In keeping with the comparative unimportance of the State labor movement at present is the small number of labor unions in North Dakota. The State's first labor organization was the Bismarck Typographical Union, chartered in 1883. In 1906 the American Federation of Labor granted a charter to the Fargo Trades and Labor Assembly, and in 1911 the State Federation was officially organized. Branches of the latter have since been formed in almost all of the larger towns in the State. State regulation of labor conditions had its beginning in 1907 with the passage of a Workmen's Compensation Act. Many revisions have since been made in this law. A State welfare commission was formed in 1917 to regulate labor conditions; and two years later, partly through the efforts of this commission, a minimum wage law was passed and placed under the administration of the Workmen's Compensation Bureau. At the same time provision was made for regulating the wages and hours of women laborers. In 1936 North Dakota was the only State having an eight-and-one-half hour day provision for women in factories, stores, hotels, laundries, cafes, and telephone and telegraph offices. [Illustration: ANCIENT INDIAN TURTLE EFFIGY _Photo by Russell Reid_] [Illustration: SIOUX SUN DANCE AS ORIGINALLY PERFORMED _Copy of an old drawing courtesy of Frank Fiske_] [Illustration: A MODERN SIOUX SUN DANCE CEREMONIAL _Photo by Paul S. Bliss_] [Map: NORTH DAKOTA IN 1879, FROM AN OLD MAP OF DAKOTA TERRITORY] The first State child-labor act was passed in 1909. Under the present law, employment of children under the age of 14 is prohibited. The proposed child-labor amendment to the Constitution of the United States was ratified by the North Dakota Legislature at the 1931 session. RACIAL GROUPS AND FOLKWAYS International repute as a farming State brought North Dakota a steady stream of immigration up to the time of the World War. Tales of the rich wheatlands of Dakota drew a continuous procession of settlers with their household goods from the eastern States and from across the sea, to claim a share of the fertile western acres. Little more than two decades has passed since this influx ceased. The State presents a patchwork of foreign groups, each still retaining many Old World customs of speech, dress, and social life. Cultural assimilation, however, has slowly veneered the life of the State with an American character which is gradually seeping into and supplanting the ways of the Old World.