ABSTRACT
In 1908, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a maximum-hours law for women in MULLER v. OREGON (see Documents), on the basis that fundamental differences between women and men (i.e., women’s “ delicacy” ) warranted the restric-
tions, but in 1923 it struck down a minimumwage law for women in ADKINS v. CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL, arguing that freedom of contract was protected under the Due Process Clause of the Constitution. Again, in 1936, the Court struck down a minimum-wage law covering female laundry workers in Morehead v. New York, but within a year reversed itself and upheld a minimum-wage law in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish on the basis that reasonable regulations did not violate due process and that government could protect workers’ health and safety. Today’s protective labor laws generally cover men and women equally, and those that focus on women are more likely to bar differential treatment than to mandate it.
