McDonald, Grace (audio interview #1 of 2)

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McDonald, Grace (audio interview #1 of 2)

McDonald, Grace ( - 6/6/1905); Berger Gluck, Sherna, interviewer

URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10211.3/218493

Date: 2021-02-02

Abstract:

INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This is the first of two interviews with Grace Burnham McDonald, conducted at the dining table in her home in the San Jose area. The table, and practically all the other available surfaces in the house, was piled high with papers. In a small cottage outside, several people were working on her newsletter. Additionally, Irving Tabeshaw. MD was visiting at the time and going through some of McDonald's papers. He can be heard on the tape periodically. It was difficult to establish rapport with McDonald, who seemed to be determined to present a sanitized version of the history of the Workers Health Bureau. (See also the interview with Charlotte Todes Stern, who was one of the three staff in the organization.) She was also resistant to participating in an oral history project, as she explicitly states in the second interview, that delved into her personal life. To make matters worse, and perhaps because of the problematic nature of the relationship we had, one side of the tape was inadvertently taped over. Despite these difficulties, there is valuable information about the working of the bureau, and a few glimpses into her personal background. The interview was conducted as part of the labor history work of the Feminist History Research Project. A separate lengthy series of interviews conducted by Ros Baxandall with Charlotte Stern includes discussion of the Workers Health Bureau.

Description:

SUBJECT BIO - Grace Burnham McDonald was one of the founders of the Workers Health Bureau in early 1920s. The bureau, which lasted until 1929, worked with the labor movement to research occupational hazards and develop recommendations for standards to be negotiated between labor and management. Born in New Haven, McDonald was greatly inspired and influenced by her father. Max Mailhouse, who was a neurologist. Initially, however, she started to study art. After her marriage in 1910, she moved to Louisville with her husband, where he taught sociology. Since there was no art department there, she switched her focus to economic and social issues. After the family moved to New York in 1918, she attended Columbia and the New School for Social Research, following which she was hired in 1920, by the Education Department of the Joint Board of Sanitary Control (a body established following the Triangle Shirtwaist fire). Her work there became the model for the Workers Health Bureau, which she founded with Harriet Silverman. They were later joined by Charlotte Todes Stern (whose oral history can be found here). The bureau was dissolved in 1929 when funding from the union dried up in the throes of the Depression. When her husband died in 1923, she inherited a fortune, which she used to advance social causes. Following her second marriage, McDonald moved to Chicago and then to California, where she continued to work on occupational health and safety issue and farm labor issues. According to her obituary, she was appointed to the state Board of Agriculture and helped to form the California Farm Research and Legislative Committee. McDonald was referred to the Feminist History Research Project by ROHO (the Regional Oral History Office of the Bancroft Library). TOPICS - family background; role models; education; training course on industrial conditions; job in the Educational Department of the Joint Board of Sanitary Control; safety conditions in the garment industry; Harriet Silverman; Charlotte Stern; formation of advisory committee/Workers Health Bureau; Alice Hamilton, Joint Board of Sanitary Control and Workers Health Bureau studies; collaboration work with labor unions; Frances Perkins; National Industrial Health Conference; relationship of Workers Health Bureau and AFL; dissolution of Workers Health Bureau; workmen's compensation cases; marriage to railroad dispatcher; work with Railroad Unity movement; and California Research and Legislative Committee efforts to establish occupational safety and disease laws;family background; family history; suffrage movement; social reformers; International Cooperative League; college education; job in amalgamated clothing shop; working conditions; Joint Board of Sanitary Control studies; structure and function of Workers Health Bureau; coordination with labor unions; National Industrial Health Conference; and impact of Depression on the relationship between the AFL and the Workers Health Bureau;

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