Based on author's thesis (doctoral - University of Minnesota, 2014) issued under title: 'The compensation law put us out of work' : workplace injury law, commodification, and discrimination in the early 20th century United States. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:
Introduction : Injuries and abstractions -- Part I. The eclipse of recognition and the rise of the tyranny of the table -- Commodification and recognition within the tyranny of the trial -- Injury impoverished -- Suffering and the price of life and limb -- Interlude: Tramped on and trampler in the Cherry Mine fire -- Part II. New machineries of injustice -- The disabling power of law and market -- Insuring injustice -- Discrimination technicians and human weeding -- Conclusion: Resistance and aftermath -- Coda: Narrative, machinery, law
Summary:
"The late nineteenth and early twentieth century U.S. economy maimed and killed employees at an astronomically high rate, while the legal system left the injured and their loved ones with little recourse. In the 1910s, U.S. states enacted workers' compensation laws, which required employers to pay a portion of the financial costs of workplace injuries. This book uses a range of archival materials, interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives, and compelling narration to criticize the shortcomings of these laws. While compensation laws were a limited improvement in economic terms for employees, this book argues that these laws created new forms of inequality, by causing people with disabilities to lose their jobs, as well as new forms of inhumanity, by treating deeply personal suffering losses in an impersonal and economic manner. Ultimately the book raises questions about law and class, and about when and whether our economy and our legal system produce justice or injustice"-- Provided by publisher.
Series:
Cambridge historical studies in American law and society
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.