A Class by Herself: Protective Laws for Women Workers, 1890s–1990s(Politics and Society in Modern America)

About the Book

A Class by Herself explores the historical role and influence of protective legislation for American women workers, both as a step toward modern labor standards and as a barrier to equal rights. Spanning the twentieth century, the book tracks the rise and fall of women-only state protective laws--such as maximum hour laws, minimum wage laws, and night work laws--from their roots in progressive reform through the passage of New Deal labor law to the feminist attack on single-sex protective laws in the 1960s and 1970s. Nancy Woloch considers the network of institutions that promoted women-only protective laws, such as the National Consumers' League and the federal Women's Bureau; the global context in which the laws arose; the challenges that proponents faced; the rationales they espoused; the opposition that evolved; the impact of protective laws in ever-changing circumstances; and their dismantling in the wake of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Above all, Woloch examines the constitutional conversation that the laws provoked--the debates that arose in the courts and in the women's movement.Protective laws set precedents that led to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and to current labor law; they also sustained a tradition of gendered law that abridged citizenship and impeded equality for much of the century. Drawing on decades of scholarship, institutional and legal records, and personal accounts, A Class by Herself sets forth a new narrative about the tensions inherent in women-only protective labor laws and their consequences.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1 1 Roots of Protection: The National Consumers' League and Progressive Reform 5 Progressives Mobilize 6 Florence Kelley and the NCL 11 Rationales: The Perils of Pragmatism 18 Roadblocks: Business and Labor 25 Law: Constraint and Opportunity 28 2 Gender, Protection, and the Courts, 1895-1907 33 Freedom of Contract versus the Police Power 35 A Lowell Mill: Commonwealth v. Hamilton Manufacturing Co. (1876) 38 A Chicago Box Factory: Ritchie v. People (1895) 39 A Utah Mine: Holden v. Hardy (1898) 43 Women's Hours Laws: Pennsylvania, Washington, Nebraska 45 A Utica Bakery: Lochner v. New York (1905) 48 A New York Bookbindery: People v. Williams (1907) 51 3 A Class by Herself: Muller v. Oregon (1908) 54 Local Roots of the Muller Case 55 Muller Goes to Court 58 The NCL Steps In 61 The Brandeis Brief 64 Curt Muller's Brief 70 The Muller v. Oregon Opinion 73 Assessing the Law of 1903 79 4 Protection in Ascent, 1908-23 85 Maximum Hours Cases 87 Night Work Laws 93 Protecting Men 97 The Minimum Wage 103 War and Peace 109 Adkins v. Children's Hospital (1923) 112 5 Different versus Equal: The 1920s 121 Alice Paul, the National Woman's Party, and the ERA 122 The NCL, Social Feminism, and the Minimum Wage 125 Factions Collide: The Women's Movement 130 Close Combat: The Conferences 133 The Women's Bureau Report of 1928 137 Did the Laws Work? Enforcement and Effectiveness 141 Working Women's Voices 145 6 Transformations: The New Deal through the 1950s 152 New Deal Women 153 The Minimum Wage and the Revolution of 1937 158 FLSA: Protection Triumphant 162 The 1940s: War and Postwar 167 Bartending: Goesaert v. Cleary (1948) 174 Women in Unions 180 The Women's Bureau and the NWP 184 7 Trading Places: The 1960s and 1970s 191 The Early 1960s: PCSW and Equal Pay 193 Title VII, the EEOC , and Protective Laws 197 Protection Debated: Pressure and Politics, 1965-69 202 Protection Challenged: Three Landmark Cases 207 Protection Dismantled: The Courts and the States 212 Closing Arguments: 1970 221 The ERA and the Women's Movement 224 8 Last Lap: Work and Pregnancy 235 Pregnancy Cases: The 1970s 236 The Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978) 242 Toward Family Leave 248 The Toxic Workplace 250 The Johnson Controls Decision (1991) 255 Conclusion: Protection Revisited 261 Looking Back: The Clash over Overtime 263 Moving On: After Protection 267 Acknowledgments 273 Notes 275 Index 321

About the Author :

Nancy Woloch teaches history at Barnard College, Columbia University. Her books include Women and the American Experience and Muller v. Oregon: A Brief History with Documents.

Review :
Winner of the 2016 Philip Taft Labor History Award, Cornell University School of Industrial & Labor Relations Winner of the 2015 William G. Bowen Award, Industrial Relations Section of Princeton University Honorable Mention for the 2015 David J. Langum, Sr. Prize for American Legal History/Biography, Langum Charitable Trust "Woloch retells the history of protective legislation as a scholarly page-turner, complete with 'close calls and near misses, false hopes and unintended consequences'... The resulting narrative leaves readers with a deeper appreciation for both the messiness of feminist polities and the power of history as a tool for helping us see the world fresh."--Amy Richter, Law and History Review "Woloch does a remarkable job of pulling a wide array of disparate events together to form a single narrative supporting her central theme... This text is highly recommended for any university or academic law library."--Miriam A. Murphy, Law Library Journal "A Class by Herself is a masterful history of interest group politics that shaped government, business and labor relations, and gender politics throughout the twentieth century. Labor organizers, clubwomen, judges, pro-business attorneys, reformers and their lawyer allies, bureaucrats, feminists, and aggrieved workers all receive attention in this superb history of protective labor legislation."--Kathleen A. Laughlin, American Historical Review "A fascinating story of 'false hopes and unintended consequences.'"--Lara Vapnek, Reviews in American History "Sophisticated and meticulously researched... The first study to provide a comprehensive view of sex-specific labor laws over their more than century-long existence. Woloch's work will no doubt become indispensible to the history of gendered labor law."--Jan Doolitle Wilson, Journal of American History "Historian Woloch analyzes the fraught history of protective laws for women workers. She skillfully synthesizes many strands of the historiography of protective legislation while making an original contribution with close analyses of the people and particulars of key court cases and decisions that shaped the reformist and legislative landscape over a century... Woloch deftly illustrates how post-1960, arguments for workplace equality based on 14th Amendment protections ultimately trumped those based on difference--but not without difficulty, as evidenced by debates over maternal health and leave policies."--Choice "A magisterial achievement... Woloch provides the best analytical trajectory to the litany of contests central to women's legal history."--Eileen Boris, Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era