Commerce, Manufacturing, and Labor

Prior to 1937, the Supreme Court's Commerce Clause jurisprudence made hard distinctions between commerce and such things as manufacturing and labor. This episode takes a look at three cases from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: United States v. E.C. Knight (1895); Champion v. Ames (1903); and Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918). Next, we will explore the Supreme Court's move away from these precedents beginning in the 1937 case of NLRB v. Jones and Laughlin Steel Corp.