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The 2024 ASLH Annual Meeting will be held at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco, California. The conference room rate is $209.00.  Reserve rooms here: https://www.hyatt.com/en-US/group-booking/SFORS/G-ASLH/ATTENDEE The ASLH commits to filling a minimum number of rooms and faces heavy penalties if the number falls short.

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The ASLH welcomes advertisement in its annual meeting program. Our meetings routinely attract approximately 400 legal historians. Advertisements typically come from publishers, universities, other learned societies, and organizations that wish to provide goods and services for the benefit of our members.

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The ASLH welcomes exhibitors at its annual meeting. In the past, exhibitors have included publishers, rare book dealers, on-line information providers, and others interested in promoting goods or services to the approximately 400 legal historians who attend our meetings. Registration includes a 3′ x 6′ table, two chairs, and the right for up to two exhibitors to attend the meeting.

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  View the preliminary program here!    Welcome to San Francisco! A quintessential borderland, the city has long been at the crossroads of intersecting peoples and cultures. The result is a stunningly diverse, global city. It is also a city with a complex and visible history.

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All sessions will be on Zoom Wednesdays from 6:00-7:00 pm (Central Time) We will send an email two weeks in advance of each event You must RSVP to receive the zoom link (RSVP messages will be sent to membership approximately 1 week before the event) September 18th Hendrik Hartog, Nobody’s Boy and His Pals: The Story of Jack Robbins and the Boys’ Brotherhood Republic (University of Chicago Press, 2024) with interlocutor Susanna Blumenthal November 20th Giuliana Perrone, Nothing More than Freedom: The Failure of Abolition in American Law (Cambridge University Press, 2023)(Studies in Legal History) with interlocutor Cynthia Nicoletti December 11th Chloë Kennedy, Inducing Intimacy: Deception, Consent and the Law (Cambridge University Press, 2024) with interlocutor Catherine Evans January 22nd Gender & History, Special Issue, Engendering Carcerality (July 2024) Authors in Conversation: Rachel Klein, “Surviving Domestic and State Violence: Women’s Prison Organizing and the Gendered Politics of Solidarity” Anne Gray Fischer, “Bad, Mad or Both: A Legal History of Battered Woman Syndrome” April Haynes, “The Other Women’s Rights Movement: ‘Streetwalkers’, Habeas Corpus and Anti-Carceral Activism in New York City, 1830-1860” February 26th Allison Powers, Arbitrating Empire: United States Expansion and the Transformation of International Law (Oxford University Press 2024) with interlocutor Sam Erman March 26th Joint event with the Immigration & Ethnic History Society Brianna Nofil, The Migrant’s Jail: An American History of Migrant Incarceration (Princeton University Press, 2024) with interlocutor Lucy Salyer April 16th Joint event with the Business History Conference Xaq Frohlich, From Label to Table: Regulating Food in America in the Information Age (University of California Press, 2023) & Sean Vanatta, Plastic Capitalism: Banks, Credit Cards, and the End of Financial Control (Yale University Press, 2024)

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The dates in parentheses after each name indicate when the person’s term began. Scroll to: 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004 2023 PRINCIPAL OFFICERS President: Michael Willrich, Brandeis University President-Elect: Barbara Welke, University of Minnesota Secretary: Ari Bryen, Vanderbilt University Treasurer: David Tanenhaus, University of Nevada, Las Vegas SPECIAL OFFICERS Memorialists, Laura Kalman (2020), University of California, Santa Barbara and Sarah Barringer Gordon (2020) University of Pennsylvania BOARD OF DIRECTORS Laura Edwards (2021), Princeton University Maggie Blackhawk (2021), New York University Michael Lobban (2021), London School of Economics Sarah Seo (2020), Columbia University Law School Taja-Nia Y.

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In this episode, Siobhan talks with William P. Hustwit about his book Integration Now: Alexander v. Holmes and the End of Jim Crow Education (UNC Press, 2019). Hustwit is the Associate Professor of History and Chair of the History Department at Birmingham-Southern College.

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CREATING A SUCCESSFUL CONFERENCE PROPOSAL Barbara Y. Welke, Distinguished McKnight University Professor & Professor of History and Law, University of Minnesota and Kenneth Ledford, Associate Professor of History and Law, Case Western Reserve University 2010 ASLH Program Committee Co-Chairs Updated by Sophia Z.

