that the field will not be plowed if one horse lies down in the traces or plunges off in another direction.”13

However, Roosevelt’s metaphorical maverick fell in step. On “White Monday,” March 29, 1937, the Court reversed its course when it decided the case of West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish.14 Elsie Parrish, a former chambermaid at the Cascadian Hotel in Wenatchee, Wash., sued for $216.19 in back wages, charging that the hotel had paid her less than the State minimum wage. In an unexpected turn-around, Justice Owen Roberts voted with the four-man liberal minority to uphold the Washington minimum wage law.

As other close decisions continued to validate social and economic legislation, support for Roosevelt’s Court “reorganization” faded. Meanwhile, Justice Roberts felt called upon to deny that he had switched sides to ward off Roosevelt’s court-packing plan. He claimed valid legal distinctions between the Tipaldo case and the Parrish case. Nevertheless, many historians subscribe to the contemporary view of Robert’s vote, that “a switch in time saved nine.”15

A young worker’s plea

While President Franklin Roosevelt was in Bedford, Mass., campaigning for reelection, a young girl tried to pass him an envelope. But a policeman threw her back into the crowd. Roosevelt told an aide, “Get the note from the girl.” Her note read,

I wish you could do something to help us, girls…We have been working in a sewing factory,… and up to a few months ago, we were getting our minimum pay of $11 a week… Today the 200 of us girls have been cut down to $4 and $5 and $6 a week.

To a reporter’s question, the President replied, “Something has to be done about the elimination of child labor and long hours and starvation wages.”

-FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT Public Papers and Addresses, Vol. V New York, Random House, 1936), pp. 624-25.

 

Back to the drawing board

Justice Roberts’ “Big Switch” is an important event in American legal history. It is also a turning point in American social history, for it marked a new legal attitude toward labor standards. To be sure, validating a single State law was a far cry from upholding general Federal legislation, but the Parrish decision encouraged advocates of fair labor standards to work all the harder to develop a bill that might be upheld by the Supreme Court.

An ardent advocate. No top government official worked more ardently to develop legislation to help underpaid workers and exploited child laborers than Secretary Frances Perkins. Almost all her working life, Perkins fought for pro-labor legislation. To avoid the sometime pitfall of judicial review, she consulted legal experts in forming the legislation. Her autobiographical account of her relations with President Roosevelt is filled with the names of lawyers with whom she discussed legislation: Felix Frankfurter, Thomas Corcoran, Gerard Reilly, Benjamin Cohen, Charles Wyzanski, and many others both within and outside Government.

When, in 1933, President Roosevelt asked Frances Perkins to become Secretary of Labor, she told him that she would accept if she could advocate a law to put a floor under wages and a ceiling over hours of work and to abolish abuses of child labor. When Roosevelt heartily agreed, Perkins asked him, “Have you considered that to launch such a program… might be considered unconstitutional?” Roosevelt retorted, “Well, we can work out something when the time comes.”16

During the constitutional crisis over the NRA, Secretary Perkins asked lawyers at the Department of Labor to draw up two wage-hour and child-labor bills which might survive the Supreme Court review. She then told Roosevelt, “I have something up my sleeve….I’ve got two bills …locked in the lower left-hand drawer of my desk against an emergency.” Roosevelt laughed and said, “There’s New England caution for you… You’re pretty unconstitutional, aren’t you?”17

Earlier Government groundwork. One of the bills that Perkins had “locked” in the bottom drawer of her desk was used before the 1937 “Big Switch.” The bill proposed using the purchasing power of the Government as an instrument for improving labor standards. Under the bill, Government contractors would have to agree to pay the “prevailing wage” and meet other labor standards. The idea had been tried in World War I to woo worker support for the war. Then, President Hoover reincarnated the “prevailing wage” and fair standards criteria as conditions for bidding for the construction of public buildings. This act — the Davis-Bacon Act — in expanded form stands as a bulwark of labor standards in the construction industry.

Roosevelt and Perkins tried to make model employers of government contractors in all fields, not just construction. They were dismayed to find that, except in public construction, the Federal Government encouraged employers to exploit labor because the Government had to award every contract to the lowest bidder. In 1935, approximately 40 percent of government contractors, employing 1.5 million workers, cut wages below and stretched hours above the standards developed under the NRA.

