TORRINGTON – Sam Western caught the attention of his audience immediately when he said, “The Wyoming Constitution is more progressive than we think it is.”

An economics history author and instructor at the University of Wyoming, Western was in Torrington as a prelude to the opening of the Smithsonian traveling exhibit, “The Way We Worked,” which opened Jan. 27 at Homesteaders Museum in Torrington.
In his presentation, “For the Good of Society at Large, A presentation on Wyoming’s Progressive Labor History,” Western explained some of the reasons for his statement to an audience of 23 local residents and visitors to the Homesteaders Museum pre-exhibit training session. “How we Worked” is a history of labor development and influences on the United States.
The exhibit runs through March 18.
Western explained that three of the major issues addressed in the writing of the 1889 Wyoming Constitution were water, women’s rights, and labor. However, his focus for the evening’s program was the development of the state’s labor laws.
Participants in Wyoming’s Constitutional Convention included merchants and ranchers as well as businessmen, and were mostly of the upper middle class, and in their 50s. Admittedly, he said, there were several representatives of the major employers, including representatives from the railroads and mining companies, but they were in the minority. Idaho, North and South Dakota and Montana also drew up their constitutions in 1889, and all borrowed from each other.
The constitution limited child labor to eight hours a day, six days a week, and children under age 14 were not allowed to work underground. Women were not allowed to work in the mines until the mid-1900s.
In addition, the convention gave the State superior power over corporations, and according to Western, it established 8-hour days for miners as well as public employees. Western said the shorter hours paid off with fewer injuries and days off work because employees were not as tired and were more alert on the job.
It also supported opportunities for self-improvement and labor arbitration. Companies were responsible for compensation for job injuries related to tools and equipment.
According to Western, overall, the Wyoming Constitution was a friend of labor.
“It was a positive thing,” Western told his audience in the Goshen County Library Activity Center. “There was help for small labor because of the Constitution. It was created to be fair and help small producers.
“Because Wyoming’s economy was a pastoral and grazing economy, labor issues were not great,” Western said of the early years. “That did not lend itself to labor unrest.”
Another thing that helped develop the Wyoming Constitution was that people with work experience were involved in writing it, he said.
Wyoming has been fairly free of strikes, especially in mines. Western attributes this to the lack of hard rock mines, such as those in Montana and Idaho.
According to Western, probably the worst strike in Wyoming was at a Peter Kiwitt mine at Sheridan in 1987. Right now, Western is aware of only one union mine in the state.
Western said the rural setting and sparse population had played a part in developing one of the most progressive constitutions of its time.
“Wyoming helped reform the national dialog on labor,” Western concluded.
Western teaches and writes about northern Rockies economic history. He taught the first ever class in Wyoming Economic History at UW, and currently is teaching a class, “New Wyoming Narratives: What Do We Want?”
His program was sponsored by the Wyoming Humanities Council in conjunction with the Smithsonian Exhibit, Museum on Main Street, a nation-wide project.