{"value"=>"<p>Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, chairman. The committee prepared a questionnaire on comparative changes in the working and living conditions of workers in factories and mercantile businesses.</p> <p>The files include general correspondence of Ralph Easley, Roland Falkner, and Jeremiah Jenks, with state commissioners of statistics, labor, and industrial conditions, chiefly notifying correspondents that they had been chosen to serve as members of the Labor Conditions Committee; correspondence of Samuel Gompers, 1914, mainly with union officials concerning changes since 1889 in the numbers of union members and the percentage of workers in their trades that had been organized; changes in wages, working hours, compensation for accidents, working and living conditions; and other work-related questions. Among the correspondents are Ralph B. Brandt (Wood, Wire and Metal Lathers' International), J.T. Carey (International Brotherhood of Papermakers), Austin B. Garretson (Order of Railway Conductors of America), J.G. Gerrey (International Brotherhood of Maintenance-of-Way Employes), and S.E. Heberling (Switchmen's Union); questionnaires for State Regulatory Agencies, 1914, prepared by the Labor Committee and arranged by state. The questionnaires are concerned with state laws regulating working conditions in factories, mercantile businesses, and other employment, and were sent to the state agencies responsible for overseeing industrial and mercantile working conditions. The questionnaires were sent to selected states in the northeast, south, midwest, and west. Included among the states are Alabama, California, Colorado, New Jersey, and New York; a summary report on the progress of labor, submitted to the committee; and miscellaneous papers, including schedules of questions submitted to union officials; statistics on labor conditions in various industries; pamphlet issued by the Massachusetts Board of Labor and Industries, outlining laws regulating child and female labor, 1913; the First Annual Report of the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations (Walsh Commission); and a report on the development in Ohio of laws regulating child labor, female labor, and factory inspection.</p>"}