Law and Laundry: White laundresses, Chinese laundrymen, and the origins of Muller v. Oregon
Studies in Law, Politics, and Society
ISBN: 978-1-83982-297-1, eISBN: 978-1-83982-296-4
Publication date: 4 September 2020
Abstract
This chapter uses the historian’s method of micro-history to rethink the significance of the Supreme Court decision Muller v. Oregon (1908). Muller is typically considered a labor law decision permitting the regulation of women’s work hours. However, this chapter argues that through particular attention to the specific context in which the labor dispute took place – the laundry industry in Portland, Oregon – the Muller decision and underlying conflict should be understood as not only about sex-based labor rights but also about how the labor of laundry specifically involved race-based discrimination. This chapter investigates the most important conflicts behind the Muller decision, namely the entangled histories of white laundresses’ labor and labor activism in Portland, as well as the labor of their competitors – Chinese laundrymen. In so doing, this chapter offers an intersectional reading of Muller that incorporates regulations on Chinese laundries and places the decision in conversation with a long line of anti-Chinese laundry legislation on the West Coast, including that at issue in Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886).
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
This chapter was born from the inspiration, support, and generous feedback of Martha Sandweiss, to whom this chapter and I are indebted. Margot Canaday, Anne Gray Fischer, Hendrik Hartog, Rebecca Scott, and Beth Lew-Williams also provided very helpful advice on drafts, for which I thank them. I am grateful for the opportunities to present earlier drafts at the Berkshire Conference for Women Historians, the American Society for Legal History Conference, and the Northwestern University Law in Motion Conference on the 14th Amendment, where Ofra Bloch, Brooke Depenbusch, Jillian Jacklin, Elizabeth Jameson, Christopher Schmidt, Justin Simard, and John Wertheimer offered opportunities for testing ideas and tremendously useful feedback. I am also appreciative of the support provided by the Jefferson Scholars Foundation, Princeton University, and the University of Michigan.
Citation
Prifogle, E.A. (2020), "Law and Laundry: White laundresses, Chinese laundrymen, and the origins of
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020 Emerald Publishing Limited