The Roosevelt-Perkins remedial initiative resulted in the Public Contracts Act of 1936 (Walsh-Healey). The act required most government contractors to adopt an 8-hour day and a 40-hour week, to employ only those over 16 years of age if they were boys or 18 years of age if they were girls, and to pay a “prevailing minimum wage” to be determined by the Secretary of Labor. The bill had been hotly contested and much diluted before it passed Congress on June 30, 1936. Though limited to government supply contracts and weakened by amendments and court interpretations, the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act was hailed as a token of good faith by the Federal Government — that it intended to lead the way to better pay and working conditions.18

A broader bill is born

President Roosevelt had postponed action on a fair labor standards law because of his fight to “pack” the Court. After the “switch in time,” when he felt the time was ripe, he asked Frances Perkins, “What happened to that nice unconstitutional bill you tucked away?”

The bill — the second that Perkins had “tucked” away — was a general fair labor standards act. To cope with the danger of judicial review, Perkins’ lawyers had taken several constitutional approaches so that, if one or two legal principles were invalidated, the bill might still be accepted. The bill provided for minimum-wage boards which would determine, after public hearing and consideration of cost-of-living figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, whether wages in particular industries were below subsistence levels.

Perkins sent her draft to the White House where Thomas Corcoran and Benjamin Cohen, two trusted legal advisers of the President, with the Supreme Court in mind, added new provisions to the already lengthy measure. “Ben Cohen and I worked on the bill and the political effort behind it for nearly 4 years with Senator Black and Sidney Hillman,” Corcoran noted.19

An early form of the bill being readied for Congress affected only wages and hours. To that version, Roosevelt added a child-labor provision based on the political judgment that adding a clause banning goods in interstate commerce produced by children under 16 years of age would increase the chance of getting a wage-hour measure through both Houses because child-labor limitations were popular in Congress.20

Congress-round I

On May 24, 1937, President Roosevelt sent the bill to Congress with a message that America should be able to give “all our able-bodied working men and women a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.” He continued: “A self-supporting and self-respecting democracy can plead no justification for the existence of child labor, no economic reason for chiseling worker’s wages or stretching workers’ hours.” Though States had the right to set standards within their borders, he said, goods produced under “conditions that do not meet rudimentary standards of decency should be regarded as contraband and ought not to be allowed to pollute the channels of interstate trade.” He asked Congress to pass applicable legislation” at this session.”21

Senator Hugo Black of Alabama, a champion of a 30-hour workweek, agreed to sponsor the Administration bill on this subject in the Senate, while Representative William P. Connery of Massachusetts introduced corresponding legislation in the House. The Black-Connery bill had wide Public support, and its path seemed smoothed by arrangements for a joint hearing by the labor committees of both Houses.

Generally, the bill provided for a 40-cent-an-hour minimum wage, a 40-hour maximum workweek, and a minimum working age of 16 except in certain industries outside of mining and manufacturing. The bill also proposed a five-member labor standards board that could authorize still higher wages and shorter hours after review of certain cases.

Proponents of the bill stressed the need to fulfill the President’s promise to correct conditions under which “one-third of the population” were “ill-nourished, ill-clad, and ill-housed.” They pointed out that, in industries that produced products for interstate commerce, the bill would end oppressive child labor and “unnecessarily long hours which wear out part of the working population while they keep the rest from having work to do.” Shortening hours, they argued, would “create new jobs…for millions of our unskilled unemployed,” and minimum wages would “underpin the whole wage structure…at a point from which collective bargaining could take over.”22

Advocates of higher labor standards described the conditions of sweated labor. For example, a survey by the Labor Department’s Children’s Bureau of a cross-section of 449 children in several States showed nearly one-fourth of them working 60 hours or longer a week and only one-third working 40 hours or less a week. The median wage was slightly over $4 a week.23

One advocate, Commissioner of Labor Statistics Isador Lubin, explained to the joint Senate-House committee that during depressions the ability to overwork employees, rather than efficiency, determining business success. The economy, he reported, had deteriorated to the chaotic stage where employers with high standards were forced by cut-throat competition to exploit labor to survive. “The outstanding feature of the proposed legislation,” Lubin said, is that “it aims to establish by law a plane of competition far above that which could be maintained in the absence of government edict.”24

