What Amy Coney Barrett Got Wrong About Lochner --Reason.com
Unlike the rest of the Bakeshop Act, which properly and legitimately regulated "washrooms and closets," the height of ceilings, floor conditions, and "drainage, plumbing, and painting," Peckham wrote, the limit on hours involved "neither the safety, the morals, nor the welfare, of the public" and was thus "not, within any fair meaning of the term, a health law." He concluded that the provision also violated liberty of contract, a constitutional right secured against state infringement by the 14th Amendment.
Most of the history textbooks still have the old interpretation of this being a law opposed by big businesses because it would increase their costs --and they are completely incorrect. Big bakers supported the Bakeshop Act enthusiastically, precisely BECAUSE it would increase the costs of hundreds of smaller bakers at the same time, most of whom would be forced out of business.
I'll make a long rant short: the historical profession is still paying the price for the Beards, Richard Hofstadter, and a host of other so-called intellectuals. Most historians are too high on their own sense of superiority to know any better, though.
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