Research Catalog

A class by herself: : protective laws for women workers, 1890s-1990s

Title: A class by herself: : protective laws for women workers, 1890s-1990s / Nancy Woloch.
Author: Woloch, Nancy, 1940-
Publication: Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [2015]

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	JFE 15-3144	Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description

vii, 337 pages; 25 cm.

Summary

"A Class by Herself explores the historical role and influence of protective legislation for American women workers, both as a step toward modern labor standards and as a barrier to equal rights. Spanning the twentieth century, the book tracks the rise and fall of women-only state protective laws--such as maximum hour laws, minimum wage laws, and night work laws--from their roots in progressive reform through the passage of New Deal labor law to the feminist attack on single-sex protective laws in the 1960s and 1970s. Nancy Woloch considers the network of institutions that promoted women-only protective laws, such as the National Consumers' League and the federal Women's Bureau; the global context in which the laws arose; the challenges that proponents faced; the rationales they espoused; the opposition that evolved; the impact of protective laws in ever-changing circumstances; and their dismantling in the wake of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Above all, Woloch examines the constitutional conversation that the laws provoked--the debates that arose in the courts and in the women's movement. Protective laws set precedents that led to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and to current labor law; they also sustained a tradition of gendered law that abridged citizenship and impeded equality for much of the century. Drawing on decades of scholarship, institutional and legal records, and personal accounts, A Class by Herself sets forth a new narrative about the tensions inherent in women-only protective labor laws and their consequences. "--

Series Statement

Politics and Society in Twentieth Century America

Uniform Title

Politics and society in twentieth-century America.

Subjects

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Roots of protection: the National Consumers' League and progressive reform -- Gender, protection, and the courts, 1895-1907 -- A class by herself : Muller v. Oregon -- Protection in ascent, 1908-23 -- Different versus equal : the 1920s -- Transformations : the new deal through the 1950s -- Trading places : the 1960s and 1970s -- Last lap : work and pregnancy.

Call Number

JFE 15-3144

ISBN

9780691002590
0691002592

LCCN

2014032483

OCLC

894670518

Author

Woloch, Nancy, 1940- author.

Title

A class by herself: : protective laws for women workers, 1890s-1990s / Nancy Woloch.

Publisher

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [2015]

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Politics and Society in Twentieth Century America

Politics and society in twentieth-century America.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Chronological Term

1900 - 1999

Research Call Number

JFE 15-3144

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