The First Hundred Years of the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Excerpt] This volume reports on the first century of a government agency whose founders hoped that, by publishing facts about economic conditions, the agency would help end strife between capital and labor. The Bureau's early work included studies of depressions, tariffs, immigrants, and alcoholism and many assignments to investigate and mediate disputes between labor and management. Most of these functionsespecially those involving formulation of policypassed on to other agencies. The Bureau today remains one of the Nation's principal economic factfinders. In writing the book, Drs. Goldberg and Moye had full freedom to interpret events in accordance with their judgments as historians, without conformance to an "official" view of institutional history. Given the perspective made possible by passing years, the authors offer broader evaluations of the Bureau's early history than of contemporary events.