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The dates in parentheses after each name indicate when the person’s term began. Members of the Board of Directors serve for terms of three years. Lists of officers, directors, and committee members for previous years may be found here. Jump to: Officers Board of Directors Committees and Positions PRINCIPAL OFFICERS President: Barbara Welke, University of Minnesota President-Elect: Mitra Sharafi, University of Wisconsin Secretary: Ari Bryen, Vanderbilt University Treasurer: David Tanenhaus, University of Nevada, Las Vegas SPECIAL OFFICERS Memorialists, Laura Kalman (2020), University of California, Santa Barbara and Sarah Barringer Gordon (2020) University of Pennsylvania BOARD OF DIRECTORS Laura Edwards (2021), Princeton University Maggie Blackhawk (2021), New York University Michael Lobban (2021), London School of Economics Lucy Salyer (2021), University of New Hampshire* Daniel Hulsebosch (2021), New York University Michelle McKinley (2022), University of Oregon Sam Erman (2022), University of Michigan* Elizabeth Katz (2022), University of Florida Catherine Evans (2022), University of Toronto Jelani Hayes (2022), Yale University, Graduate Student Member Fahad Bishara (2023), University of Virginia Daniel Ernst (2023), Georgetown University Elizabeth Kamali (2023), Harvard University* Amalia Kessler (2023), Stanford University Anne Twitty (2023), Stanford University Michael Willrich (ex officio, Immediate Past President), Brandeis University * Executive Committee Member COMMITTEES AND POSITIONS Members of all committees except the Finance Committee, the Willard Hurst Memorial Fund Committee, and the Local Arrangements Committee, serve three-year terms.

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ASLH Early Career (Virtual) Legal History Workshop Deadline for Applications:  June 30, 2024 The American Society for Legal History (ASLH) is delighted to announce a new virtual initiative – the Early Career (Virtual) Legal History Workshop – designed to provide support and intellectual community to early career scholars working in legal history, broadly defined.

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We are very pleased to announce the 2017 cohort of ACLS fellowship recipients from among the members of the ASLH.   Chazkel, Amy – ACLS Fellowship Program Associate Professor, History, City University of New York, Queens College Urban Chiaroscuro: Rio de Janeiro and the Politics of Nightfall   Gross, Ariela J.

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The American Council of Learned Societies (“ACLS”) is pleased to announce the eighth annual competition of the Mellon/ACLS Public Fellows Program. This initiative places humanities PhDs in substantive roles in diverse nonprofit and government organizations, demonstrating that the knowledge and capacities developed in the course of earning a doctoral degree in the humanities have wide application beyond the academy.

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  The biennial Wallace Johnson Program for First Book Authors provides advice and support to scholars working toward the publication of first books in legal history, broadly defined. In conversation with peers and with the advice of senior scholars, participants develop and revise book proposals and sample chapters, as well as meeting with guest editors to learn about approaching and working with publishers.

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ASLH STUDENT RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM, 2024 The American Society for Legal History will host its eleventh annual Student Research Colloquium (SRC) on Wednesday, October 23, and Thursday, October 24, 2024, in San Francisco, California, USA.  Each year, the SRC brings eight graduate students to the site of the ASLH annual meeting to discuss their in-progress research projects with each other and with ASLH-affiliated scholars.

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Named after the late Kathryn T. Preyer, a distinguished historian of the law of early America known for her generosity to early career legal historians, the program of Kathryn T. Preyer Scholars is designed to help legal historians at the beginning of their careers.

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The Peter Gonville Stein Book Award is awarded annually for the best book in non-US legal history written in English. This award is designed to recognize and encourage the further growth of fine work in legal history that focuses on all regions outside the United States, as well as global and international history.

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Deadline for Applications: July 1, 2023 We are excited to announce a new virtual initiative: The ASLH Book Club, a monthly event series that will bring together ASLH members to engage virtually with authors about their recently published books. The Book Club will provide ASLH members the opportunity to gather on a regular basis throughout the year and discuss recently published work. 

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The American Society for Legal History will host its eleventh annual Student Research Colloquium (SRC) on Wednesday, October 23, and Thursday, October 24, 2024, in San Francisco, California, USA.  Each year, the SRC brings eight graduate students to the site of the ASLH annual meeting to discuss their in-progress research projects with each other and with ASLH-affiliated scholars.

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The William Nelson Cromwell Foundation Book Prize is awarded annually to the best book in the field of American legal history by an early career scholar. The prize is designed to recognize and promote new work in the field by graduate students, law students, post-doctoral fellows and faculty not yet tenured.

