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Updated: June 29, 2025
The principle of limitation upon the hours of women's work once established in Illinois, the workers could proceed with their fight for an eight-hour day. The manufacturers lost their fight, and the ten-hour bill became a law of the State of Illinois.
Even as late as the stockyard strike this line of argument was denounced as "socialism" although it has since been confirmed as wise statesmanship by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States which was apparently secured through the masterly argument of the Brandeis brief in the Oregon ten-hour case.
There was a terrible confession, on the part of the employers, involved in this protest against the ten-hour day, a confession of the wretched state of women's wages in the State of Illinois.
William J. Calhoun had urged upon the judges, when the Supreme Court of Illinois had been earlier called upon to pass upon the validity of the original ten-hour law, although department-store employés had not been included within the scope of its protection. But the girls were more than not merely worn-out to the point of exhaustion.
He did this by reciting what British labor had done through the Rochdale system of cooperation without the help of capitalists and what the British Parliament had done in enacting the ten-hour law of 1847 against the protest of capitalists.
Kellyan sent for his old partner, and when word came that the previous night three cows were killed in the familiar way near the Bell-Dash pasture, they spared neither horse nor man to reach the spot. A ten-hour ride by night meant worn-out horses, but the men were iron, and new horses with scarcely a minute's delay were brought them.
In fact, the ten-hour system, which remained in vogue in this country in the skilled trades until the nineties, dates largely from this movement in the middle of the thirties. The great advance in the cost of living during 1835 and 1836 compelled an extensive movement for higher wages. Prices had in some instances more than doubled. Most of these strikes were hastily undertaken.
There are now two states, Mississippi and Oregon, which have ten-hour laws, applying to both men and women, and including the larger proportion of the workers. There are also federal statutes, state laws and municipal ordinances limiting the hours and granting the eight-hour day to whole groups of workers, either in public or semi-public employ, or affecting special occupations such as mining.
They caught a dim vision of a common interest. Here was something which all could share. That one was benefited did not mean another's loss. From girl after girl I heard the same story. I would ask them how they were getting on through the hard time this year. "Oh," a girl would answer, "it wasn't so bad at all. You see we've got the ten-hour law, and we can't work after the time is up.
On June 8 the master carpenters granted the ten-hour day and by June 22 the victory was complete. The victory in Philadelphia was so overwhelming and was given so much publicity that its influence extended to many smaller towns.
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