By Harold D. Woodman (NHC Fellow, 1983–84) Examines the legal and economic strategies adopted by southern landowners to cultivate and profit from their land when the abolition of chattel slavery deprived them of their primary form of wealth and credit. Woodman (history, Purdue U.) explores the evolution of these strategies and how they affected the … Continued
By Liam Murphy (NHC Fellow, 2000–01) In a capitalist economy, taxes are the most important instrument by which the political system puts into practice a conception of economic and distributive justice. Taxes arouse strong passions, fueled not only by conflicts of economic self-interest, but by conflicting ideas of fairness. Taking as a guiding principle the … Continued
By Michael Grossberg (NHC Fellow, 1987–88) A Judgment for Solomon tells the story of the d'Hauteville case, a controversial child custody battle fought in 1840. It uses the story of one couple's bitter fight over their son to explore some timebound and timeless features of American legal culture. In a narrative analysis, it recounts how … Continued
By Orville Vernon Burton (NHC Fellow, 1994–95) and Armand Derfner In the first comprehensive accounting of the U.S. Supreme Court’s race-related jurisprudence, a distinguished historian and renowned civil rights lawyer scrutinize a legacy too often blighted by racial injustice. The Supreme Court is usually seen as protector of our liberties: it ended segregation, was a … Continued
By Linda K. Kerber (NHC Fellow, 1990–91) This pioneering study redefines women’s history in the United States by focusing on civic obligations rather than rights. Looking closely at thirty telling cases from the pages of American legal history, Kerber’s analysis reaches from the Revolution, when married women did not have the same obligation as their … Continued
By John Agresto (NHC Fellow, 1978–79; 1979–80) In The Supreme Court and Constitutional Democracy John Agresto traces the development of American judicial power, paying close attention to what he views as the very real threat of judicial supremacy. Agresto examines the role of the judiciary in a democratic society and discusses the proper place of congressional power … Continued
Historians who know nothing else about American religion often know one thing for sure: in July of 1925 fundamentalists got their noses rubbed in the dirt at the Rhea County Courthouse in Dayton, Tennessee. That building, of course, housed the famous Monkey Trial, the place where rural traditionalism met and finally bowed to the forces … Continued
In July of 1925, the Tennessee jury in the Scopes “monkey” trial delivered its verdict, finding high school science teacher John T. Scopes guilty of teaching evolution. In a larger sense, however, the jury is still out. While we await the latest verdict, we can explore some questions that place the famous trial in the … Continued
This webinar analyzes the history of US Immigration Control and the ways that specific law and policies were created to allow the immigration of some, but deny it for others. Also, this webinar explains this history as it relates to the present day.
As the 20th century came to a close and the 21st began something occurred in the United States that was both internationally unparalleled and historically unprecedented. Between 1970 and 2017 more people were incarcerated in this country than were imprisoned anywhere else in the world, and at no other point in this nation’s recorded past … Continued