The Jurisprudence of Equality: Journal Article by Joan G. Zimmerman

Early Minimum Wage Movement

The early 20th-century minimum wage movement in the U.S. focused largely on protecting women workers, who were considered vulnerable to exploitation. By the 1910s and 1920s, several states and territories had passed laws guaranteeing minimum wages for women. This era saw pivotal protests, such as textile workers’ strikes demanding fair pay. The laws were often rooted in paternalistic views that women needed special protection in the workforce, preceding broader labor reforms including the first federal minimum wage established later in 1938.

Legal and Gendered Frameworks

Minimum wage laws initially emerged under a gendered legal framework that reflected societal norms about women’s roles and capacities. Early legislation was influenced by interpretations of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments that supported protective measures but were also paternalistic, limiting women’s labor rights under the guise of protection. The women’s suffrage victory in 1920 challenged this framework by recognizing women’s competence as workers. This shift undermined laws like those in Adkins v. Children's Hospital (1923), where the Supreme Court struck down minimum wage laws for women, equating them with illegal price-fixing and emphasizing free contract rights. The ruling reflected a changing view of women as politically empowered participants in the labor market rather than as dependents needing special protection. However, minimum wage laws remained fragmented, often excluding women of color and certain industries. It was only after the Great Depression that legal and political advocates, such as Elsie Parrish and Frances Perkins, transformed minimum wage laws from gender-specific protections to broader economic security measures applicable to all workers, leading toward a national, gender-neutral minimum wage.

Intersection with Women’s Rights Movement

The struggle for women’s minimum wage laws intersected deeply with the broader women’s rights movement, including efforts toward an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Following the 19th Amendment granting women suffrage, activists saw the need for constitutional protections beyond voting to ensure equality in labor and legal rights. The early drafts of the ERA, developed by figures like Crystal Eastman alongside Alice Paul, reflected concerns about protecting women’s rights in the industrial workplace, especially as legal setbacks such as the Adkins ruling threatened labor protections. This period highlighted tensions between protective labor laws for women and demands for full legal equality, illustrating how minimum wage debates were part of larger constitutional and social struggles over gender equality in the early 20th century.

Key themes

• Conflict between protective labor laws and constitutional equality claims.
• The tension between women's need for minimum wage protections and broader equal rights.
• Judicial interpretation of liberty of contract under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
• Role of the First Equal Rights Amendment in shaping early 20th-century legal debates.
• Intersection of gender, labor rights, and constitutional law from 1905 to 1923.
• Impact of Adkins v. Children’s Hospital on future gender equality jurisprudence.

Motifs & problems

The article recurrently uses the motif of legal protection versus legal equality, embodied in the struggle over women's minimum wage laws and the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Protective labor laws act as a symbol of both support and limitation; they safeguard working-class women but simultaneously raise ambiguities about whether such laws reinforce gender difference or perpetuate inequality. The interpretive crux lies in the contradiction between the court's emphasis on contractual liberty and women's economic vulnerability, raising questions about the meaning and limits of "equality" under constitutional law during this era.

Study questions

• How did Adkins v. Children’s Hospital challenge the idea of protective labor legislation for women?
• In what ways did the First Equal Rights Amendment influence judicial thinking in this period?
• What tensions emerge between economic protectionism and equal rights claims in the article?
• How does Joan Zimmerman describe the courts’ interpretation of liberty of contract regarding gender?
• Why was the ERA controversial among different women’s groups in the early 20th century?
• How does the article illuminate the role of class in debates over women’s labor rights?
• What does the article suggest about the long-term impact of Adkins on gender equality law?
• How do the competing notions of "difference" and "sameness" in gender equality shape these legal developments?

Critical approaches & debates

Scholars analyzing Zimmerman's article engage diverse perspectives including feminist, legal-historical, and Marxist approaches. Feminist readings often debate the tension between protective labor laws versus the pursuit of equal rights embodied in the first Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Some argue for the necessity of protective minimum wage laws as a floor for working-class women, while others see such laws as reinforcing paternalistic ceilings limiting women’s full legal equality. Marxist critiques highlight class dynamics, emphasizing working women's material conditions. Disagreement centers on whether equality requires difference-based protections or equal treatment under law, illustrating persistent juridical and ideological contestations over gender, labor, and rights in early 20th-century America.

Key passages

Zimmerman highlights the Supreme Court’s reliance on maternalist arguments, such as in Muller v. Oregon, where the Court accepted women's physical and maternal vulnerabilities to justify labor protections. This turn demonstrates how gender difference was legally constructed to support limited equality claims, underscoring the complex balance between legal paternalism and women’s labor rights advocacy. The article’s analysis of the Adkins decision reveals how these normative ideas shaped constitutional interpretations restricting women’s minimum wage legislation².

Bibliography

Zimmerman, Joan G. “The Jurisprudence of Equality: The Women’s Minimum Wage, the First Equal Rights Amendment, and Adkins v. Children’s Hospital, 1905–1923,” Journal of American History 78, no. 1 (1991): 188–220. Foundational case: Adkins v. Children’s Hospital, 261 U.S. 525 (1923). Related scholarship: Nancy F. Cott’s work on ERA conflicts and Philip S. Foner’s history of women in labor provide essential contextual background.