James Willard Hurst (October 6, 1910 – June 18, 1997) is widely credited as the founder of the modern field of

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

legal history Legal history or the history of law is the study of how law has evolved and why it has changed. Legal history is closely connected to the development of civilisations and operates in the wider context of social history. Certain jurists and histo ...

. Educated at

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

, from which he graduated in 1935, Hurst was a research assistant to Professor

Felix Frankfurter Felix Frankfurter (November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965) was an Austrian-American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1939 until 1962, during which period he was a noted advocate of judicia ...

, and later a

law clerk A law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person, generally someone who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial clerks often play significant ...

to Justice

Louis Brandeis Louis Dembitz Brandeis (; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an American lawyer and associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939. Starting in 1890, he helped develop the "right to privacy" concept ...

. Hurst spent most of his professional career as a professor of law at the

University of Wisconsin Law School The University of Wisconsin Law School is the professional graduate law school of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Located in Madison, Wisconsin, the school was founded in 1868. The University of Wisconsin Law School is guided by a "law in ...

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...

. He was

Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions The Pitt Professorship of American History and Institutions was established at the University of Cambridge on 5 February 1944 from a sum of £44,000 received from the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press in 1943 and augmented by a further £5,0 ...

at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

in 1967. He was elected to the

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in 1958 and the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 1966. Hurst had his greatest influence through his writings. His first major book, ''The Growth of American Law: The Law Makers'' (Little, Brown, 1950), examined the various institutions and groups that made law in America from independence through the mid-twentieth century—legislatures, the courts, the executive, the bar, and administrative agencies. His most influential work, ''Law and the Conditions of Freedom in the Nineteenth-Century United States'' (

University of Wisconsin Press The University of Wisconsin Press (sometimes abbreviated as UW Press) is a non-profit university press publishing peer-reviewed books and journals. It publishes work by scholars from the global academic community; works of fiction, memoir and po ...

, 1956), was famous for his thesis that Americans used law to release the population's creative energies. The book usually deemed his masterwork is ''Law and Economic Growth: A Legal History of the Lumber Industry in Wisconsin, 1836-1915'' (Harvard University Press, 1964; reissued with new introduction, University of Wisconsin Press, 1984). Hurst's other books include ''Justice Holmes and Legal History'' (Macmillan, 1965), ''Law and Social Process in the United States'' (University of Michigan Press, 1960), ''Law and Social Order in the United States'' (Cornell University Press, 1977), ''A Legal History of Money in the United States 1774-1970'' (University of Nebraska Press, 1973), ''The Legitimacy of the Business Corporation in the Law of the United States'' (University of Virginia Press, 1970), ''Dealing with Statutes'' (Columbia University Press, 1982), and ''Law and Markets in United States History: Different Modes of Bargaining Among Interests'' (University of Wisconsin Press, 1982). In 1971 he collected a series of influential law-review articles from the 1940s under the title ''The Law of Treason in the United States'' (Greenwood Press, 1971).

Notes

External links

The J. Willard Hurst Collection
University of Wisconsin Law School, Law Library.

University of Wisconsin Law School, Institute for Legal Studies. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hurst, James Willard 1910 births 1997 deaths Legal historians Williams College alumni Harvard Law School alumni Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States University of Wisconsin Law School faculty Academics of the University of Cambridge 20th-century American historians American expatriates in the United Kingdom Members of the American Philosophical Society

See also

Notes

Further reading

External links