"A Companion to American Legal History is an essential compendium of the state of the art, a reliable guide to a discipline that is daily crossing boundaries and probing more deeply into the role law has played in American life."--David Konig, Washington University in St. Louis"A remarkable collection of first-rate historians have contributed to this indispensable guide to the burgeoning field of American legal history. A must-read for students and scholars alike."--Ariela Gross, University of Southern California"When a field grows as explosively as American legal history has over the past generation, a volume like this becomes necessary and useful. These essays, collectively and individually, capture the scholarly moment with grace, good humor, and erudition."--Hendrik Hartog, Princeton University
Notes on Contributors xIntroduction 1Sally E. Hadden and Alfred L. BrophyPart I Chronological Overviews 51 Reconsidering the Seventeenth Century: Legal History in the Americas 7Elizabeth Dale2 What's Done and Undone: Colonial American Legal History, 1700.1775 26Sally E. Hadden3 1775.1815 46Ellen Holmes Pearson4 The Antebellum Era Through Civil War 67Alfred L. Brophy5 Beyond Classical Legal Thought: Law and Governance in Postbellum America, 1865.1920 86Roman J. Hoyos6 American Legal History, 1920.1970 105Christopher W. SchmidtPart II Individuals and Groups 1257 Native Americans 127Christian McMillen8 African Americans in Slavery 152Thomas J. Davis9 African Americans in Freedom 171James Campbell10 Women's Legal History 190Felice Batlan11 Families 209David S. Tanenhaus12 Who Belongs? Immigrants and the Law in American History 228Allison Brownell Tirres13 The Legal Profession 247Mark E. SteinerPart III Subject Areas 26714 Law and the Economy of Early America: Markets, Institutions of Exchange, and Labor 269Christine Desan15 Law and the Economy in the United States, 1820.2000 289Harwell Wells16 Law and Labor in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 308Deborah Dinner17 Siting the Legal History of Poverty: Below, Above, and Amidst 329Felicia Kornbluh and Karen Tani18 Taxes 349Robin L. Einhorn19 Law and the Administrative State 367Joanna L. Grisinger20 Law and Religion 387Steven K. Green21 Legal History and the Military 406Elizabeth L. Hillman22 Criminal Law and Justice in America 422Elizabeth Dale23 Intellectual Property 441Steven WilfPart IV Legal Thought 46124 Law and Literature 463Jeannine Marie DeLombard25 Legal Thought from Blackstone to Kent and Story 484Steven J. Macias26 American Jurisprudence in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries 506James D. Schmidt27 Critical Legal Studies 524John Henry Schlegel28 The International Context: An Imperial Perspective on American Legal History 543Clara AltmanIndex 562
Sally E. Hadden is Associate Professor of History at Western Michigan University, where she teaches legal history and the history of early America. She is the author of Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas (2001) and co-editor of Signposts: New Directions in Southern Legal History (with P. Minter, 2013).Alfred L. Brophy is Judge John J. Parker Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he teaches property and trusts and estates. His books include Reparations: Pro and Con (2006), Integrating Spaces: Property Law and Race (with A. Lopez and K. Murray, 2011), and Transformations in American Legal History (with D. Hamilton, 2010).