Legal Commons^™

The Crucible Of History:How Apology And Reconciliation Created Modern Conceptions Of The Salem Witch Trials, Heaven Umbrell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For centuries, historians, authors, and amateur enthusiasts alike have been mesmerized by the Salem witch trials. Most of the literature focuses on the trials themselves and takes one of three approaches: anthropological; sociological; or conspiratorial. Recently Gretchen Adams, professor of history at Texas Tech University, approached the trials differently, focusing on memory. She narrowed on how the “specters of Salem” loomed over American cultural and public memory. Apart from Adams, little scholarly inquiry has focused on the aftermath of the trials, especially how it affected the people directly involved. This thesis will expand the historiography of the Salem witch hunt …

Divorce And Family Life In Nineteenth-Century Vanderburgh County, Megan Owens

Grand Valley Journal of History

In the nineteenth century, private family life was meant to mimic the ideal republican society, providing the necessary foundation for future patriotic citizens. When families failed to adhere to the idealistic notions of the private sphere and descended into conflict or divorce, however, the very foundation of American society was in danger. An analysis of divorce and family disputes in local contexts like Vanderburgh County can provide a window into the realities of private conflict within American families, especially in comparison to wider national trends.

This paper uses a small sample of divorce records from Vanderburgh County in Indiana to …

A Railway, A City, And The Public Regulation Of Private Property: Cpr V. City Of Vancouver, Douglas C. Harris

Douglas C Harris

The doctrine of regulatory or constructive taking establishes limits on the public regulation of private property in much of the common law world. When public regulation becomes unduly onerous — so as, in effect, to take a property interest from a private owner — the public will be required to compensate the owner for its loss. In 2000, the City of Vancouver passed a by-law that limited the use of a century-old rail line to a public thoroughfare. The Canadian Pacific Railway, which owned the line, claimed the regulation amounted to a taking of its property for which the city …

Dorothy R. Crockett Classroom Dedication September 10, 2019, Roger Williams University School Of Law, Lorraine Lalli, Bre'anna Metts-Nixon, Michael M. Bowden

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Royalist Propaganda: Fabrication Of Magna Farta, Daniel R. Palthe

The Hilltop Review

This paper examines the perception and usage of Magna Carta in interregnum England. The central question is whether or not Oliver Cromwell ever referred to this royal document as the "Magna Farta." While one of the most common posthumous charges against him was a disdain for Magna Carta and English rights, accounts of his calling it a "Magna Farta" are questionable. The ways in which the Magna Carta was actually used under Cromwell rather seems to indicate a different opinion. Essentially, this paper compares royalist propaganda with the Commonwealth's accounts.

Land Tenure In Acadian Agricultural Settlements, 1604-1755: Cultural Retention And The Emergence Of Custom, Carol A. Blasi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Starting in 1755, the British began the process of not only expelling some eleven thousand Acadians from their homes and farms, but also of uprooting a culture that had survived for over one hundred and twenty years. This dissertation applies a legal historical approach to elucidate a crucial feature of that culture, namely Acadian land tenure. In particular, it traces the way in which seigneurialism, and the French law supporting it, were central to property formation in Acadian agricultural settlements from their inception to their destruction in 1755.

Scholars have been at best ambivalent, and at worst hostile to the …

Time Traveling With Timelines: Web Apps For Storytelling In Libraries, Sharon Bradley, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

From online embeds to interactive displays, timelines can serve many purposes and tell powerful stories. At the University of Georgia’s Law Library we have teamed up with faculty and staff to bring history to life, engage students, and preserve scholarly and institutional milestones. Through trial and error we have found a variety of tools for creating timelines digitally. In this article we share our four favorite web-based applications for creating timelines including Tiki-Toki, TimeToast, Prezi and Piktochart.

Complicated Lives: Free Blacks In Virginia, 1619-1865, Sherri L. Burr

Faculty Book Display Case

Would the United States have developed differently if Virginia had not passed a law in 1670 proclaiming all subsequently arriving Africans as servants for life, or slaves? What if the state had not stripped all Free Blacks and Indians of voting rights in 1723, or outlawed interracial sex for 337 years?

Complicated Lives upends the pervasive belief that all Africans landing on the shores of Virginia beginning in late August 1619, became slaves. In reality, many of these kidnap victims received the status of indentured servants. Indeed, hundreds of thousands of free African Americans in the South and North owned …

Public Financing Of Elections In The States, Nicholas Meixsell

Honors Theses

In the US, there is a history of the courts striking down campaign finance reform measures as unconstitutional. As such, there are few avenues remaining for someone who is interested in 'clean government' reforms. One such avenue is publicly financed elections, where the state actually provides funding for campaigns. These systems can be quite varied in the restrictions and contingencies they attach to the money, and for examples one has to look no further than the states There are many states that have some form of public financing for elections, and by looking at the different states' systems we are …

Our Administered Constitution: Administrative Constitutionalism From The Founding To The Present, Sophia Z. Lee

Faculty Scholarship at Penn Carey Law

This article argues that administrative agencies have been primary interpreters and implementers of the federal Constitution throughout the history of the United States, although the scale and scope of this "administrative constitutionalism" has changed significantly over time as the balance of opportunities and constraints has shifted. Courts have nonetheless cast an increasingly long shadow over the administered Constitution. In part, this is because of the well-known expansion of judicial review in the 20th century. But the shift has as much to do with changes in the legal profession, legal theory, and lawyers’ roles in agency administration. The result is that …

Cuckoldry And The “Gone For A Soldier” Narrative: Infidelity And Performance Among Eighteenth-Century English Plebeians, Elias Hubbard

Lawrence University Honors Projects

This project addresses existing historical arguments about the role of performance in eighteenth-century English plebeian infidelity cases, identifying some of the cultural scripts available to married men and women from popular texts in order to better understand cases of infidelity in contemporary plebeian marriages. The thesis seeks to clarify the effect of infidelity on a plebeian individual’s social standing and relationships, and to draw conclusions about the nature of plebeian infidelity, marriage, and gender in England through the long eighteenth century.

While examining contemporary public texts of cuckoldry, I address how homosocial behavior appears in narratives of cuckoldry, how the …

Herman L. Midlo: Social Ally In Louisiana Religious Civil Rights, Kenneth William-Moran Taylor

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The study of social allies in the field of American Civil Rights and Liberties History is largely an underappreciated aspect of this historical era. This work argues that social allies and their stories are worthwhile histories that are beneficial to the study of American Civil Rights and Liberties using Louisiana lawyer Herman Lazard Midlo as a case study. Midlo worked as a Louisiana lawyer from the 1930s to 1960s and fought tirelessly for the religious liberties of the Jehovah’s Witness community in the state. His story shows how beneficial and consequential the actions of social allies have had and can …

The History Of Lizzie Borden: Burying The Axe, Christian Ford

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

In 1892, a wealthy Massachusetts couple, Andrew and Abby Borden, were hacked to death during broad daylight in the comfort of their own home. A few weeks later Lizzie Borden, Andrew’s daughter from his first marriage, was arrested for double homicide. Newspapers across the country took hold of the story from the very first day; a wealthy, white, woman being accused of murder was no ordinary affair. For the next year, the nation was gripped to the news as the case revealed an everlasting list of strange characters and showed the dark underbelly of the small industrial city of Fall …

The United States' Relationship With The Insanity Defense Before And After United States V. Hinckley, Natalie R. Peterman

Young Historians Conference

The United States legal system has had a fluctuating relationship with the insanity defense for decades, and the trial of United States v. Hinckley was a critical milestone for this development. Before John Hinckley, Jr. attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and the jury of his trial found him not guilty, American society generally supported the insanity defense, but both the public and the government were outraged after Hinckley’s verdict. This outrage and the subsequent political backlash against the insanity defense were motivated by progress in the area of mental illness treatment in the United States. In the …

The Examination Of Inconsistencies Among The Misconception, Ideology, And Reality Of The Punishment Of Male And Female Adulterers Through Letters And Court Records, Julie Ho Lely

Young Historians Conference

Due to the misogynistic roots of history, many scholars believe that female adulterers were punished more harshly than male adulterers; however, the wholistic examination of religion, gender norms, and medieval law reveal that despite the church’s ideology of equal condemnation of male and female adulterers, in reality, male adulterers were punished more frequently than women. By addressing the misconceptions, ideologies, and realities relating to adultery, this enables us to comprehend how social norms, law, and religion mutually influence each other while also revealing inconsistencies between the different fields. This paper focuses on adultery cases in the medieval times and examines …

When The Courts Were Tripping: An Analysis Of Employment Division V Smith And Its Impact On Oregon Law, Lucy C. Adams

Young Historians Conference

A member of the Native American Church named Al Smith was fired from his job for using Peyote during a religious ceremony. He sued, and Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith was opened. Surprisingly, when the Supreme Court heard the case, they abandoned precedent for determining whether religious actions were permissible and ruled in favor of the state. The ruling was a setback for religious freedom, and particularly harmed minority religions. Other agencies stepped in to prevent Smith from decimating religious rights, but the Oregon Supreme Court officially accepted the Supreme Court’s ruling on the case, despite having ruled in …

Film Review: The Impure: An Abolitionist Documentary Film Of The 19th Century Traffic In Jewish Women, Caroline Norma

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Oral Argument Tactics On The Supreme Court Bench: A Comparative Analysis Of Verbal Tools Used By Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, And Gorsuch, Corinne Cichowicz

Politics Honors Papers

Oral argument scholars like Adam Feldman have categorized the Supreme Court justices’ behavior during oral argument using the approach-based method, labeling each as one-sided, even-handed, or restrained. This approach is too narrowly constructed. Scholars sometimes categorize justices in terms of the tools they use, which include questions, hypotheticals, declarations, interruptions, tone of voice, and silence (Feldman 2018a). Neither of these methods alone produce a nuanced analysis of each justice’s actions during an individual case or across a Term. As the Court’s composition and dynamics are continuously changing, scholarship on oral argument needs to adapt to …

Profundity And Absurdity, Scott Culpepper

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

No abstract provided.

Interview Of Margaret Mcguinness, Ph.D., Margaret Mcguinness Ph.D., Stephen Pierce

All Oral Histories

Dr. Margaret McGuinness was born in 1953, in Providence, Rhode Island. She went to an all-girls Catholic high school called St. Mary’s Academy Bayview in Providence where she graduated in 1971. McGuinness went on to major in American Studies and Civilization as an undergraduate at Boston University graduating with a B.A in 1975. She continued her work at Boston University where McGuinness earned a master’s of theological studies (M.T.S) focusing on Biblical and Historical Studies in 1979. She would move to New York to work on her dissertation at Union Theological Seminary finishing with her Ph.D. in 1985 concentrating on …