Waldrep Wins Craig Joyce Medal from ASLH

Via H-Law, we have the following announcement:

Chris Waldrep (credit)

Christopher Waldrep, professor of history at San Francisco State University, is the second recipient of the American Society for Legal History’s Craig Joyce Medal, given  on occasion by the Society “to recognize members who have given long and outstanding service” to the Society.

The ASLH honored Chris Waldrep with this award because of his long and diverse service to the Society, but most of all for his pivotal role in the founding and guidance of H-LAW, the list-serv co-sponsored by the ASLH and H-NET (Humanities and Social Sciences Network Online).  In 1993, Chris led a small band of scholars in exploring what was then the information age’s cutting-edge technology.  They launched H-LAW, now entering its twentieth year of existence as one of the oldest and best-regarded list-servs in the H-NET family.

Under Chris’s sage and steady leadership, H-LAW has become an indispensable resource for the legal-history community.  Many scholars have formed close and lasting online friendships and collaborations with colleagues whom they have never met face-to-face, but whom they have come to know and trust via H-LAW.  H-LAW also has fostered and continues to foster online discussions of pivotal issues and questions of interest to legal and constitutional historians worldwide, and H-LAW also has given rise to a flourishing book-review operation that keeps H-LAW subscribers and other H-NET list-servs up to date on the latest and best scholarship in our field.

Without Chris Waldrep, there would have been no H-LAW (at least in the form it took), and without the guiding vision that he brought to founding and shaping H-LAW, the legal-history community would not be what it is today.

Although late last year a sudden illness sidelined Chris Waldrep, his example and the extraordinary work that he did in founding, growing, developing, and refining H-LAW continue to inspire and guide his colleagues and friends.

Professor Charles L. Zelden, the first book-review editor of H-LAW and now its head moderator, accepted the Craig Joyce Award for Chris Waldrep.