Injury Impoverished: Workplace Accidents, Capitalism, and Law in the Progressive Era (Cambridge Historical Studies in American Law and Society)

Combining archival research, critical theory, and gender- and disability-analysis, Nate Holdren argues that Progressive Era reform to employee injury law created new employment discrimination against disabled people and a new injury culture that treated employees and their injuries instrumentally. "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"-- ‡c Provided by publisher The late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century US 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, US states enacted workers' compensation laws, which required employers to pay a portion of the financial costs of workplace injuries. Nate Holdren 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 for employees in economic terms, Holdren argues that these laws created new forms of inequality, causing people with disabilities to lose their jobs, while also resulting in new forms of inhumanity. Ultimately, this study raises questions about law and class and about when and whether our economy and our legal system produce justice or injustice. Contents Tables Acknowledgments Introduction: Injuries and Abstractions Part I: The Eclipse of Recognition and the Rise of the Tyranny of the Table 1 Commodification and Recognition within the Tyranny of the Trial 2 Injury Impoverished 3 Suffering and the Price of Life and Limb Interlude: Tramped-on and Trampler in the Cherry Mine Fire Part II: New Machineries of Injustice 4 The Disabling Power of Law and Market 5 Insuring Injustice 6 Discrimination Technicians and Human Weeding Conclusion: Resistance and Aftermath Coda: Narrative, Machinery, Law Index