Adamson Act

(noun)

This Act was a United States federal law passed in 1916 that established an eight-hour workday, with additional pay for overtime work, for interstate railroad workers.

Related Terms

Examples of Adamson Act in the following topics:

  • Anti-Trust Laws

    • Wilson sought to encourage competition and curb trusts by using the Federal Trade Commission to enforce the Clayton Antitrust Act.
    • For instance, the 1916 Federal Farm Loan Act provided for issuance of low-cost, long term mortgages to farmers, and the Adamson Act imposed an eight-hour workday in the railroad industry (prompted by the 1916 summer strike by railroad employees).
    • Wilson also attempted to curtail child labor with the Keating-Owen Act.
    • The Federal Trade Commission effectively restricted unfair trade practices and enforced the 1914 Clayton Antitrust Act.
    • Rather than the piecemeal success of Roosevelt and Taft in targeting certain trusts and monopolies in lengthy lawsuits, the Clayton Antitrust Act effectively defined unfair business practices and created a common code of sanctioned business activity.

  • The Wilson Administration

    • This included the Federal Reserve Act, the Underwood Tariff, the Federal Trade Commission, the Clayton Antitrust Act, and the Adamson Act.
    • In late 1913, Wilson secured passage of the Federal Reserve Act, an Act of Congress that created the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the U.S., and granted it the legal authority to issue currency.
    • He led the creation of the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, outlawing business practices such as price discrimination and price fixing, as well as expanding previous antitrust laws by holding individual corporate officers responsible if their companies violated the laws.
    • More importantly, the act set clear guidelines for corporations that had previously benefited from legal uncertainties.
    • In 1916, under threat of a national railroad strike, Wilson approved the Adamson Act.

  • Wilsonian Progressivism

    • Included among these were the Federal Reserve Act, Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, and the Federal Farm Loan Act.
    • Through passage of the Adamson Act, imposing an 8-hour workday for railroads, he averted a railroad strike and an ensuing economic crisis.
    • Wilson's tariff reform was largely achieved through the passage of the Underwood Tariff Act of 1913.
    • Contemporaries considered the Revenue Act a political triumph for Wilson.
    • The 1913 Act established the lowest rates since the Walker Tariff of 1857.

  • The Rise of Wilson

    • In his first term as President, Wilson persuaded a Democratic Congress to pass major progressive reforms: the Federal Reserve Act, Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal Farm Loan Act, and an income tax.
    • He also had Congress pass the Adamson Act, which imposed an 8-hour workday for railroad workers.
    • On the home front in 1917, he began the United States' first draft since the American Civil War, raised billions of dollars in war funding through Liberty Bonds, set up the War Industries Board, promoted labor union cooperation, supervised agriculture and food production through the Lever Act, took over control of the railroads, and suppressed anti-war movements.

  • Higher Education

    • President Johnson's Great Society made improvements to elementary, secondary, and higher education through a series of acts.
    • The Act also began a transition from federally-funded institutional assistance to individual student aid.
    • The Higher Education Act of 1965 was reauthorized in 1968, 1971, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1986, 1992, 1998, and 2008.
    • This signing plaque rests on campus grounds of Texas State University commemorating the Higher Education Act.
    • Distinguish the key features - as well as the effects - of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Higher Education Facilities Act, and the Higher Education Act.

  • The Coercive Acts

    • Four of the acts were issued in direct response to the Boston Tea Party of December 1773.
    • Many colonists, however, viewed the acts as an arbitrary violation of their rights.
    • The first of the acts passed in response to the Boston Tea Party was the Boston Port Act.
    • The Massachusetts Government Act provoked even more outrage than the Port Act because it unilaterally altered the government of Massachusetts to bring it under control of the British government.
    • Although many colonists found the Quartering Act objectionable, it generated the least amount of protest of the Coercive Acts.

  • Enforcing the Navigation Acts

    • These Acts formed the basis for British overseas trade for nearly 200 years.
    • Later revisions of the Act added new regulations.
    • The Acts were in full force for a short time only.
    • On the whole, the Navigation Acts were more or less obeyed by colonists, despite their dissatisfaction, until the Molasses and Sugar Acts.
    • Describe the central stipulations of the Navigation Acts and the Acts' effects on the political and economic situation in the colonies

  • The Alien and Sedition Acts

    • The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were a series of laws that aimed to outlaw speech that was critical of the government.
    • The Naturalization Act repealed and replaced the Naturalization Act of 1795 and extended the duration of residence required for aliens to become citizens of the United States from five years to fourteen years.
    • Enacted July 6, 1798, and providing no expiration provision, the act remains intact today as Title 50 of U.S.
    • The most controversial arrest made under the Alien and Sedition Acts was of a member of Congress.
    • While the Alien and Sedition Acts were left largely unenforced after 1800, the Alien Act was later used to justify the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and the Supreme Court was grappling with the constitutionality of the Sedition Acts as late as the 1960s.

  • The Acts of Parliament

    • Two 18th-century acts of the Parliament of Great Britain, known together as the Quartering Acts, ordered the local governments of the American colonies to provide housing and provisions for British soldiers.
    • Following the expiration of an act that provided British regulars with quartering in New York, Parliament passed the Quartering Act of 1765, which went far beyond what Gage had requested.
    • An amendment to the original Quartering Act was passed on June 2, 1774.
    • This act was passed and enforced along with many others, known by the colonists as the "Intolerable Acts."  
    • This act expired on March 24, 1776.

  • Tax Protests

    • The first wave of protests attacked the Stamp Act of 1765, and marked the first time Americans from each of the thirteen colonies met together and planned a common front against illegal taxes.
    • The Parliament attempted a series of taxes and punishments which met more and more resistance, namely the First Quartering Act (1765), the Declaratory Act (1766), the Townshend Revenue Act (1767), and the Tea Act (1773).
    • In response to the Boston Tea Party Parliament passed the Intolerable Acts: the Second Quartering Act (1774), the Quebec Act (1774), the Massachusetts Government Act (1774), the Administration of Justice Act (1774), the Boston Port Act (1774), and the Prohibitory Act (1775).