“I just read a very interesting article by Thomas C. Leonard, Protecting Family and Race: The Progressive Case for Regulating Women’s Work, which appeared in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology in July 2005. If you’re at all interested in Progressive Era economists’ and reformers’ attitudes toward working women, this article is a must read. More generally, Leonard, in this and other pieces, notes that many Progressive Era reformers supported “protective” labor legislation even though they knew that it would lead to unemployment, especially among women, immigrants, and African-Americans. Rather than being disturbed by this side effect of the legislation, many reformers argued that the disemployment caused to these groups was a social benefit, because it prevented “inferior” workers who were willing to accept low wages because of their low consumption from driving down wages for a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant male workers, who needed higher wages to support themselves and their families”. — David Bernstein, professor at the George Mason University School of Law