Goldmark, Josephine, 1877-1950

Josephine Clara Goldmark was an advocate of labor law reform in the United States during the early 20th century. After graduating from Bryn Mawr College in 1898, Goldmark went to work for Florence Kelley at the National Consumers League (NCL), where she later became the chairman of the committee on labor laws. Goldmark was an aggressive investigator of labor conditions and wrote prolifically about her findings. Her research about the effects of industrial work, low wages, and long hours on workers, particularly women and child labor, had a major effect on United States labor law. In 1908, she compiled a major amicus curiae brief for the United States Supreme Court case Muller v. Oregon, which is popularly known as the Brandeis Brief after her brother-in-law Louis Brandeis, whose name appeared on it. The brief was instrumental in getting the Supreme Court to declare that state maximum-hours laws were constitutional. In 1911, Goldmark was part of the investigating committee into the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. The following year, the Russell Sage Foundation published her book Fatigue and Efficiency, a study of the effects of long hours on workers' health and job performance. Her work against child labor and for wages-and-hours legislation (the 8-hour day, minimum wage) was influential in the passage of the Keating—Owen Act in 1916 and the later Fair Labor Standards Act of 1937. (Source: Wikipedia)