Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T20:23:56.607Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Lochner v. New York and the Challenge of Legal Historiography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Howard Schweber
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay reviews three works addressing the famous case Lochner v. New York: David E. Bernstein, Rehabilitating Lochner: Defending Individual Rights Against Progressive Reform (2011); Howard Gillman, The Constitution Besieged: The Rise and Demise of Lochner Era Police Powers (1992); and Victoria Nourse, “A Tale of Two Lochners: The Untold History of Substantive Due Process and the Idea of Fundamental Rights” (2009). The author argues that a comparison of these three works raises historiographic issues relating to legal historians’ deployment of assumptions about the continuity of legal development, the role of key actors or social forces, and the autonomy of legal development in relation to other societal events. Further, the essay argues that there is a tendency toward “law school historiography,” referring to the selection of historiographic approach to suit a preconceived jurisprudential narrative that appears when the subject is the history of legal and, especially, constitutional doctrine.

Type
Review Essay
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , Winter 2014 , pp. 242 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Bernstein, David E. 2011. Rehabilitating Lochner: Defending Individual Rights Against Progressive Reform. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chandler, Alfred D. Jr. 1993. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Cooley, Thomas McIntyre. 1890. A Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations Which Rest upon the Legislative Power of the States of the American Union, 6th ed., 2 vols. Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co.Google Scholar
Cornell, Saul. 2009. Heller, New Originalism, and Law Office History: “Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss.” UCLA Law Review 56:1095–1125.Google Scholar
Cushman, Barry. 1998. Rethinking the New Deal Court: The Structure of a Constitutional Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
DeForest, Robert, and Veiller, Lawrence, eds. 1903. The Tenement House Problem: Including the Report of the New York State Tenement House Commission, 2 vols. New York: MacMillan.Google Scholar
Dubofsky, Melvyn, and Dulles, Foster Rhea 2010. Labor in America: A History, 8th ed. New York: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ely, James W. Jr. 1999. The Oxymoron Reconsidered: Myth and Reality in the Origins of Substantive Due Process. Constitutional Commentary 16:315–345.Google Scholar
Flaherty, Martin S. 1995. History “Lite” in Modern American Constitutionalism. Columbia Law Review 95:523–590.Google Scholar
Foner, Philip S. 1965. History of American Labor Movement, Vol. 4: The Industrial Workers of the World 1905–1917, Chapters 7–8. New York: International Publishers.Google Scholar
Forbath, William A. 1991. Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gillman, Howard. 1992. The Constitution Besieged: The Rise and Demise of Lochner Era Police Powers. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Gillman, Howard. 2005. DeLochnerizing Lochner . Boston University Law Review 85:859–865.Google Scholar
Graber, Mark A. 1991. Transforming Free Speech: The Ambiguous Legacy of Civil Libertarianism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Green, Peter R. 2008. The Great Marathon Man. New York Review of Books May 15:33–44. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21370 (accessed June 24, 2013).Google Scholar
Haskell, Thomas. 2000. The Emergence of Professional Social Science: The American Social Science Association and the Nineteenth Century Crisis of Authority. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Hohfeld, Wesley. 1913. Some Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning. Yale Law Journal 23:16–39.Google Scholar
Hurst, J. Willard. 1956. Law and the Conditions of Freedom in the Nineteenth Century United States. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Iggers, George G. 2005. Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge, 2d ed. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Kelly, Alfred. 1965. Clio and the Court: An Illicit Love Affair. Supreme Court Review 1965:119–158.Google Scholar
Kennedy, William. 2006. The Rise and Fall of Classical Legal Thought. Washington, DC: Beard Books.Google Scholar
Kens, Paul. 1998. Lochner v. New York: Economic Regulation on Trial. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press.Google Scholar
Levinson, Sanford. 2008. Some Preliminary Reflections on Heller, June 26. http://balkin.blogspot.com/2008/06/some‐preliminary‐reflections‐on‐heller.html (accessed May 14, 2013).Google Scholar
Lubove, Roy. 1964. The Progressives and the Slums: Tenement House Reform in New York City, 1890–1917. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Miller, Perry 1965. The Legal Mind in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Globe.Google Scholar
Nott, Josiah, and Glidden, George 1854. Types of Mankind. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, Granville & Co.Google Scholar
Nourse, Victoria. 2009. A Tale of Two Lochners: The Untold History of Substantive Due Process and the Idea of Fundamental Rights. University of California Law Review 97:751–799.Google Scholar
Nourse, Victoria, and Shaffer, Gregory 2009. Varieties of New Legal Realism: Can a New World Order Prompt a New Legal Theory? Cornell Law Review 95:61–137.Google Scholar
