Department of Labor
United States 1913
Synopsis
On 4 March 1913, only hours before he left office, President William H. Taft signed the legislation (Public Law 426-62) "to Create a Department of Labor" with cabinet status. The first attempts to form such an agency occurred after the Civil War when labor leader William Sylvis called for the creation of a Department of Labor with a secretary chosen from the ranks of working men. Between 1864 and 1900 more than 100 bills and resolutions related to a Department of Labor were introduced unsuccessfully. A Bureau of Labor, without cabinet status, was created on 27 June 1884 with Carroll D. Wright as its first commissioner. Labor leaders continued to lobby for a cabinet-rank department with mixed success. President Grover Cleveland signed a bill on 21 March 1888 that set up a toothless Department of Labor within the Department of Interior. This new department was subordinate again with a Department of Commerce and Labor (1903-1913), established by act on 14 February 1903, consolidating functions that previously had been scattered through several government departments and agencies. By the act of 4 March 1913, the Department of Commerceand Labor was divided into the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor, which included the Bureau of Labor Statistics, formerly the Bureau of Labor; the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization; and the Children's Bureau.
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