THE POLITICS OF PROGRESSIVISM ★^723children) in need of state protection in ways male workers were not. In 1908,
in the landmark case of Muller v. Oregon, Louis D. Brandeis filed a brief cit-
ing scientific and sociological studies to demonstrate that because women had
less strength and endurance than men, long hours of labor were dangerous
for women, while their unique ability to bear children gave the government a
legitimate interest in their working conditions. Persuaded by Brandeis’s argu-
ment, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of an Ore-
gon law setting maximum working hours for women.
Thus, three years after the notorious Lochner decision invalidating a
New York law limiting the working hours of male bakers (discussed in Chap-
ter 16), the Court created the first large breach in “liberty of contract” doctrine.
But the cost was high: at the very time that women in unprecedented numbers
were entering the labor market and earning college degrees, Brandeis’s brief
and the Court’s opinion solidified the view of women workers as weak, depen-
dent, and incapable of enjoying the same economic rights as men. By 1917,
thirty states had enacted laws limiting the hours of labor of female workers.
Many women derived great benefit from these laws; others saw them as an
infringement on their freedom.
While the maternalist agenda built gender inequality into the early foun-
dations of the welfare state, the very use of government to regulate working
In what ways did Progressivism include both democratic and anti- democratic impulses?According to this cartoon, giving women the right to vote will clean up political corruption and
misgovernment.