Social trends and Court decisions

Americans were migrating to cities in large numbers in the late 1800s, transforming our nation from a predominantly farming society into an urban one. Between 1870 and 1920, the population of Americans living in cities increased over five-fold, from 10 million in 1870 to 54 million in 1920. Cities having more than 500,000 people increased from 2 to 12; cities having over 100,000 residents grew from 15 to 68; and for the first time (in 1920) more than half the American population lived in communities having more than 2,500 people. Part of this influx was due to the "New Immigration," when 26 million Europeans came to the United States prior to the curtailing of immigration in 1924. The "New Immigration" was more from southern and eastern Europe, which was more Catholic and Jewish, rather than from the more Protestant northern Europe as before. A decline in the profitability of farming also led to migration to cities, as the children of farmers looked for better work and income in urban areas.

In 1890, Jacob Riis wrote an influential book entitled "How the Other Half Lives," which depicted overcrowded areas in cities and how that resulted in gangs and murders. Racial discrimination became a problem also, and in 1916 the private Urban League was formed with the goal of eliminating discrimination in large cities and supporting social work there.

But farmers remained politically powerful, more so than they are today, and Congress passed laws to address their hardships. The Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916 provided for the establishment of Boards to provide loans to farmers and ranchers. It was expanded later to include assistance to the buyers of homes.

In 1903, the Women's Trade Union League was founded to unionize women workers, because they had been excluded from the large (men's) American Federation of Labor (AFL) at its union meeting in Boston. In 1908, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a State law limiting the number of hours women could work, in the case of Muller v. Oregon. The Court ruled in favor of the regulation of women's working conditions even though it had previously ruled against the power of States to regulate men's working conditions.

Specifically, in 1905 the Supreme Court invalidated a state regulation of men's working conditions (maximum hours that can be worked), by holding that it violated freedom of contract (free enterprise) under the Constitution. That was the case of Lochner v. New York, also known as "Lochner doctrine." This ruling stood for decades and was an obstacle in the 1930s to the "New Deal" of President Franklin Roosevelt, who wanted many new regulations in response to the Great Depression.

Debate: Should government be able to establish different working conditions for women as compared to men? How about in the case of working conditions that may be harmful to pregnancy or potential pregnancy?

Debate: Should government be able to interfere with free enterprise by establishing maximum working hours for men?

In 1923, the Supreme Court invalidated limits on the working hours for women as unconstitutional. This extend Lochner doctrine to women. This case was Adkins v. Children's Hospital.

The progressives pushed for broader suffrage (voting rights) in the early 1900s. Susan B. Anthony, a leading "suffragette" who devoted her life to advocating a universal right for women to vote, died in 1906 but left a growing movement for this goal. Modern feminists rarely cite her as a hero because she also opposed abortion and supported Prohibition (the universal banning of alcohol).