Opponents of the bill charged that, although the President might damn them as “economic royalists and sweaters of labor,” the Black-Connery bill was “a bad bill badly drawn” which would lead the country to a “tyrannical industrial dictatorship.” They said New Deal rhetoric, like “the smokescreen of the cuttlefish,” diverted attention from what amounted to socialist planning. Prosperity, they insisted, depended on the “genius” of American business, but how could business “find any time left to provide jobs if we are to persist in loading upon it these everlastingly multiplying governmental mandates and delivering it to the mercies of multiplying and hampering Federal bureaucracy?”25

Organized labor supported the bill but was split on how strong it should be. Some leaders, such as Sidney Hillman of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union and David Dubinsky of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, supported a strong bill. When Southern congressmen asked for the setting of lower pay for their region, Dubinsky’s union suggested lower pay for Southern congressmen. But William Green of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and John L. Lewis of the Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO), on one of the rare occasions when they agreed, both favored a bill which would limit labor standards to low-paid and essentially unorganized workers. Based on some past experiences, many union leaders feared that a minimum wage might become a maximum and that wage boards would intervene in areas that they wanted to be reserved for labor-management negotiations. They were satisfied when the bill was amended to exclude work covered by collective bargaining.

The weakened bill passed the Senate July 31, 1937, by a vote of 56 to 28 and would have easily passed the House if it had been put to a vote. But a coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats bottled it up in the House Rules Committee. After a long hot summer, Congress adjourned without House action on fair labor standards.26

Congress-round II

An angry President Roosevelt decided to press again for passage of the Black-Connery bill. Having lost popularity and split the Democratic Party in his battle to “pack” the Supreme Court, Roosevelt felt that attacking abuses of child labor and sweatshop wages and hours was a popular cause that might reunite the party. A wage-hour, child-labor law promised to be a happy marriage of high idealism and practical politics.

On October 12, 1937, Roosevelt called a special session of Congress to convene on November 15. The public interest, he said, required immediate Congressional action: “The exploitation of child labor and the undercutting of wages and the stretching of the hours of the poorest paid workers in periods of a business recession has a serious effect on buying power”.27

Despite White House and business pressure, the conservative alliance of Republicans and Southern Democrats that controlled the House Rules Committee refused to discharge the bill as it stood. Congresswoman Mary Norton of New Jersey, now chairing the House Labor Committee, made a valiant attempt to shake the bill loose”.28 Many representatives had told her that they agreed with the principles of the bill but that they objected to a five-man wage board with broad powers. Therefore, Norton told the House of Representatives that the Labor Committee would offer an amendment to change the administration of the bill from a five-man board to an administrator under the Department of Labor. Urging representatives to sign a petition to jar the bill out of committee, Norton appealed:

I now hope and urge that these Members will keep faith with me, as I have kept faith with them, and sign the petition . . . we are approaching Thanksgiving Day, . . . I do not see how any Member of this House can enjoy his Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow if he fails to put his name to that petition this afternoon.

Though Norton missed her Thanksgiving Day dead-line, by December 2, the bill’s supporters had rounded up enough signers to give the petition the 218 signatures necessary to bring the bill to a vote on the House floor.29

With victory within grasp, the bill became a battle-ground in the war raging between the AFL and the CIO. The AFL accused the Roosevelt Administration of favoring industrial over craft unions and opposed the wage-board determination of labor standards for specific industries. Accordingly, the AFL fought for a substitute bill with a flat 40-cent-an-hour minimum wage and a maximum 40-hour week.

In the ensuing confusion, shortly, before the Christmas holiday of 1937, the House by a vote of 218 to 198 unexpectedly sent the bill back to the Labor Committee.30 In her memoir of President Roosevelt, Frances Perkins wrote:

This was the first time that a major administration bill had been defeated on the floor of the House. The press took the view that this was the death knell of wage-hour legislation as well as a decisive blow to the President’s prestige.31

Roosevelt tries again

Again, Roosevelt returned to the fray. In his annual message to Congress on January 3, 1938, he said he was seeking “legislation to end starvation wages and intolerable hours.” He paid deference to the South by saying that “no reasonable person seeks a complete uniformity in wages.” He also made peace overtures to business by pointing out that he was forgoing “drastic” change, and he appeased organized labor, saying that “more desirable wages are and should continue to be the product of collective bargaining.”32

The day following Roosevelt’s message, Representative Lister Hill, a strong Roosevelt supporter, won an Alabama election primary for the Senate by an almost 2-to-1 majority over an anti-New Deal congressman. The victory was significant because much of the opposition to wage-hour laws came from Southern congressmen. In February, a national public opinion poll showed that 67 percent of the populace favored the wage-hour law, with even the South showing a substantial plurality of support for higher standards.33

