Josephine Clara Goldmark - Labor Research and Advocacy

Labor Research and Advocacy

After graduating from Bryn Mawr College in 1898, Goldmark went to work for Florence Kelley at the National Consumers League (NCL), where she later became the chairman of the committee on labor laws.

Goldmark was an aggressive investigator of labor conditions and wrote prolifically about her findings. Her research about the effects of industrial work, low wages, and long hours on workers, particularly women and child labor, had a major effect on United States labor law. In 1908, she compiled a major amicus curiae brief for the United States Supreme Court case Muller v. Oregon, which is popularly known as the Brandeis Brief after her brother-in-law Louis Brandeis, whose name appeared on it. The brief was instrumental in getting the Supreme Court to declare that state maximum-hours laws were constitutional. In 1911, Goldmark was part of the investigating committee into the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. The following year, the Russell Sage Foundation published her book Fatigue and Efficiency, a study of the effects of long hours on workers' health and job performance.

Goldmark worked for many years as a researcher of labor conditions and their effects in different working environments. She served as a consulting expert for a number of companies, philanthropies, and government commissions, and she was vice chair of the New York City Child Labor Commission