The "Harvard scrubwomen" of this collection were women who cleaned Widener Library and were caught in the university's struggle with the Minimum Wage Commission of Massachusetts. In December 1920 representatives of Harvard testified against the proposed 37c an hour minimum wage on the grounds that Harvard had always paid more than the minimum and that, with its budget adopted, the University could go no higher. Early in 1922, an inspector from the commission visited the University and was assured that the wages were satisfactory; he left without seeing the payroll. In 1925, four "scrubwomen" appeared before the Minimum Wage Commission to complain of Harvard's wage scale. It took until November 1927 to determine that the Widener cleaning women did indeed come within the provisions of the minimum wage decree for "Office and Building Cleaners." (Chambermaids, or parlor maids as the University called them, were not covered.) In March 1928 the commission accepted the University's explanation that the scrubwomen's twenty-minute rest period, when deducted from hours worked, brought their wages up to the minimum. However, Harvard failed to supply the required written statement of this situation, and therefore, late in 1929, the commission threatened to publish a notice of the University's non-compliance with the minimum wage laws. Harvard responded by firing the nineteen scrubwomen, and in January 1930 the case appeared in the Boston newspapers.
Corliss Lamont, a Harvard alumnus of the Class of '24, initiated a protest of the underpayment of the women. As secretary of the alumni committee concerned with the matter, he was largely responsible for raising the money needed to pay the women what Harvard owed them under the minimum wage law. Lamont was then an instructor of philosophy and Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University. He has written on humanism, civil liberties, Soviet society, and related issues. (See Who's Who in America, 1980-1981.)
From the guide to the Papers, 1929-1932, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)
