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Margaret L. Plunkett

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Margaret L. Plunkett
A smiling older white woman with grey/white hair, wearing a dark jacket
Margaret L. Plunkett, from a 1962 publication of the US Department of State
Born
Margaret Louise Plunkett

April 15, 1906
New York City
DiedSeptember 14, 2000 (aged 94)
Bloomington, Minnesota
Occupation(s)Diplomat, labor official

Margaret Louise Plunkett (April 15, 1906 – September 14, 2000) was an American labor economist, government official and diplomat. She was the first woman accredited to serve in the United States Labor Attaché program, with postings in the Hague (1962 to 1967) and Tel Aviv (1967 to 1972).

Early life and education

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Plunkett was born in Brooklyn and raised in Elmira, New York, the daughter of Robert Plunkett and Sophia Henschel Plunkett.[1] She graduated from Corning Northside High School in 1923, attended Elmira College, and completed three degrees, including a PhD in history, at Cornell University.[2] Her dissertation was titled "A History of the Liberty Party with Emphasis upon its Activities in the Northeastern States" (1930).[3] During her doctoral studies she spent a year at the Brookings Institution on a fellowship. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.[4]

Career

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Plunkett taught at Cornell University from 1930 to 1936. During World War II, she joined the United States Department of Labor to study wage rates in war industry factories. From 1945 to 1951, she headed the Labor Legislation Division of the Department's Women's Bureau,[5] collecting data to bolster the case for equal pay legislation at the federal and state levels. In the early 1950s she was a member of the Wage Stabilization Board, and later in the 1950s she worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, studying blind workers and young workers.[6][7] She served on Kennedy's Presidential Committee on Youth Employment before she was appointed labor attaché in 1962.[2]

Plunkett was the first woman to be named an American labor attaché.[8][9][10] As labor attaché, she was posted to the Hague from 1962 to 1967, and in Tel Aviv from 1967 to 1972.[2] As a labor attaché, she "helped promote and explain U.S. labor policies, assisted U.S. citizens who were interested in labor subjects, and developed contacts with labor leaders."[11]

Plunkett was also a serious amateur archaeologist, and during the 1950s she spent time in the Middle East pursuing this interest, at sites in Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Israel and Jordan.[2]

Plunkett received the Meritorious Service Award from the Labor Department in 1955.[2]

Publications

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  • Trend of earnings among white-collar workers during the war (1944)
  • "Earnings on Tugboats and Barges in New York Harbor, January 1945" (1945)[12]
  • "Equal Pay for Women Workers" (1946)[13]
  • "Personnel in Work for the Blind" (1957)[14]
  • "Personnel and Agencies Serving Blind People, 1955" (1957)[6]
  • "National Survey of Personnel Standards and Personnel Practices in Services for the Blind, 1955" (1957)[15]
  • "The Histadrut: The General Federation of Jewish Labor in Israel" (1958)[16]
  • School and early employment experience of youth; a report on seven communities, 1952-57 (1960, with Naomi Riches)[7]
  • Looking Ahead to Earning a Living (1961)
  • "The Older Worker in the Job Market" (1962)[17]
  • Israel (1979, with Les Finnegan)[18]

Personal life

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Plunkett died in Bloomington, Minnesota in 2000, aged 94 years.[19]

References

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  1. ^ "Mrs. Plunkett Cuts Her 99th Birthday Cake". Star-Gazette. February 11, 1966. p. 8. Retrieved May 7, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Ex-Elmiran is Labor Attache; Department of State Sends Woman". Star-Gazette. December 18, 1962. p. 4. Retrieved May 6, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ Plunkett, Margaret Louise. "A History of the Liberty Party with Emphasis upon its Activities in the Northeastern States" (PhD diss., Cornell University 1930). via ProQuest
  4. ^ United States Department of State (October 17, 1962). Press Releases. p. 11.
  5. ^ United States Congress Senate Committee on the Judiciary (April 23–24, 1947). Improvements in the Jury System of the Federal Courts. pp. 90–94.
  6. ^ a b Plunkett, Margaret L. (1957). "Personnel and Agencies Serving Blind People, 1955". Monthly Labor Review. 80 (7): 821–828. ISSN 0098-1818. JSTOR 41833774.
  7. ^ a b Plunkett, Margaret Louise; Riches, Naomi (1960). School and early employment experience of youth; a report on seven communities, 1952–57. Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statisticsno. 1277. Washington: U.S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
  8. ^ "1st U.S. Woman Labor Attache Sworn". The New York Times. October 18, 1962. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 6, 2022.
  9. ^ "U.S. Gets Its First Woman Labor Attaché". Department of State News Lett3er: 14. November 1962.
  10. ^ "All in a Day's Work!". International Labor. 4. September–October 1963.
  11. ^ Calkin, Homer L. (1977). Women in American Foreign Affairs. Department of State. p. 215.
  12. ^ Plunkett, Margaret L. "Earnings on Tugboats and Barges in New York Harbor, January 1945." Monthly Labor Review 61 (1945): 1192–1200.
  13. ^ Plunkett, Margaret L. "Equal Pay for Women Workers." Monthly Labor Review 63 (1946): 380–389.
  14. ^ Plunkett, Margaret L. (September 1957). "Personnel in Work for the Blind". Employment Security Review. 24: 33–35.
  15. ^ Plunkett, Margaret L. (November 1957). "National Survey of Personnel Standards and Personnel Practices in Services for the Blind, 1955"". Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness. 51 (9): 418–420. doi:10.1177/0145482X5705100906. ISSN 0145-482X. S2CID 220591417.
  16. ^ Plunkett, Margaret L. (January 1958). "The Histadrut: The General Federation of Jewish Labor in Israel". ILR Review. 11 (2): 155–182. doi:10.1177/001979395801100201. ISSN 0019-7939. S2CID 155032060.
  17. ^ Plunkett, Margaret L. (March 1, 1962). "The Older Worker in the Job Market". The Gerontologist. 2 (1): 28–31. doi:10.1093/geront/2.1.28. ISSN 0016-9013.
  18. ^ Finnegan, Les; Plunkett, Margaret L. (1979). Israel. Country labor profile. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of International Labor Affairs.
  19. ^ "Margaret Plunkett Obituary". Star-Gazette, via Legacy.com. September 21, 2000. Retrieved May 6, 2022.
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