New York Bakeshop Act

The New York Bakeshop Act of 1895 was a state law aimed at improving sanitation and regulating working hours in bakeries. It was modeled after a British act from 1863. The law prohibited domestic animals in bakeries and required workers not to sleep in the bake room. A key provision limited bakery workers to 10 hours a day and 60 hours a week.1

This act became the subject of the landmark Supreme Court case Lochner v. New York in 1905. The Court struck down the hours provision, ruling it an unconstitutional infringement on the freedom of contract under the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s dissent argued that the Constitution should not embody a specific economic theory and that the law was a reasonable health measure. The Lochner decision became a symbol of judicial interference with labor laws for many years.1