Reworking the bill. In the meantime, the Department of Labor lawyers worked on a new bill. Privately, Roosevelt had told Perkins that the length and complexity of the bill caused some of its difficulties. “Can’t it be boiled down to two pages?” he asked. Lawyers trying to simplify the bill faced the problem that, although legal language makes legislation difficult to understand, bills written in simple English are often difficult for the courts to enforce. And because the wage-hour, the child-labor bill had been drafted with the Supreme Court in mind, Solicitor Labor Gerard Reilly could not meet the President’s two-page goal; however, he succeeded in cutting the bill from 40 to 10 pages.

In late January 1938, Reilly and Perkins brought the revision to President Roosevelt. He approved it, and the new bill went to Congress.34

Roosevelt and Perkins prepared for rugged opposition. Roosevelt put pressure on Congressmen who had ridden his coattails to election victory in 1936 and who then knifed New Deal legislation. Perkins added to her staff Rufus Pole, a young lawyer, to follow the bill through Congress. Pole worked resourcefully pinpointed the issues that bothered some Congressmen and identified a large number of Senators and Representatives who could be counted on to vote favorably.

Norton appointed Representative Robert Ramspeck of Georgia to head a subcommittee to bridge the gap between various proposals. The subcommittee’s efforts resulted in the Ramspeck compromise which Perkins felt “contained the bare essentials she could support.”35 The compromise retained the 40-cent minimum hourly wage and the 40-hour maximum workweek. It did not provide for an administrator as had the previous bill which had been voted back to the committee by the House. Instead, the compromise allowed for a five-member wage board which would be less powerful than those proposed by the Black-Connery bill.

Congress-the final round

The House Labor Committee voted down the Ramspeck compromise, but, by a 10-to-4 vote, approved an even more “barebones” bill presented by Norton. Her bill following the AFL proposal, provided for a 40-cent hourly minimum wage, replaced the wage boards proposed by the Ramspeck compromise with an administrator and advising commission, and allowed for procedures for an investigation into certain cases.36

A message from the voters. Again, the House Rules Committee (under Rep. John J. O’Conner of New York, whom Roosevelt called an “obstructionist” who “pickled” New Deal programs) prevented discussion of the bill on the House floor by a vote of 8 to 6.37 The President then put his prestige on the line. On April 30, 1938, for the sixth time since taking office, he communicated with Congress over wages and hours through a letter to Mrs. Norton. He said he had no right whatsoever as President to criticize the rules but suggested as an ex-legislator and as a friend that “the whole membership of the legislative body should be given full and free opportunity to discuss [exceptional measures] which are of undoubted national importance because they relate to major policies of Government and affect the lives of millions of people.” He avoided judgment of the bill but noted that the Rules Committee, by a narrow vote, had prevented 435 members from “discussing, amending, recommitting, defeating, or passing some kind of a bill.” He concluded: “I still hope that the House as a whole can vote on a wage and hour bill. …I hope that the democratic processes of legislation will continue.”38

Three days later, May 3, 1938, Congressman Claude Pepper won a resounding victory over anti-New Dealer J. Mark Wilcox in the Florida Senate primary. Wilcox had made New Deal programs the major issue and had labeled Pepper “Roosevelt rubber stamp.”

Nothing impresses Congressmen more than election returns. The January and May victories of New Deal advocated in the South brought home to Southern Congressmen the message of how their constituents felt about fair labor standards. A petition to discharge the bill from the Rules Committee was placed on the desk of the Speaker of the House on May 6, at noon. In 2 hours and 20 minutes, 218 members have signed it, and additional members were waiting in the aisles.39

Braving the floor battle. Proponents of the wage-hour, child-labor bill pressed the attack. They continued to point to “horror stories.” One Congressman quoted a magazine article entitled “All Work and No Pay” which told how, in a company that paid wages in scrip for use in the company store, pay envelopes contained nothing for a full week’s work after the deduction of store fees

