Eileen Boris: Ghost of Hiram Johnson is Looking over Brown's Shoulder

Eileen Boris is the chair of feminist studies and professor of history and black studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author (with Jennifer Klein) of "Caring for America: Home Health Workers in the Shadow of the Welfare State."

In 1913, California's Progressive and Republican governor, Hiram Johnson, cried out for "the necessity" of providing thousands of women workers "a living wage." With social reform at flood tide, Johnson signed one of the nation's first labor standards laws, establishing a state Industrial Welfare Commission with powers to investigate and establish proper working conditions for women and children.

Denounced by Harrison Grey Otis' Los Angeles Times as one of "the socialistic, senseless, and freakish measures" of "Holy Hiram," the commission would over time curb the hours and raise the wages of women employed in stores, offices, canneries and factories. But omitted was the largest single female occupation, domestic service....