Description
Book SynopsisOffering a bold reinterpretation of American legal history, the author argues that American labor and occupational laws, enacted by state and federal governments after the Civil War and into the twentieth century, benefited dominant groups in society to the detriment of those who lacked political power.
Trade Review“
Only One Place of Redress presents a bold reinterpretation of the relationship between governmental regulations of the marketplace and economic opportunity for blacks. Bernstein challenges the conventional wisdom and invites readers to reconsider breezy assumptions about how employment regulations operated.”—James W. Ely, Jr., author of
The Guardian of Every Other Right: A Constitutional History of Property Rights“A provocative revisionist overview of legislation regulating labor relations. This will undoubtedly receive a great deal of attention from historians and students of the Constitution, and for good reason.”—Mark Tushnet, author of
Making Constitutional Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1961–1991Table of ContentsPreface xiii
Acknowledgments xix
Introduction 1
1. Emigrant Agent Laws
33
2. Licensing Laws 121
3. Railroad Labor Regulations
203
4. Prevailing-Wage Laws
275
5. New Deal Labor Laws 353
Documents
Section 1: Federal Acts and Resolutions 486
486
Section 2: State Legislation 519
519
Section 3: Municipal Resolutions 537
Section 4: Advocacy and Activism 560
Section 5: Case Studies of Redress
638
Section 6: Lawsuits 661
Selected Bibliography 673
Contributors 683
Acknowledgment of Copyrights 687 687
Index 691
