Time to take your daily dose of history.
1513 Spaniard Vasco de Balboa saw the Pacific Ocean, having crossed Panama. The first European to see the vast Pacific. No relation to Rocky.
1926 Henry Ford introduced in his Michigan plant the forty-hour week with five days of eight hours of work. The arrangement was conditional on performance and completely at the company’s discretion. Ford wanted the best workers. It took unions to extend the practice and legislate it.
1942 United States War Labor Board urged employers to offer equal pay for women for equal work in war industries. Mouthed in D.C. and ignored far and wide. No surprise to Rosie. Although why the Labor Board did so is a mystery. Was this Eleanor Roosevelt’s influence. I’d like to think so.
1996 Ireland’s last Magdalene laundry closed. These establishments started to rehabilitate fallen women, became punishment sentences, and finally slave labor. Estimates say at least 10,000 women toiled in these sweat houses along with their girl children. They figure in some of Benjamin Black’s Quirke novels, some of which are reviewed elsewhere on this blog.
2005 In Northern Ireland, the IRA laid down its arms. Amen.
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