Important dates in labor history

By bellaloyd

  • 1769 — Philadelphia committee led by Benjamin Franklin attempts to regulate waste disposal and water pollution.

  • 1834 First turnout of “mill girls” in Lowell, Massachusetts, to protest wage cuts

    The young female operatives organized to protest these wage cuts in 1834 and 1836. Harriet Hanson Robinson was one of those factory operatives; she began work in Lowell at the age of ten, later becoming an author and advocate of women's suffrage.

  • 1843 Lowell Female Labor Reform Association begins public petitioning for 10-hour day

    1843, Lowell female textile workers begin public petitioning for 10-hour workday. 1845, (January) about a dozen of the Lowell female textile workers came together to start an organization in called the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA). 1845, (June) The LFLRA grew to approximately 500 women.

  • 1854 — Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden

  • 1866 — The term ecology is coined in German as Oekologie by Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel

  • 1871 After her dress shop is destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire, Mary Harris "Mother" Jones begins working as a labor organizer

    After Jones' husband and four children all died of yellow fever in 1867, and her dress shop was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, she became an organizer for the Knights of Labor and the United Mine Workers union.

  • 1872 — The term acid rain is coined by Robert Angus Smith in the book Air and Rain

  • 1903 Women’s Trade Union League formed at the AFL convention

    Women's Trade Union League (WTUL), American organization, the first national association dedicated to organizing women workers. Founded in 1903, the WTUL proved remarkably successful in uniting women from all classes to work toward better, fairer working conditions.

  • 1905 — The term smog is coined by Henry Antoine Des Voeux in a London meeting to express concern over air pollution

  • 1909 “Uprising of the 20,000” female shirtwaist makers in New York strike against sweatshop conditions

    On November 23, 1909, more than 20,000 Yiddish-speaking immigrants, mostly young women in their teens and early twenties, launched an eleven-week general strike in New York's shirtwaist industry. Dubbed the Uprising of the 20,000, it was the largest strike by women to date in American history.

  • 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in New York kills nearly 150 workers

    In one of the darkest moments of America's industrial history, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City burns down, killing 146 workers, on March 25, 1911.

  • 1912 Bread and Roses strike begun by immigrant women in Lawrence, Massachusetts, ended with 23,000 men, women and children on strike and with as many as 20,000 on the picket line

    The power looms that thundered inside the cotton weaving room of the Everett Mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts, suddenly fell silent on January 11, 1912. When a mill official demanded to know why workers were standing motionless next to their machines, the explanation was simple: “Not enough pay.”

  • 1916 — US Congress created the National Park Service

  • 1933 Frances Perkins becomes the U.S. secretary of labor, the first woman to be appointed to the U.S. Cabinet

    Frances Perkins becomes the U.S. secretary of labor, the first woman to be appointed to the U.S. Cabinet

  • 1962 — Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring

  • 1963 Equal Pay Act bans wage discrimination based on gender

    The EPA , which is part of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended ( FLSA ), and which is administered and enforced by the EEOC , prohibits sex-based wage discrimination between men and women in the same establishment who perform jobs that require substantially equal skill, effort and responsibility.

  • 1968 — The Apollo 8 picture of Earthrise

  • 1970 — Earth Day – April 22., millions of people gather in the United States for the first Earth Day organized by Gaylord Nelson, former senator of Wisconsin, and Denis Hayes, Harvard graduate student. US Environmental Protection Agency established

  • 1974 Coalition of Labor Union Women founded

    1974: March 23-24, Chicago, IL: Founding Conference elects Olga M. Madar as president. Delegates adopt as CLUW's mission four goals: organize the unorganized; promote affirmative action; increase women's participation in their unions; and increase women's participation in political and legislative activities.

  • 1989 — Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer entered into force

  • 1997 — The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan in December. Countries that ratify this protocol commit to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gasses

  • 2001 — U.S. rejects the Kyoto Protocol

  • 2017 — U.S. announces it will cease participation in the Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation

  • 2021 — U.S. announces it will rejoin the Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation