| 1. Before coming to the United States, Irene Mary Ashby had participated in the establishment of industrial cooperatives in London and had worked with the West London Social Guild on improving working conditions for women. Arriving in this country in the spring of 1900, she visited Chicago's Hull House and lectured in several cities. In response to the Birmingham, Ala., Trades Council's request for help in passing a state child labor bill, SG asked Ashby on Nov. 13 to lobby for the measure. She left New York on Dec. 3 but found on her arrival in Alabama that the bill had died in committee. Posing as a tourist, Ashby subsequently investigated conditions in the state's textile mills, visiting twenty-four mills between Dec. 12, 1900, and Jan. 15, 1901, and interviewing workers, managers, and community members. She helped prepare the child labor and compulsory education bills that were submitted to the 1901 session of the state legislature. After a trip to England, where she was married in September 1901 to Alfred Newth Macfadyen, a British army officer, she returned to the United States in October and accepted a commission from SG to lobby for child labor laws in the South. She continued with this work until the spring of 1902 when she joined her husband in South Africa. 2. On Feb. 12, 1897, Massachusetts state representative David Shaw introduced H. 827, a bill amending Sec. 11, chap. 508, laws of 1894, by reducing the workweek for women and minors in manufacturing and workshops from fifty-eight to fifty-four hours. The measure failed to pass; it was introduced as H. 224 in 1898 and as H. 127 in 1899, but was not passed at either session. 3. Two Jefferson Co., Ala., lawmakers, Sen. Hugh Morrow and Rep. A. J. Reilly, introduced a child labor bill in the Alabama legislative session that began Jan. 29, 1901. It barred employment of all children under the age of ten, and of those under twelve who were not the sole support of a widowed mother or an invalid father. The bill also prohibited night work and set a maximum sixty-hour workweek for children under sixteen. It provided for a literacy test and a minimum of three months' schooling for mill workers up to the age of fourteen. The measure died in committee in February. 4. This measure, which was also introduced by Morrow and Reilly, made at least sixty days' schooling mandatory for children up to twelve if working, or up to the age of sixteen if not working. Like its companion bill, it failed to pass the 1901 session of the legislature. |