Muller v. Oregon upheld sex-based hours limits on maternalist grounds

Evidence

Muller v. Oregon (1908)—​a Supreme Court case—​decisively settled the point. A state could set valid limits on the hours that women might work. “The future well-​being of the race” required as much: women had to be protected “from the greed as well as the passion of man.” To readers today, in the twenty-​first century, the decision has a patronizing, sexist ring. At least one group of women at the time denounced Muller as “unjust and humiliating to women,” and as “tending to sex slavery.” But in its day most social activists, women as well as men, praised the decision, and thought that it followed a progressive path. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3205

Categorization

• XREF: Provides the constitutional anchor for the chapter’s discussion of Lochner-era freedom of contract and the police power — the course’s core institutional vocabulary.