Disclaimer: This is a machine generated PDF of selected content from our products.

This functionality is provided solely for your

convenience and is in no way intended to replace original scanned PDF. Neither Cengage Learning nor its licensors make any
representations or warranties with respect to the machine generated PDF. The PDF is automatically generated "AS IS" and "AS
AVAILABLE" and are not retained in our systems. CENGAGE LEARNING AND ITS LICENSORS SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ANY
AND ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTIES FOR AVAILABILITY,
ACCURACY, TIMELINESS, COMPLETENESS, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. Your use of the machine generated PDF is subject to all use restrictions contained in The Cengage Learning
Subscription and License Agreement and/or the Gale eBooks Terms and Conditions and by using the machine generated PDF
functionality you agree to forgo any and all claims against Cengage Learning or its licensors for your use of the machine generated
PDF functionality and any output derived therefrom.

Women, Louis Brandeis, and the Law: Muller v. Oregon (1908)

Editors: Judith S. Baughman , Victor Bondi , Richard Layman , Tandy McConnell , and Vincent Tompkins
Date: 2001
From: American Decades(Vol. 1: 1900-1909. )
Publisher: Gale
Document Type: Case overview
Content Level: (Level 4)

Full Text:

WOMEN, LOUIS BRANDEIS, AND THE LAW: MULLER V.

OREGON (1908)
Oregon and the Ten-Hour Day
In 1903 Oregon forbade women employed outside the home to work longer than ten hours a day. Massachusetts had been the first
state to pass such a law (1874), and by 1903 twenty states had done so. States acted to protect women from overwork but also to
give them sufficient time to do household chores, which most Americans still believed were the responsibility of women. In 1895 the
Illinois Supreme Court had found an eight-hour workday for women unconstitutional on the grounds that it infringed on women's
liberty to make contracts. The U.S. Supreme Court's 1905 decision in Lochner suggested that it might also find such laws protecting
women unconstitutional.

Curt Müller Breaks the Law

Curt Muller owned the Grand Laundry in Portland, Oregon. On 4 September 1905 his foreman, Joe Haselbock, required Mrs. E.
Gotcher to work longer than ten hours. Muller was arrested, convicted, and fined ten dollars. He appealed his case, believing, in the
wake of Lochner, that the state could not regulate working hours. His lawyers reasoned that while the law prevented people from
making contracts, it did not apply to all people similarly situated (men in the same occupations were allowed to work longer than ten
hours), and the kinds of work it restricted were neither illegal, immoral, nor dangerous to the public health. The state could restrict
those occupations but had no valid reason to restrict other occupations.

Louis D. Brandeis Takes the Case

Florence Kelley of the National Consumers' League supported the ten-hour workday. The National Consumers' League was a
middle-class reform organization dedicated to improving working conditions for American workers. The Consumers' League came to
the defense of the Oregon law and set out to find a lawyer who could assist the Oregon attorney general in preparing a case. Kelley
first approached New York lawyer Joseph Choate, a leading constitutional lawyer. But Choate said he could not see why "a big husky
Irishwoman should not work more than ten hours if she so desired." Kelley next turned to Boston lawyer Louis D. Brandeis, a
corporate lawyer with a growing national reputation as a consumer advocate. Brandeis agreed to cooperate with the Oregon attorney
general in defending the state law.

The Brandeis Brief

In Lochner the court had found no evidence that baking was a hazardous occupation that the state had an interest in restricting.
Brandeis accepted the Lochner ruling as the basis for his defense of Oregon. Arguing that a "judge is presumed to know the
elements of law, but there is no presumption that he knows the facts," Brandeis set out to prove that the state did have an interest in
promoting the health and safety of working women. His brief in Muller v. Oregon (1908) set out the law and his argument in
seventeen pages, then devoted ninety-five pages to evidence that the health and safety of women were at risk if they worked long
hours outside the home. His evidence demonstrated that the state did have an interest in protecting the health of women, since
women would bear the next generation. Much of the evidence Brandeis presented addressed the issue of women's health, both
physical and moral. The manager of a print shop, for example, was quoted as saying, "Girls must sit at the 'case.' … Female
compositors, as a rule, are sickly, suffering much from back ache, headache, weak limbs, and general 'female weakness.'" Married
women had to cook meals and clean house for their husbands, and single girls also had to do their own household chores. Women
who worked long hours were believed to be more likely to seek entertainment in saloons than were women whose work schedules
did not leave them exhausted after ten hours. All of these arguments relied on a basic assumption that women were different from
men and required special protection. In Lochner the Court had insisted that bakers did not need the state to protect them. Brandeis
argued that women did need protection, but this was an idea the Court would have accepted without discussion. The importance of
his brief in Muller was that he presented sociological data rather than simply presenting the Court with the law.

Importance of the Brandeis Brief

This was an innovation in the law. Brandeis presented the court with facts and with sociological evidence that demonstrated that the
state did have an interest in restricting working hours. The National Consumers' League was so impressed with Brandeis's brief that
the league printed it for mass distribution in support of its campaign to limit women's working hours. The Court found it equally
convincing and ruled that Oregon could limit women's working hours. The following year Brandeis argued a similar case in Illinois,
which had ruled such a law unconstitutional in 1895. That state's supreme court was convinced by Brandeis's evidence and upheld a
state law restricting the workday for women to ten hours.

Sources:
Louis D. Brandeis and Josephine Goldmark, Women in Industry (New York: National Consumers' League, 1908);

Alpheus T. Mason, Brandeis: A Free Man's Life (New York: Viking, 1946);

Mason, "The Case of the Overworked Laundress," in Quarrels That Have Shaped the Constitution, edited by John A. Garraty (New
York: Harper & Row, 1975).

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1994-2001 Gale, COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale, COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale, Cengage Learning
Source Citation (MLA 9th Edition)
"Women, Louis Brandeis, and the Law: Muller v. Oregon (1908)." American Decades, edited by Judith S. Baughman, et al., vol. 1:
1900-1909, Gale, 2001. Gale eBooks,
link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3468300154/GVRL?u=ksstate_wichita&sid=summon&xid=5dcb38c7. Accessed 2 May 2022.
Gale Document Number: GALE|CX3468300154