The most bitter controversy raged over labor standards in the South. “There are in the State of Georgia,” one Indiana Congressman declaimed, “canning factories working … women 10 hours a day for $4.50 a week. Can the canning factories of Indiana and Connecticut of New York continue to exist and meet such competitive labor costs?”40 Southern Congressmen, in turn, challenged the Northern “monopolists” who hypocritically “loll on their tongues” words like “slave labor” and “sweat-shops” and support bills that sentenced the Southern industry to death. Some Southern employers told the Department of Labor that they could not live with a 25-cent-an-hour minimum wage. They would have to fire all their people, they said. Adapting a biblical quotation, Representative John McClellan of Arkansas rhetorically asked, “What profiteth the laborer of the South if he gains the enactment of a wage and hour law — 40 cents per hour and 40 hours per week — if he then loses the opportunity to work?”41

Partly because of Southern protests, provisions of the act were altered so that the minimum wage was reduced to 25 cents an hour for the first year of the act. Southerners gained additional concessions, such as a requirement that wage administrators consider lower costs of living and higher freight rates in the South before recommending wages above the minimum.

Though the revised bill had reduced substantially the administrative machinery provided for in earlier drafts, several Congressmen singled out Secretary Perkins for personal attack. One Perkins detractor noted that, although Congress had “overwhelmingly rebelled” against delegation of power,

We delegate to Madam Perkins the authority and power to ‘issue an order declaring such an industry to be an industry affecting commerce.’ Now section 9 is …one of the ‘snooping’ sections of the bill. Imagine the feeling of the merchant or the industry up in your district when a ‘designated representative’…of Mme. Perkins’ enter and inspect such places and such records’…I know no previous law going quite so far.42

A resulting compromise modified the authority of the administrator in the Department of Labor.

The bill was voted upon May 24, 1938, with a 314-to-97 majority. After the House had passed the bill, the Senate-House Conference Committee made still more changes to reconcile differences. During the legislative battles over fair labor standards, members of Congress had proposed 72 amendments. Almost every change sought exemptions, narrowed coverage, lowered standards, weakened administration, limited investigation, or in some other way worked to weaken the bill.

The surviving proposal as approved by the conference committee finally passed the House on June 13, 1938, by a vote of 291 to 89. Shortly thereafter, the Senate approved it without a record of the votes. Congress then sent the bill to the President. On June 25, 1938, the President signed the Fair Labor Standards Act to become effective on October 24, 1938.43

Jonathan Grossman was the Historian for the U.S. Department of Labor. Henry Guzda assisted. This article originally appeared in the Monthly Labor Review of June 1978. The final section, titled “The act as law” and containing dated material, has been omitted in the electronic version.

NOTES

1The New York Times, June 27, 28, 1938; Harry S. Kantor, “Two Decades of the Fair Labor Standards Act,” Monthly Labor Review, October 1958, pp. 1097-98.

2. Franklin Roosevelt, Public Papers and Address, Vol. VII (New York, Random House, 1937), p.392.

3Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U.S. 251 (1918); Adkins v. Children’s Hospital, 262 U.S. 525 (1923).

4. The proper initials for the Law are NIRA. The initials for the National Recovery Administration were created by the act as NRA. Following common practice, the initials NRA are used here for both the law and the administration.

5. Roosevelt, Public Papers, II (June 16, 1933), p.246.

6. Roosevelt, Public Papers, II (July 24 and 27, 1933), pp. 301, 308-12.

7. Roosevelt, Public Papers, II (July 9 and 24, 1933), pp. 275, 99; Frances Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew (New York, Viking Press, 1946); pp. 204-08.

8Schechter Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495(1935).

9. Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Age of Roosevelt (Boston, Mass., Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1960), pp. 277-83; Roosevelt, Public Papers, IV (May 29, 1935), pp. 198-221; John W. Chambers, “The Big Switch: Justice Roberts and the Minimum-Wage Cases,” Labor History, Vol. X, Winter 1969, pp.49-52.

10. Morehead v. Tipaldo, 298 U.S. 587 (1936).

11. Ironically, like the four Schechter brothers in the NRA case who went broke, Tipaldo also suffered financially. “My customers wouldn’t give my drivers their wash,” he lamented. Columnist Heywood Broun quipped. “Those who live by the chisel will die under the hammer.” Chambers, “Big Switch,” p. 57.

12. Chambers, “Big Switch,” pp. 54-58.

13. Roosevelt, Public Papers, VI (Feb. 5, 1937), pp. 51-59; VI (Mar. 4, 1937), p. 116; George Martin, Madam Secretary Frances Perkins(Boston Mass., Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1976), pp. 388-90.

14West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379 (1937).

