Whoops. I meant to say last week that I planned to take today off for Labor Day. Instead, we’ll be on “low power mode,” as I like to call it, with a story that I originally wrote here four years ago.
Sailing and bridge and croquet
Today’s story is for Labor Day, and it starts almost a century ago, when a young prospective law student named Elizabeth Brandeis (”E.B” to her friends), had her heart set on Harvard.
Little problem: Harvard refused to admit women to its law school in the 1920s.
They wouldn’t even make an exception for E.B., whose father was Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (a Harvard man himself).
Instead, she enrolled at the University of Wisconsin law school in 1923. There, she met her future husband, a fellow student named Paul Raushenbush.
“She was brainy and shy, her hair long and dark,” as Michael S. Rosenwald put it in The Washington Post. “He was handsome and outgoing. On hikes and canoe outings, they fell in love romantically and intellectually.”
Sounds lovely. They graduated, married, and both became professors at Wisconsin.
Then, they found their calling.
A few other people
Two more people enter the story here (although not the love affair; that would be awkward):
John R. Commons: a Wisconsin law professor who had tried but failed to advocate for an unemployment insurance law. E.B. and Paul Raushenbush became his acolytes.
Philip La Follette, a fellow Wisconsin Law graduate whose late father had been the state’s governor and served in the U.S. Senate, and whose brother was a sitting U.S. senator at the time.
La Follette wanted to run for governor, and he wanted to pass unemployment insurance legislation as part of his platform. So, knowing his friends E.B. and Paul Raushenbush’s work with Commons, he asked them to draft something that could make it through the legislature.
They dove in, and included a key provision that became highly controversial (but survived): the idea that the whole thing had to be funded by employers, rather than employees, so that employers would have a disincentive to cut jobs.
La Follette won the election, and E.B. and Paul’s proposed legislation garnered just enough support. It became Wisconsin law in 1932.
Three years later, when President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act of 1935, that law included a national unemployment insurance policy, too—which was based largely, in turn, on the Wisconsin law.
Sailing and bridge and croquet
“Their story is absolutely staggering to think about right now,” E.B. and Paul Raushenbush’s grandson told the Post. “It was their life’s work to make laws like this available to everyone.”
I find it interesting too. Maybe not, “absolutely staggering,” but it’s family, so we’ll allow it.
Tucked away at the end of all of this however, I find perhaps the most endearing part.
It’s that growing up, their grandson thought of E.B. and Paul not as lawyers or champions of the working class, but for other things: “the simple pleasures they all enjoyed together. Games of bridge. Sailing. Croquet.”
A lot of people who never heard of E.B. and Paul Raushenbush, and who never in a million years thought they’d need to file for unemployment, might agree that they owe them a small debt of gratitude. Labor Day seems like a nice day to tell the tale.
And for the rest of us, a remainder: Everyone you meet has a story! Maybe even a consequential one you knew nothing about.
Other things worth knowing …
AP: An Amazon cargo plane barreled off a runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday, killing at least five people as it struck vehicles and burst into flames, authorities said.
NYT: U.S. government investigators have subjected roughly 50 members of the military’s Joint Staff to polygraph tests over leaks to journalists, including about how the Iran war has created a shortage of crucial munitions. The tests were conducted in August and appear aimed at not just ferreting out anyone who may have shared information, but intimidating others.
Axios: Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany won a record 44% in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday, leaving a small party with seats that could determine whether it can lead the nation’s first far-right state government since World War II. Germany rebuilt its democracy after Nazi rule with unusually strong safeguards against extremism, but AfD’s breakthrough shows those barriers aren’t stopping Europe’s far right from becoming dominant electoral forces.
CNN: Volkswagen Group, which sells Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini, and VW vehicles, plans to eliminate 50,000 jobs and cut half of its offerings. The German automaker is struggling with headwinds from increasing Chinese competition in Europe and tariff costs on its shipments to the U.S. market.
WSJ: Carmakers have a new idea to boost EV range: add a gasoline engine. Hyundai, Ford, and Stellantis are planning to introduce larger EVs with gas generators to solve range anxiety.
Fortune: Some Las Vegas hotels are so desperate for Canadian tourists they’re treating Canada’s dollar as equivalent to the U.S. greenback. “It’s such a big ask right now,” said Vancouver resident Josh Loewen, 45, of the U.S. tourism industry’s attempts to woo Canadians back before a new president occupies the White House. “It’s just a wasted effort.”
AP: British police have a stout task ahead: recovering 70,000 pints worth of stolen Guinness. Two trailer truckloads of the famously creamy dark beer valued at £115,000 were stolen from a depot near Liverpool. “It is famously said that ‘Guinness is good for you,’ but that is only the case when it has been bought and paid for,” Det. Sgt. Gary McClatchy said. “We will settle for nothing less than the full recovery of all the items stolen.”
Thanks for reading. Photo by Bharathi Kannan on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this at Inc.com. See you in the comments!
Excellent history lesson! While many enjoy tearing things down, there are some of us in the background silently working to build foundations that will help people now and in the future. These are the good people.
I’m a subscriber and thanks for the articles