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The Troubled Intersection Of The Interests Of Christ And Commerce : Appellate-Court Review Of Virginia Sunday Closing Laws In Historical Overview Through 1942, William Robert Vanderkloot

Master's Theses

Virginia's Supreme Court of Appeals, between 1900 and the conclusion of this thesis in 1942, consistently narrowed Virginia's Sunday closing law, enacted in 1786 to prevent Sunday labor. While paying lip service to the statute's purpose, the court almost unhesitatingly chose statutory interpretations encouraging more Sunday labor, particularly by expanding its ''necessity" and "charity" exceptions. The legislature also granted additional statutory closing law exceptions. This reflected the preferences of the public as well, which increasingly depended on the services of others laboring on Sunday. These results were also due, in part, to inherent confusions and contradictions in the law itself, …