The Unfolding of American Labor Law: Judges, Workers, and Public Policy Across Two Political Generations, 1790-1850 (Law and Society)

In the nation-building following independence, no challenge was more fraught than how to construct an American law of labor. The technical side of this question--the case-by-case transformation of an inherited common law of repression has been thoroughly studied, but no one has quite done what Jeffrey Kahana has accomplished in this fine book: he has captured the processes by which this Americanized common law came to reflect the values of a rapidly democratizing, economically free-wheeling nation. This is a major contribution, and Kahana is to be congratulated for it. -- David Brody, Professor Emeritus of History, UC-Davis