Muller v. Oregon: A Brief History with Documents

by Nancy Woloch

Using lawyers' briefs, arguments over single-sex protective laws, and other major court decisions, Muller v. Oregon examines a moment in which constitutional history, women's history, and progressive politics converged.

Genres: History, American History

206 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Samantha (Bookwyrmsam)]

This was really informative and helpful for the class it was assigned in. The writing style is approachable and a broad context surrounding the court case is provided. I won't be adding a star rating because enjoyment is a huge factor in how I rate my books but my enjoyment level here doesn't necessarily equate to how well this book achieved its goals (you can probably tell here that I prefer fiction in my leisure reading). Overall, would recommend if you are interested in women's labor activism from the early 1900's and don't mind reading court briefs.

[River Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was more engaging than I initially anticipated, usually primary source collections I am are assigned in class are rather dull and lack narrative, this was an exception. The initial summary of these cases and context highlight the importance of these cases and their role in history and the cases themselves are well contextualized for the political arguments of our world today.

[Jessica Zu · Rating 4 out of 5]

History is messy, unclean, like a million voices speaking at the same time. Public policies have untidy origins, entangled histories and unforeseen consequences. One could only try one's best at the moment, within the limitation of current social, economical, political and cultural contexts (or web). Whatever we do, however thoughtful we strive to be, the only sure thing is that it cannot be perfect forever. We need to constantly adjust public policies according to present social realities and intellectual understandings. Law and public policies are also very blunt tools, one should use it very carefully and whatever law and public policies missed, one would have to compensate it by care and love. We try our best and hope, then revise and try again. Life is a constant struggle for all. While talking about intersectionality, the missing of race in this book baffled me. Maybe it is just race never really mattered in this case, but it would be hard to conceive why race is not a factor in women's movement throughout the 20th century. The immigrants from China is only mentioned briefly in this book. Given what I know about Chinese immigrants as well as European immigrants, it would be hard to conceive that such issue does not matter any more after WWII. History is a mess, one could find whatever one would like to find when reading a history book :) so I am not sure studying history would help without a critical mind.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I skimmed most of this book, and we spent a bit of time going over the information in class, but I'd like to go back and read it better. The whole book focuses on labor laws, and the constitutional cases that arise from that. Really interesting to watch the progression of labor laws, and the shift from pro-business to pro-labor.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Americans should read up on this case

[Joseph Bredesen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative and fair.