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Browse Series VIII: Works about Hurst (selected publications only, see complete list below)

Search Series VIII: Works about Hurst (selected publications only, see complete list below)

This series contains a bibliography of articles about Hurst’s legal philosophy and scholarship. There are also several memorial articles written upon his death. Although this series primarily consists of citations only, the collection does contain copies of unpublished material.

Scholarship Review:

One measure of the stature of James Willard Hurst within the field of U.S. legal history is that three different journals published symposium issues about his scholarship and career during the last quarter of the twentieth century. The most recent one, in Law and History Review (Spring 2000), is an excellent blend of articles and commentaries from senior historians who have engaged Hurst’s work for several decades and junior historians who are taking his insights in new directions.

But if you wish to trace on your own the evolving views about Hurst’s work, start with Robert Gordon’s introduction to Hurst in the first symposium published in Law and Society Review (1975/1976). For subsequent, more critical views, read the pieces by Sidney Harring and Barry Strutt and by Eugene Genovese, along with Hurst’s response, in the American Bar Foundation Research Journal review symposium in 1985. Then take a look at Aviam Soifer’s retrospective review of The Growth of American Law in which Soifer attacks the assumption that Hurst offered a "consensus" history like that of other historians of his generation. Hurst in his interview with Hendrik Hartog acknowledges that his work often revealed a tension between visions of conflict and visions of consensus. Finally, to get a measure of the man as well as of the scholar, read the affectionate tributes of his friends and colleagues published shortly after his death in the Wisconsin Law Review.

(Scholarship review prepared by the Institute of Legal Studies, University of Wisconsin Law School)

Works About Hurst:

