At the beginning of the 1900s, accidents at work were commonplace in this country; for example, in 1907 over 3,200 people died in mining accidents. At that time legislation and public opinion were all in favor of management. There were few protections for worker safety. Today's industrial employees are better off than their colleagues in the past. Their chances of dying in a workplace accident are less than half that of their predecessors 60 years ago. According to the National Safety Council (NSC), the current workplace injury death rate is about 4 per 100,000, or less than a third of the rate 50 years ago. Improvements in safety so far have been the result of pressure for legislation to promote health and safety, the steadily increasing costs associated with accidents and injuries, and the professionalization of safety as a profession. When the industrial sector began to grow in the United States, dangerous working conditions were commonplace. After the civil war, the seeds of the security movement were sown in this country. Factory inspection was introduced in Massachusetts in 1867. In 1868, the first safety barrier was patented. In 1869 the Pennsylvania legislature passed a mine safety law requiring two exits from all mines. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was founded in 1869 to study industrial accidents and report pertinent information on hose-related accidents. The next decade saw little progress in the safety movement until 1877, when the Massachusetts legislature passed a law requiring safeguards for dangerous machinery. In 1877 the Employers' Liability Act was passed. In 1892, the first safety program was established at an Illinois steel mill, in response to a flywheel explosion at that company. In 1907 the U.S. Department of the Interior created the Bureau of Mines to investigate accidents, examine health risks, and make recommendations for improvements. One of the most important developments in the history of the safety movement occurred in 1908, when the first form of workers' compensation was introduced in the United States. The concept of workers' compensation made great strides in the United States when Wisconsin passed the first effective workers' compensation law in 1911. That same year New Jersey became the first state to support a workers' compensation law. In 1913, the National Industrial Safety Council was formed and two years later, the National Industrial Safety Council changed its name to the National Safety Council. From the end of the First World War (1918) until the 1950s there was a steady growth in security awareness.