Trends in employee health service : Margaret F. McKiever, editor.

  • United States. Public Health Service. Division of Occupational Health.
Date:
1965]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Trends in employee health service : Margaret F. McKiever, editor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/124 (page 1)
    Significant Events 1860-1949 Just 100 years ago our present great industrial system was young, and health and safety measures for workers in the United States were almost nonexistent. The first paper in the United States on the problems of industrial medicine had been prepared in 1837 for the Medical Society of the State of New York. This was a prize essay On the Influence of Trades, Professions, and Occupations in the United States in the Pro- duction of Disease by Dr. Benjamin W. McCready, later one of the founders of Bellevue Hospital Medical College and of the New York Academy of Medicine. The first legal action to regulate working hours in the United States had been taken by President Van Buren, in 1840, in an Executive order stipulating a 10-hour day in Government Navy Yards. Massachusetts had passed the first child-labor law in the country in 1836 and the first safety law in 1852. Louisiana had established the first State board of health in 1855. The first municipal pension fund providing dis- ability and death benefits had been established in 1857. The Late 19th Century The years between 1860 and 1900 were significant for a number of reasons. Federal and State legislation, as well as private action taken by industries and industrial groups, show that interest in employee health was growing along with industrial development and urbani- zation.