What evidence did the state’s attorneys use in the Brandeis Brief to support the limitation of work hours for women? What did that evidence suggest about women and the role that the government should have in protecting women? What argument were the lawyers making and what obstacles were they trying to overcome? What argument did Muller’s attorneys use to reject limitations on the work hours of women? What biases and assumptions were embedded in the arguments and evidence of these positions?
Depending on the nature of the analysis, your paper might include the following:
an analysis of the immediate context (who wrote the document, who was the anticipated audience, what motivations played into this statement);
an analysis of the larger historical context (how does this document fit within larger social, political, culture, or economic patterns characteristic of its period);
an analysis of values and assumptions made (what does this author seem to assume in regards to, say, race, gender, class, etc.);
an analysis of the rhetoric (what genre does the document fall within, what types of metaphors, etc. are deployed by the author, what connotations do words have, etc.)
