For several years in the early twentieth century, wage-earning women in California had advocated an eight-hour law for women workers as an extension of labor's long-term efforts to achieve this goal through organizing workers. Women's involvement in reducing their working hours arose internally within the affiliated women's organizations of the labor movement, particularly the Women's Union Label League (WULL), and won the support of numerous middle-class women's clubs and organizations as well. Delegations of San Francisco working women testified twice before the state legislature,where their assertive presentations about harsh working conditions won them significant public support, especially when contrasted to the hardhearted stance of the opposition (primarily employers of women). Louise LaRue of the waitresses'union pointed out that "the average waitress walks ten miles a day, and the Government will not allow an army mule to walk more than thirteen miles in the same time." Workers could also be scientific in collecting data:the waitresses had used pedometers to gather this information. The women took advantage of the hearings to proudly emphasize cases in which they had reduced their hours and improved their working conditions and wages through their own unions.
In contrast to the eight-hour law for women, which passed in 1911, the women's minimum-wage measure passed in 1913 over the strident objections of the powerful California labor establishment and was thus perceived by labor as imposed by progressive reformers [social reformers associated with the Progressive movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century]. From labor's perspective, there were important differences between hours and wage legislation.The former established fixed standards and vested responsibility in the state labor commissioner, who was usually responsive to labor interests. The latter created a novel form of government agency. the independent commission, with the power to determine the wage standards, which it then administered. Minimum-wage legislation for women roused the opposition of many of the state's male trade unionists, who feared that it would encourage excessive government intrusion into the collective bargaining process and weaken all labor organizations. In California, organized labor originally had four major points of objection to the minimum-wage law for women: that it would create maximum-wage ceilings, increase unemployment by speeding up production and eliminating less productive workers, obviate the need for organization among women, and, most significantly, place women at the mercy of unsympathetic future administrations and excessively powerful appointed officials who were not accountable to the electorate. In theory, commissions were neutral, objective bodies. In reality, their appointments often reflected the difficulty of trying to balance labor, management, and public interests. In this context, it is not so surprising that the measure elicited a spirited reaction from working-class women, who already had their own activist traditions.
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The primary purpose of the passage is to
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According to the passage, an eight-hour law for women workers in California was
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Which of the following can be inferred about the "San Francisco working women" who testified before the state legislature?
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The passage attributes the difference between labors' view of the eight-hour law and its view of the minimum-wage law in part to differences between
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Jimi Hendrix was a pivotal figure in the visionary aesthetic movement known as Afrofuturism, which is steeped in African American musical tradition yet ____________ technological innovation, from synthesizers to spaceships.
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Evidence of the human brain's ____________ abounds: violinists, for example, tend to have larger cortical areas devoted to processing signals from their fingering hands than do non-violinists.
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Motorcycle riders in London have discovered an ingenious, albeit ____________, way of parking illegally without getting a ticket.
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Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the explanation given for aphid population explosions?
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The primary purpose of the passage is to
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It can be inferred from the passage that the concentration of calcium in the grass of the Serengeti Plain
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It can be inferred from the passage that when lactating, female wildebeests
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Basquiat's notebook drawings were not intended as preparatory sketches for larger drawings or paintings; rather, as artwork they are ____________, often containing subjects, words, and ideas that are not found in his larger works.
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Saturn's rings, among the most iconic features in the solar system, are not ____________: they're raining so much water onto the planet that in 300 million years they could rain themselves nearly out of existence.
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Unlike some of her colleagues, the well-known investor (i)___________ large, established companies, instead preferring companies in(ii)_____________ stage of development.
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The degree of encephalization (the ratio of brain mass to total body mass) is not (i)____________ cognitive ability: there are data suggesting that cognition is (ii)____________ the absolute number of cerebral neurons and their connections.
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For some scientists, the (i)____________ artificial islands is (ii)____________ their potential for (iii)____________ oceanographic-research vessels and coastal marine labs. Ships are on the water, but they don't stay put. Coastal labs can gather long time series of data in one place but don't provide access to deeper water. An artificial island could allow low-cost, long-term access to the ocean for research, especially for students in tropical countries where natural systems are among the most sensitive to human activities.
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