Novak, William. 1996. The People's Welfare: Law and Regulation in Nineteenth‐Century America. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Novick, Peter J. 1988. That Noble Dream: The Objectivity Question and the American Historical Profession. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Orren, Karen. 1992. Belated Feudalism: Labor, the Law and Liberal Development in the United States. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Orren, Karen, and Skowronek, Stephen 2004. The Search for American Political Development. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pound, Roscoe. 1909. Liberty of Contract. Yale Law Journal 18:454–487.Google Scholar
Posner, Richard A. 2004. Against the Law Reviews. Legal Affairs November/December 2004. http://legalaffairs.org/issues/November‐December‐2004/review_posner_novdec04.msp (accessed December 15, 2013).Google Scholar
Rabban, David M. 1999. Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years: 1870–1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rabban, David M. 2013. Law's History: American Legal Thought and the Transatlantic Turn to History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Redfield, Isaac Fletcher. 1867. The Law of Railways: Embracing Corporations, Eminent Domain, Contracts, Common Carriers of Goods and Passengers, Constitutional Law, Investments, &c., 3d ed. Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co.Google Scholar
Rehnquist, William. 1952. A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/sources_document7.html (accessed March 27, 2013).Google Scholar
Riis, Jacob. 1890. How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York. New York: Scribner's Sons.Google Scholar
Roediger, David R., and Foner, Philip S. 1989. Our Own Time: A History of American Labor and the Working Day. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Ross, Dorothy. 1991. The Origins of American Social Science. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schweber, Howard. 1998. Ordering Principles: The Adjudication of Criminal Cases in Puritan Massachusetts, 1629–1650. Law & Society Review 32:367–408.Google Scholar
Sumner, William Graham. 1906. Folkways: A Study of Mores, Manners, Customs, and Morals. New York: Dover Press.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass R. 1987. Lochner's Legacy. Columbia Law Review 87:873–919.Google Scholar
Taylor, Stuart Jr. 2005. “Does the President Agree with This Nominee?” TheAtlantic.com http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/05/does‐the‐president‐agree‐with‐this‐nominee/304012/ (accessed March 27, 2013).Google Scholar
Tomlins, Christopher L. 1993. Law, Labor and Ideology in the Early American Republic. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Veiller, Lawrence. 1901. The Tenement‐House Exhibition of 1899. Charities Review 10:19–25.Google Scholar
von Ranke, Leopold. 2011. The Theory and Practice of History, ed. Iggers, G. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Warren, Charles. 1913. The Progressiveness of the United States Supreme Court. Columbia Law Review 13:294–313.Google Scholar
Whittington, Keith E. 2005. Congress Before the Lochner Court. Boston University Law Review 85:821–858.Google Scholar
Bakeshop Act, N.Y. Laws 1897, chap. 415, art. 8, §§ 110–115.Google Scholar
Milk Regulatory Equity Act of 2005 (MREA), 7 U.S.C. § 608c.Google Scholar
Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616 (1919).Google Scholar
Adair v. United States, 208 U.S. 161 (1908).Google Scholar
Adkins v. Children's Hosp., 261 U.S. 525 (1923).Google Scholar
Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U.S. 578 (1897).Google Scholar
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Co. v. Matthews (1898).Google Scholar
Barnes v. Glen Theatres (1991).Google Scholar
Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986).Google Scholar
Berea Coll. v. Commonwealth of Ky., 211 U.S. 45, 54 (1908).Google Scholar
Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S. 26 (1954).Google Scholar
Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969).Google Scholar
Bunting v. Oregon, 243 U.S. 426 (1917).Google Scholar
Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. 386 (1798).Google Scholar
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942).Google Scholar
Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, 36 U.S. 420 (1837).Google Scholar
Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971).Google Scholar
Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 (1951).Google Scholar
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008).Google Scholar
Employment Div. v. Smith, 494 US 872 (1990).Google Scholar
Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938).Google Scholar
Fletcher v. Peck, 10 U.S. 87 (1810).Google Scholar
Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925).Google Scholar
Gulf, Colo. & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Ellis, 165 U.S. 150 (1896).Google Scholar
Hawaii Hous. Auth. v. Midkiff, 467 US 229 (1984).Google Scholar
Hettinga v. United States 11‐5065, April 2012 (4th Cir. 2012).Google Scholar
Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.S. 366 (1898).Google Scholar
Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516 (1884).Google Scholar
Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905).Google Scholar
Korematsu v. United States, 332 U.S. 214 (1944).Google Scholar
Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003).Google Scholar
Lawton v. Steele, 152 U.S. 133 (1894).Google Scholar
Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).Google Scholar
Lochner v. New York, 1905 U.S. Lexis 1153 (1905).Google Scholar
Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Comm'n, 505 U.S. 1003 (1992).Google Scholar
MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co., 217 N.Y. 382 (1916).Google Scholar
Masses Publ'g Co. v. Patten, 244 F. 535 (S.D.N.Y. 1917).Google Scholar
Matter of Jacobs, 98 N.Y. 98 (N.Y. Ct. Appeals 1885).Google Scholar
Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 401 (1923).Google Scholar
Moore v. City of E. Cleveland , 431 U.S. 494 ( 1977 ). Google Scholar
Morehead v. New York , 298 U.S. 587 ( 1936 ). Google Scholar
Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412 (1908).Google Scholar
Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113 (1877).Google Scholar
Nebbia v. New York, 291 U.S. 502 (1934).Google Scholar
Pace v. Alabama, 106 U.S. 583 (1883).Google Scholar
Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319 (1937).Google Scholar
Parrish v. West Coast Hotel, 300 U.S. 379 (1937).Google Scholar
People v. Lochner, 73 A.D. 120 (N.Y. App. Div. 1902).Google Scholar
Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925).Google Scholar
Pierce v. United States, 252 U.S. 239 (1920).Google Scholar
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).Google Scholar
Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497 (1961).Google Scholar
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).Google Scholar
Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996).Google Scholar
Schaefer v. United States, 251 U.S. 466 (1920).Google Scholar
Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963).Google Scholar
Trustees of Dartmouth Coll. v. Woodward, 17 U.S. 518 (1819).Google Scholar
United States v. Carolene Prods., 304 U.S. 144 (1938).Google Scholar
United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515, 568 (1996).Google Scholar
Washington v. Glucksburg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997).Google Scholar
Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298 (1957).Google Scholar
Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 366 (1886).Google Scholar
Bakeshop Act, N.Y. Laws 1897, chap. 415, art. 8, §§ 110–115.Google Scholar
Milk Regulatory Equity Act of 2005 (MREA), 7 U.S.C. § 608c.Google Scholar
Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616 (1919).Google Scholar
Adair v. United States, 208 U.S. 161 (1908).Google Scholar
Adkins v. Children's Hosp., 261 U.S. 525 (1923).Google Scholar
Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U.S. 578 (1897).Google Scholar
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Co. v. Matthews (1898).Google Scholar
Barnes v. Glen Theatres (1991).Google Scholar
Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986).Google Scholar
Berea Coll. v. Commonwealth of Ky., 211 U.S. 45, 54 (1908).Google Scholar
Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S. 26 (1954).Google Scholar
Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969).Google Scholar
Bunting v. Oregon, 243 U.S. 426 (1917).Google Scholar
Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. 386 (1798).Google Scholar
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942).Google Scholar
Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, 36 U.S. 420 (1837).Google Scholar
Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971).Google Scholar
Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 (1951).Google Scholar
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008).Google Scholar
Employment Div. v. Smith, 494 US 872 (1990).Google Scholar
Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938).Google Scholar
Fletcher v. Peck, 10 U.S. 87 (1810).Google Scholar
Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925).Google Scholar
Gulf, Colo. & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Ellis, 165 U.S. 150 (1896).Google Scholar
Hawaii Hous. Auth. v. Midkiff, 467 US 229 (1984).Google Scholar
Hettinga v. United States 11‐5065, April 2012 (4th Cir. 2012).Google Scholar
Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.S. 366 (1898).Google Scholar
Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516 (1884).Google Scholar
Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905).Google Scholar
Korematsu v. United States, 332 U.S. 214 (1944).Google Scholar
Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003).Google Scholar
Lawton v. Steele, 152 U.S. 133 (1894).Google Scholar
Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).Google Scholar
Lochner v. New York, 1905 U.S. Lexis 1153 (1905).Google Scholar
Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Comm'n, 505 U.S. 1003 (1992).Google Scholar
MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co., 217 N.Y. 382 (1916).Google Scholar
Masses Publ'g Co. v. Patten, 244 F. 535 (S.D.N.Y. 1917).Google Scholar
Matter of Jacobs, 98 N.Y. 98 (N.Y. Ct. Appeals 1885).Google Scholar
Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 401 (1923).Google Scholar
Moore v. City of E. Cleveland , 431 U.S. 494 ( 1977 ). Google Scholar
Morehead v. New York , 298 U.S. 587 ( 1936 ). Google Scholar
Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412 (1908).Google Scholar
Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113 (1877).Google Scholar
Nebbia v. New York, 291 U.S. 502 (1934).Google Scholar
Pace v. Alabama, 106 U.S. 583 (1883).Google Scholar
Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319 (1937).Google Scholar
Parrish v. West Coast Hotel, 300 U.S. 379 (1937).Google Scholar
People v. Lochner, 73 A.D. 120 (N.Y. App. Div. 1902).Google Scholar
Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925).Google Scholar
Pierce v. United States, 252 U.S. 239 (1920).Google Scholar
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).Google Scholar
Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497 (1961).Google Scholar
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).Google Scholar
Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996).Google Scholar
Schaefer v. United States, 251 U.S. 466 (1920).Google Scholar
Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963).Google Scholar
Trustees of Dartmouth Coll. v. Woodward, 17 U.S. 518 (1819).Google Scholar
United States v. Carolene Prods., 304 U.S. 144 (1938).Google Scholar
United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515, 568 (1996).Google Scholar
Washington v. Glucksburg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997).Google Scholar
Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298 (1957).Google Scholar
Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 366 (1886).Google Scholar