From 1984-2008 the University of Wisconsin School of Law has offered a research fellowship in American legal history. The J. Willard Hurst Fellowship was designed to support a scholar at an early stage in her or his career when, under prevailing circumstances, career pressures or a teaching load might divert the individual away from research. Each Fellow was appointed by the Law School's Institute for Legal Studies for a one-year term with the option to renew the fellowship for an additional year. The fellowship, which included a modest stipend, provided the selected scholar with study space at the Law School, access to University resources, and the opportunity to interact with a thriving intellectual community at the University of Wisconsin law school and history department. Alumni of the fellowship program are now teaching at major universities and have been recognized for their scholarship.
In 2008, the Law School began a new program that offers a Law and Society Post-doctoral Fellowship for scholars in legal history as well as other disciplines.The 2008-09 Law and Society Fellow will be named in early April.
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Recent Legal History Fellows:
(2005-08) Gwen Hoerr Jordan
Gwen Hoerr Jordan holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at
Chicago, where she was an instructor in the Department of History. Her
dissertation is entitled "Creating a Women's Legal Culture: Women
Lawyers in Illinois, 1855-1939." During 2000-02, Gwen received the UIC Dean's Scholar Award. In 2001 she was selected as
a fellow for the inaugural session of the J. Willard Hurst Summer
Institute in Legal History hosted by the Institute for Legal Studies
and the American Society for Legal History. From 2000-01 she received an American Dissertation Fellowship from the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation. Gwen also holds a J.D. from the University of Denver College of Law and a M.A. in criminal justice from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
(2004-05) William H. Thomas, Jr.
Bill Thomas holds a Ph.D. and M.A.
in history from the University of Iowa, and B.A. in history from the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has taught at the University
of South Alabama, the University of Iowa, and Spring Hill College. In
2003 Bill received the Paul L. Murphy Award from the American Society
for Legal History. His dissertation is entitled, "The United States
Department of Justice and Dissent During the First World War."
(2002-04) Honor Sachs
Honor Sachs is a Ph.D. candidate in the U.S. and U.S. Women's
History Program at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. She holds a
B.A. in history from Dartmouth College (1994) and an M.A. in U.S. and
U.S. Women's History from the University of Wisconsin Madison (1999).
Her dissertation, titled "The Best Poor Woman's Country: Women, Gender,
and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Kentucky," explores women's
relationships to the emerging institutions of legal, social, and
political authority in the backcountry during and after the American
Revolution. Her dissertation considers how ordinary women negotiated
and shaped the social and legal boundaries of marriage, property, and
slavery throughout the process of eighteenth-century, western
settlement. Her dissertation has received numerous research grants,
including fellowships from the American Antiquarian Society, the
Virginia Historical Society, and the Filson Club. In 2006, she accepted a two-year fellowship at Yale University, the Cassius Marcellus Clay Postdoctoral Fellow at the Howard Lamar Center for the Study of Frontiers and Borders.
Previous Legal History Fellows:
R. Ben Brown Legal Studies Program, University of California-Berkeley
Elizabeth Clark (Deceased) Boston University Law School
Andrew Wender Cohen (1997-99) Maxwell School, Syracuse University
Daniel R. Ernst (1987-88) Georgetown University Law Center
Elizabeth Hovey (1994-95) Independent Scholar
Gwen Hoerr Jordan (2005-2008)
Andrea G. McDowell (2000-02) Seton Hall University School of Law
William J. Novak (1989-90) Department of History, University of Chicago
Linda C.A. Przbyszewski (1990-91) Department of History, University of Notre Dame
Leslie J. Reagan (1990-91) Department of History, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Honor Sachs (2002-04) Department of History, Yale University
John William Sayer Independent Scholar
Clyde Spillenger (1991-92) University of California at Los Angeles School of Law
William H. Thomas, Jr. (2004-05) Lewis and Clark Community College, St. Louis