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ASLH 2023 Election: President Elect, Nominating Committee, and Board of Directors Candidate Statements President-Elect Mitra Sharafi: I am a legal historian of South Asia and Evjue-Bascom Professor of Law and Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, with History affiliation. My first book, Law and Identity in Colonial South Asia: Parsi Legal Culture, 1772-1947 appeared in the ASLH’s Studies in Legal History series and won the Hurst Prize of the Law and Society Association (LSA).

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Maria Agren is Professor of History at Uppsala University where she specializes in the Early Modern period, particularly in Sweden. She is the author of Domestic Secrets: Women and property in Sweden, 1600 to 1857 (University of North Carolina Press, 2009) and editor of the forthcoming Making a Living, Making a Difference: Gender and Work in Early Modern Society (Oxford University Press, 2016).

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The William Nelson Cromwell Foundation Article Prize is awarded annually to the best article in American legal history published in the preceding calendar year by an early career scholar. Articles published in the field of American legal history, broadly conceived, will be considered.

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New for 2009: The Society announces the first competition for the Cromwell Article Prize. See below for details. Surrency Prize The Surrency Prize, named in honor of Erwin C. Surrency, a founding member and first president of the Society and for many years the editor of its former publication, the American Journal of Legal History, is awarded annually for the best article published in the Society’s journal, the Law and History Review, in the previous year.

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New for 2011: The Society announces a competition for two Paul L. Murphy Awards. See below for details. Surrency Prize The Surrency Prize, named in honor of Erwin C. Surrency, a founding member and first president of the Society and for many years the editor of its former publication, the American Journal of Legal History, is awarded annually for the best article published in the Society’s journal, the Law and History Review, in the previous year.

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The William Nelson Cromwell Foundation makes available a number of $5,000 fellowships to support research and writing in American legal history by early-career scholars. Early-career generally includes those researching or writing a PhD dissertation (or equivalent project) and recent recipients of a graduate degree working on their first major monograph or research project.

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The John Phillip Reid Book Award is awarded annually for the best monograph by a mid-career or senior scholar, published in English in any of the fields defined broadly as Anglo-American legal history. The prize is named for John Phillip Reid, the prolific legal historian and founding member of the Society, and made possible by the generous contributions of his friends and colleagues.

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Year President Vice President Secretary Treasurer Board of Directors Nominating Committee 1956 Erwin C. Surrency (Temple University) William F. Schultz, Jr. (University of Pittsburgh) William F. Schultz, Jr. (University of Pittsburgh) 1957 Erwin C. Surrency (Temple University) William F. Schultz, Jr.

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Year Documentary Preservation Publications Research Fellowships and Awards Ad Hoc Committees 1956 1957 1958 William H. McBratney, Chair, Louis H. Samuels, Paul Treschner Morris D. Forkosch, Chair, John C. Hogan, William Tinker 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 John D.

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Year Conferences & Annual Meeting Local Arrangements Program for Annual Meeting 1971 Robert M. Spector, Chair (State College at Worcester), Sanford J. Fox (Boston College) Herbert A. Johnson, Chair (Institute of Early American History & Culture), Milton M. Klein, Vice Chair (University of Tennessee), Gaines Post (Princeton University), Charles M.

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Year Advisory Committee on the Cromwell Prizes John Philip Reid Book Award Committee Willard Hurst Memorial Fund Committee Kathryn T. Preyer Memorial Committee Craig Joyce Prize Committee 2004 Book Prize Awarded to Michael Willrich (Bradeis University); Committee – David Konig, Chair (Washington University in St.

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Year Committee on Honors (Established 1971) Surrency Prize Committee (Established 1983) Sutherland Prize Committee (Established 1988) Paul L. Murphy Award Committee (Established 1998) 1971 Herbert A. Johnson, Chair (Institute of Early American History & Culture), Paul A. Freund (Harvard University), Hugh B.

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Year Finance Future of the Society Membership Projects and Proposals 1956 1957 1958 William Tucker Dean, Chair, Joseph A. McCallin, Joseph H. Smith, Thad Holt, Jr., W.L. Guice, B.G. Ramsey 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 Joseph W.

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The recent loss of Jane Scheiber has affected many ASLH members, who admired her smarts, drive, and skill as a scholar and adviser to many legal historians and our Society.  We are grateful to Victoria Woeste, who in consultation with Harry Scheiber and others, has written this tribute.

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Supporting early-career scholars is among the American Society for Legal History’s top priorities. Well aware that today’s newcomers will be tomorrow’s leaders within the profession, the ASLH works hard to attract, retain, mentor, and otherwise serve graduate students, law students, and early-career professionals.