15. Chambers, “Big Switch,” pp. 44, 73; Robert P. Ingalls, “New York and the Minimum-Wage Movement, 1933-1937,” Labor History, Vol. XV, Spring 1974, pp. 191-97.

16. Perkins, Roosevelt, p. 152

17. Perkins, Roosevelt, pp. 248-49, 252-53; Roosevelt, Public Papers, V(Jan.` 3, 1936), p. 15; Jonathan Grossman with Gerard D. Reilly, Solicitor of Labor, Oct. 22, 1965.

1825th Annual ReportFiscal Year 1937 (U.S. Department of Labor), pp. 34-35; Herbert C. Morton, Public Contracts and Private Wages: Experience Under the Walsh-Healey Act(Washington, D.C., The Brookings Institution, 1965), pp. 7-10; The Department of Labor (New York, Praeger Publishers, 1973), pp. 19-20, 211-13.

19. Letter from Thomas Corcoran to Jonathan Grossman, Ap. 10, 1978.

20. Perkins, Roosevelt, pp. 254-57; Roosevelt, Public Papers, V(Jan. 7, 1937); Jeremy P. Felt, “The Child Labor Provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act,” Labor History, Vol. XI, Fall 1970, pp. 474-75; Interview, Jonathan Grossman with Gerard D. Reilly, Solicitor of Labor, Oct. 22, 1965.

21. Roosevelt, Public Papers, VI(May 24, 1937), pp. 209-14.

22Record of the Discussion before the U.S. Congress on the FLSA of 1938, I.(U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics)(Washington, GAO, 1938), pp.20-21.

23Hearings to Provide for the Establishment of Fair Labor Standards in Employments in and Affecting Interstate Commerce and Other Purposes, Vol. V.(1937). (U.S. Congress, Joint Committee on Education and Labor, 75th Cong., 1st sess), pp. 383-84.

24. Isador Lubin, Testimony, Hearings to Provide Fair Labor Standards(1937), pp.309-10.

25Record of Discussion of FLSA of 1938, I(U.S. Department of Labor), pp.38, 115, 124.

26. Perkins, Roosevelt, pp. 257-59; Paul Douglas and Joseph Hackman, “Fair Labor Standards Act, I,” “Political Science Quarterly Vol. LIII, December 1938, pp. 500-03, 508; The New York Times, Aug. 18, 1937.

27. Roosevelt, Public Papers, VI (Oct. 4, 1937, Oct. 12, 1937, Nov. 15, 1937), pp. 404, 428-29, 496

28. Mrs.Norton replaced Representative Connery as chair of the House Labor Committee after his death.

29Record of Discussion of FLSA of 1938, (U.S. Department of Labor), (1937), p. 415.

30The New York Times, Dec. 13, 1937; Douglas and Hackman, “FLSA,” pp.508-11.

31. Perkins, Roosevelt, p. 261.

32. Roosevelt, Public Papers, VII (Jan. 3, 1938),p.6.

33The New York Times, Jan. 5, Feb. 16, May 9, 1938.

34. Perkins, Roosevelt, p. 261.

35. Roosevelt, Public Papers, VII (Aug. 16, 1938), pp. 488-89; Perking, Roosevelt, pp. 262-63.

36. Roosevelt, Public Papers, VI(May 24, 1937), pp. 215; Perking, Roosevelt pp. 262-63.

37. Perking, Roosevelt, p.263; Roosevelt, Public Papers, VII (Aug. 16, 1938), p.489.

38. Roosevelt, Public Papers, VII(Apr. 30, 1938), pp.333-34.

39. Article for the following historical article written by Jonathan Grossman of the U.S. DOL“Department of Labor”.

39The New York Times, May 6, 7, 1938; Perking, Roosevelt, pp.263-64 (Perking makes an error in the date of Lister Hill’s primary victory); Jonathan Grossman and James Anderson, interview with Clara Beyer, Nov 5, 1965.

40Record of Discussion of FLSA of 1938. V (U.S. Department of Labor), p. 873.

41. “Interview with Clara Beyer, No. 25, 1965; U.S. Record of Discussion of FLSA of 1938. V (U.S. Department of Labor), pp. 873, 915, 929.

42Record of Discussion of FLSA of 1938. V (U.S. Department of Labor), p. 902.

43. Roosevelt, Public Papers, VI (May 24, 1937), pp. 214-16.


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