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 Muller 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...

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