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The John Phillip Reid Book Award Kate Masur, Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2021). Engagingly written and thoroughly researched, Kate Masur’s Until Justice Be Done uncovers the long arc of civil rights activism in the North, showing how it arose as distinct from antislavery activism and laid the intellectual and political foundations for the later emergence of the Fourteenth Amendment.

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The Max Planck-ASLH Dissertation Prize for European Legal History in a Global Perspective will honor exceptional dissertations on topics in European legal history in global perspective and presented for PhD or JSD degrees awarded in the previous calendar year. Topics may include European legal interactions with people or places outside Europe, legal processes spanning Europe and other world regions, and developments in legal theory closely related to imperial, transnational, or trans-regional trends.

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Leuven University (Belgium) is organizing a conference on the use of translation in public legal and administrative institutions, in the past and present. They would like to attract researchers from a variety of fields, including legal history, and are encouraging legal historians to consider applying to participate.

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Barbara Y. Welke, Distinguished McKnight University Professor & Professor of History and Law, University of Minnesota and Kenneth Ledford, Associate Professor of History and Law, Case Western Reserve University 2010 ASLH Program Committee Co-Chairs Updated by Sophia Z. Lee, Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania and Fahad Ahmad Bishara, Associate Professor of History, University of Virginia 2022 ASLH Program Committee Co-Chairs In 2008, Linda Kerber published three short articles titled “Conference Rules” that offered sage advice on presenting a paper, commenting, and chairing. 

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The Projects and Proposals Committee of the American Society for Legal History invites proposals for the funding of new initiatives in the study, presentation, and production of legal historical scholarship and in the communication of legal history to all its possible publics and audiences.

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In Memoriam: Craig Evan Klafter  Craig Klafter was a noted legal historian, an influential member of the American Society for Legal History (ASLH), a brilliant academic administrator, and a wonderful friend to many. Craig received a Bachelor of Arts with General Honors in History and Master of Arts in History from the University of Chicago, and Doctor of Philosophy in Modern History from the University of Oxford.

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The Anne Fleming Article Prize is a joint prize of the the ASLH and the Business History Conference (BHC). It is awarded every other year to the author or authors of the best article published in the previous two years in either Law and History Review or Enterprise and Society on the relation of law and business/economy in any region or historical period.

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The Society will hold its 2016 Annual Meeting in Toronto, Canada.  The dates of the meeting are Thursday, October 27 through Sunday, October 30, 2016.  Our meeting site will be the Fairmont Royal York Hotel, directly across the street from Union Station (the terminus of a new light-rail line from Pearson International Airport). 

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Please join the ASLH in offering our congratulations to this year’s prize winners, in thanking the prize committees for their work, and in appreciating the generosity of the people and organizations who have generously funded them.   Cromwell Article Prize  Emilie Connolly, “Fiduciary Colonialism: Annuities and Native Dispossession in Early America,” American Historical Review 127:1 (2022): 223-253.

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Surrency Prize The Surrency Prize, named in honor of Erwin C. Surrency, a founding member and first president of the Society and for many years the editor of its former publication, the American Journal of Legal History, is awarded annually for the best article published in the Society’s journal, the Law and History Review, in the previous year.

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The transformation of the dissertation into a book requires writerly muscles that may have atrophied during the argumentative training camp of graduate school: chucking jargon, eschewing detailed historiographical debate, and, frequently, rounds of uncomfortable editing. By the time historians are sitting down to write the introduction to their book, they have been sitting with their project for at least six years.

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::  Historians and Access to the Files of Lawyers :: March 7, 1994[1] Organization of American Historians Ad Hoc Committee on Access to Lawyers’ Files Kermit L. Hall (chair) Paul Finkelman N. E. H. Hull Stanley N. Katz Background The Executive Board of the Organization of American Historians (OAR) in September 1991 formed the Ad Hoc Committee on Access to Lawyers’ Files.

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The ASLH is delighted to announce our 2019 prize, honors, and fellowship winners! Cromwell Dissertation Prize Winner: Jonathan Lande, “Disciplining Freedom: U.S. Army Slave Rebels and Emancipation During the Civil War” At least since William Cooper Nell penned The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution in 1855, historians have linked African-American military service with manhood and citizenship.

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Call for Applications Application Deadline: December 1, 2016 The American Society for Legal History and the Institute for Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin Law School are pleased to invite applications for the ninth biennial Hurst Summer Institute in Legal History.

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Surrency Prize The Surrency Prize, named in honor of Erwin C. Surrency, a founding member and first president of the Society and for many years the editor of its former publication, the American Journal of Legal History, is awarded annually for the best article published in the Society’s journal, the Law and History Review, in the previous year.

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