Lochner v. New York: Economic Regulation on Trial

Lochner v. New York: Economic Regulation on Trial. By Paul Kens. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998. ix + 216 pp. Bibliographical essay, index. Cloth, $29.95; paper, $12.95. ISBN: Cloth 0-70060918-0; paper 0-7006-0919-9.

Reviewed by Tony A. Freyer

Historians working in different fields of specialization know the U.S. Supreme Court's Lochner v. New York decision. For economic and business historians and their counterparts in labor history, the case symbolizes the Court's pro-business stance during the Progressive Era. Legal and constitutional historians view the decision as epitomizing a judicial activism that resisted social reform legislation until the 1930s, when the Court began to rule in favor of New Deal liberalism. Students of women's history note the puzzling contrast between the divided Court's anti-reform decision of 1905 and its unanimous sanction of a law protecting women laundry workers just three years later. Historians of American intellectual culture recall Lochner as representing the kind of laissez-faire social thought condemned in Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.'s famous dissent. "A constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory," he wrote. "It is made for people of fundamentally differing views." Paul Ken illuminates each of these perspectives and offers his own valuable insight.

The origins of the Lochner case were not particularly noteworthy. At issue was the Bakeshop Act, which both houses of the New York state legislature had passed unanimously in 1895. In addition to requiring...