Kimberly Welch examines the diaries of William Johnson, a free black barber in antebellum Natchez, Mississippi to understand his efforts to best use the law to safeguard his rights and property.
Archives: Articles
IssueM Articles
The Law of Race and Freedom: An Interview with Ariela Gross and Alejandro de la Fuente
The fact that slaveholders across our jurisdictions complained bitterly about the rights enslaved people carved out for themselves in suing for freedom suggests that they felt threatened by these claims.
“The Great Humanitarian”: Soviet Influence on the Geneva Conventions
“When combining my records from Eastern and Western archives, I recognized a much richer history of international law than I had ever imagined before.”
Formulaic Emotions and Why They Matter in Historical Research
Merridee Bailey argues that formulaic language should be understood not as ritualized and empty but potentially reflective of strategic use of the late medieval and early modern chancery court system to seek redress.
The Jury Franchise and Ideals of Citizenship in Interwar Britain
In my article in the Law and History Review, I chart a series of reforms to the rules used for identifying people qualified as jurors in England and Wales during the 1920s. The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act of 1919 ended restrictions on women acting as lawyers, as judges, and as jurors, and so, as the…
Take Back the Circus: Dehumanisation, the Common Law System, and the Restorative Justice Alternative
Ciara Molloy offers a historical critique of the common law system while arguing for a more culturally transformative and humanising process of restorative justice.
THe 2018 ASLH Annual Meeting on Social Media
All the social media coverage from the 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Legal History!
Inherited Empire: Civil Law and Custom in “New France” after 1763
Julia Lewandoski, Drew Hermeling, and Adam Nadeau reprise their papers from the 2018 Omohundro Institute Annual Meeting on the rule of law after the transition from French to British rule in New France in 1763.
“A Wholesale Disfranchising Machine”: Criminal Conviction and Voting Rights in Florida
Pippa Holloway discusses the history of disfranchisement of persons convicted of felonies as a means of racialized social control and the implications of Florida’s recent referendum to restore the vote to many convicted felons.
Déja vu All Over Again… The Florida Recount in Historical Context
Charles Zelden offers a sobering assessment of the ability of state election law, institutions, and procedure to decide close elections with authority.