Monday, November 16, 2009

The ASLH's Annual Meeting: H-Law's Report

[We'll shortly be posting some reports on individual sessions at the just-concluded annual meeting of the American Society for Legal History. In the interim, here is H-Law's report.]

The American Society for Legal History has concluded its 2009 meeting in Dallas. The newly elected members of the Board of Directors are Mary Bilder, Holly Brewer, Risa Goluboff, Dylan Penningroth and Vicky Saker Woeste. The new members of the Nominating Committee are Sally Gordon and David Konig.

The Cromwell book prize went to Rebecca McLennan for The Crisis of Imprisonment: Protest, Politics, and the Making of the American Penal State, 1776-1941 (Cambridge University Press). The Cromwell dissertation prize went to Jed Shugerman "The People's Courts: The Rise of Judicial Elections and Judicial Power in America" (Yale, 2008).

The John Philip Reid Award likewise went to Rebecca McLennan for her book "The Crisis of Imprisonment." [I add that the book also received the Littleton-Griswold Prize of the American Historical Association and appeared in the series Cambridge Historical Studies in American Law and Society, edited by Christopher Tomlins. DE.]

The Preyer Scholars selected were Cary Franklin, who presented on "Sex Roles and the Foundations of Constitutional Sex Discrimination Law" [forthcoming in volume 85 of the NYU Law Review--DE] and Elizabeth Katz, who presented "'Wife Beating' and 'Uninvited Kisses' in the Supreme Court and Society in the Early Twentieth Century." David Konig, who chaired the Preyer Memorial Committee, gave lengthy citations for both as well.

The Surrency Prize went to Gautham Rao for his article "The Federal Posse Comitatus Doctrine: Slavery, Compulsion, and Statecraft in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America" and the Sutherland Prize went to Paul Halliday and G. Edward White for "The Suspension Clause: English Text, Imperial Contexts, and American Implications."

The 2010 American Society for Legal History meeting will be November 18-21, in Philadelphia. The ASLH returns to Philadelphia for the first time since the Bicentennial of the Constitution in 1987.

Hat tip: H-Law