Making Minimum Wage: Elsie Parrish versus the West Coast Hotel CompanyThe US Supreme Court’s 1937 decision in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish, upholding the constitutionality of Washington State’s minimum wage law for women, had monumental consequences for all American workers. It also marked a major shift in the Court’s response to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal agenda. In Making Minimum Wage, Helen J. Knowles tells the human story behind this historic case. West Coast Hotel v. Parrish pitted a Washington State hotel against a chambermaid, Elsie Parrish, who claimed that she was owed the state’s minimum wage. The hotel argued that under the concept of “freedom of contract,” the US Constitution allowed it to pay its female workers whatever low wages they were willing to accept. Knowles unpacks the legal complexities of the case while telling the litigants’ stories. Drawing on archival and private materials, including the unpublished memoir of Elsie’s lawyer, C. B. Conner, Knowles exposes the profound courage and resolve of the former chambermaid. Her book reveals why Elsie—who, in her mid-thirties was already a grandmother—was fired from her job at the Cascadian Hotel in Wenatchee, and why she undertook the outsized risk of suing the hotel for back wages. Minimum wage laws are “not an academic question or even a legal one,” Elinore Morehouse Herrick, the New York director of the National Labor Relations Board, said in 1936. Rather, they are “a human problem.” A pioneering analysis that illuminates the life stories behind West Coast Hotel v. Parrish as well as the case’s impact on local, state, and national levels, Making Minimum Wage vividly demonstrates the fundamental truth of Morehouse Herrick’s statement. |
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Contents
Fulfilling an obvious and desperate human need | |
Creating a Legal no womans land | |
Upsetting the Wenatchee Applecart | |
On to Washington D C | |
Other editions - View all
Making Minimum Wage: Elsie Parrish Versus the West Coast Hotel Company Helen J. Knowles Limited preview - 2021 |
Making Minimum Wage: Elsie Parrish Versus the West Coast Hotel Company Helen J. Knowles No preview available - 2021 |
Making Minimum Wage: Elsie Parrish Versus the West Coast Hotel Company Helen J. Knowles No preview available - 2021 |
Common terms and phrases
Adkins affected Amendment American appeal argument Association Attorney believed bill brief Cascadian chapter clear concluded Conner constitutional constitutionality contract County Crollard December decided decision discussed dissenting Elsie Parrish employees employment enacted explained fact filed final History Hughes important industry interest issue italics added John Judge judicial June Justice Labor later laws for women lawyer legislation legislature letter liberty limited living Lochner majority March minimum wage laws Muller Nebbia needed newspaper November observed October opinion Oregon parties passed persons political precedent president Press protection question Quoted reason received record regulation reported Review Roberts ruling Seattle statute story Supreme Court Sutherland Tipaldo U.S. Supreme Court United University Washington week Wenatchee West Coast Hotel women workers World wrote York
Bibliographic information
| Title | Making Minimum Wage: Elsie Parrish versus the West Coast Hotel Company Volume 4 of Studies in American Constitutional Heritage |
| Author | Helen J. Knowles |
| Publisher | University of Oklahoma Press, 2021 |
| ISBN | 0806178191, 9780806178196 |
| Length | 396 pages |
| Subjects | › › › Biography & Autobiography / Women History / United States / 20th Century History / United States / State & Local / West (AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, UT, WY) Law / Labor & Employment |
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