• James Willard Hurst and the "Madison Circle", 1 Advocate (Newsletter of the University of Wisconsin Law School) 3 (September 13 1965).
• James Willard Hurst: A Bibliography, 1997 Wis. L. Rev. 1205 (1997)
• UW Professor Forged Study of Legal History, The Milwaukee Journal, Apr. 2, 1990.
• Shirley S. Abrahamson, Eulogy for James Willard Hurst, 1997 Wisconsin Law Review 1125 (1997).
• Carl A. Auerbach, The Relation of Legal Systems to Social Change, 1980 Wisconsin Law Review 1227 (1980).
• Mary Frances Berry, New Directions for the Children of Hurst, 18 Law and History Review 177 (Spring 2000).
• Russell E. Brooks, The Jurisprudence of Willard Hurst, 18 Journal of Legal Education 257 (1966).
• Milton H. Cohen, Willard Hurst, 1980 Wisconsin Law Review 1103 (1980).
• Richard N. Current, Willard Hurst as a Wisconsin Historian, 1980 Wisconsin Law Review 1215 (1980).
• Stephen Diamond, Legal Realism and Historical Method: J. Willard Hurst and American Legal History, 77 Michigan Law Review 784 (Jan.-Mar. 1979).
• Ian W. Duncanson, Seen From Afar: An Outsider's Response to the Hurst Symposium, 18 Law and History Review 181 (Spring 2000).
• Daniel R. Ernst, The Ideal and the Actual in the State: Willard Hurst at the Board of Economic Warfare, in Total War and the Law: The American Home Front in World War II (Daniel R. Ernst and Victor Jew eds., 2002).
• Daniel R. Ernst, Willard Hurst and the Administrative State: From Williams to Wisconsin, 18 Law and History Review 1 (Spring 2000).
• William N. Eskridge, Jr., Willard Hurst, Master of the Legal Process, 1997 Wisconsin Law Review 1181 (1997).
• David H. Flaherty, An Approach to American History: Willard Hurst as Legal Historian, 14 American Journal of Legal History 222 (1970).
• Robben W. Fleming, Willard Hurst, 1980 Wisconsin Law Review 1099 (1980).
• Bill Foster, Recollections of Willard Hurst, 1997 Wisconsin Law Review 1139 (1997).
• John P. Frank, J. Willard Hurst Memorial Remarks, 1997 Wisconsin Law Review 1131 (1997).
• John P. Frank, Willard Hurst: The Clark Kent Side (Oct., 1990).
• Lawrence M. Friedman, Remembering Willard, 1997 Wisconsin Law Review 1137 (1997).
• Lawrence M. Friedman, Some Problems and Possibilities of American Legal History, in The State of American History 3 (Herbert J. Bass ed., 1970).
• Lawrence M. Friedman, Willard Hurst: Teacher, 1980 Wisconsin Law Review 1121 (1980).
• Lawrence M. Friedman, The State of American Legal History, 17 The History Teacher 103 (1983).
• Lawrence M. Friedman, Hurst, James Willard, in The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law 280 (Roger K. Newman ed., 2009).
• Lawrence M. Friedman, Stewart Macaulay, Joel B. Grossman, Joel F. Handler, Hendrik Hartog, Robert W. Gordon, Harry N. Scheiber, Shirley Abrahamson and Arthur McEvoy, James Willard Hurst, 1910-1997 - Memorial Remembrance, Law and Society Newsletter (August 1997).
• Lloyd K. Garrison, Willard Hurst: A Tribute, 1980 Wisconsin Law Review 1095 (1980).
• Bryant G. Garth, James Willard Hurst as Entrepreneur for the Field of Law and Social Science, 18 Law and History Review 37 (Spring 2000).
• Bryant G. Garth and Joyce Sterling, From Legal Realism to Law and Society: Reshaping Law for the Last Stages of the Social Activist State, 32 Law and Society Review 409 (1998).
• Eugene D. Genovese, Law and the Economy of Capitalist America: Questions for Mr. Hurst on the Occasion of His Curti Lectures, American Bar Foundation Research Journal 113 (Winter 1985).
• Robert W. Gordon, Hurst Recaptured, 18 Law and History Review 167 (Spring 2000).
• Robert W. Gordon, Introduction: J. Willard Hurst and the Common Law Tradition in American Legal Historiography, 10 Law and Society Review 9 (1975).
• Robert W. Gordon, Willard Hurst as a Colleague, 1980 Wisconsin Law Review 1123 (1980).
• Robert W. Gordon, Willard Hurst: Chastened Progressive, held by the Institute of Legal Studies, University of Wisconsin Law School. (June 28, 2005) (video tape, Series 8, Box 1, Tape 2).
• Susan Pace Hamill, From Special Privilege to General Utility: A Continuation of Willard Hurst's Study of Corporations, 49 American University Law Review 81 (October 1999).
• Sidney L. Harring and Barry R. Strutt, Lumber, Law and Social Change: The Legal History of Willard Hurst, American Bar Foundation Research Journal 123 (Winter 1985).
• Hendrik Hartog, Snakes in Ireland: A Conversation with Willard Hurst, 12 Law and History Review 371-390 (1994).
• Stanley N. Katz, James Willard Hurst, 144 Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 459 (December 2000).
• Alfred S. Konefsky, The Voice of Willard Hurst, 18 Law and History Review 147 (Spring 2000).
• Carl Landauer, Social Science on a Lawyer's Bookshelf: Willard Hurst's Law and the Conditions of Freedom in the Nineteenth-Century United States, 18 Law and History Review 59 (Spring 2000).
• Charles F. Luce, J. Willard Hurst Remembered, 1997 Wisconsin Law Review 1135 (1997).
• Charles F. Luce, Tribute to Professor Willard Hurst, 1980 Wisconsin Law Review 1101 (1980).
• Stewart Macaulay, Willard's Law School?, 1997 Wisconsin Law Review 1163 (1997).
• Stewart Macaulay, Wisconsin's Legal Tradition, 24 Gargoyle 6 (1994).
• David Margolick, At the Bar: The Man Who Helped Liberate Legal History, Bringing It Out of the Ivory Tower Down to Earth, The New York Times, March 23 1990, at B10.
• Arthur McEvoy, Willard Hurst's Scholarship: Pragmatism and Morality, 1997 Wisconsin Law Review 1191 (1997).
• Samuel Mermin, Thoughts on the Legendary Willard Hurst, 1997 Wisconsin Law Review 1155 (1997).
• William G. Moore, , Profile: Emeritus Professor Willard Hurst, 16 The Gargoyle 3 (1986).
• Frank Munger, Law, Change and Litigation: A Critical Examination of An Empirical Research Tradition, 22 Law and Society Review 57 (Feb. 1988).
• Earl F. Murphy, The Jurisprudence of Legal History: Willard Hurst as a Legal Historian, 39 New York University Law Review 900 (November 1964).
• Earl Finbar Murphy, Mentoring Graduate Law Students in American Legal History: Some Work of Willard Hurst, 1980 Wisconsin Law Review 1105 (1980).
• William J. Novak, Law, Capitalism and the Liberal State: The Historical Sociology of James Willard Hurst, 18 Law and History Review 97 (Spring 2000).
• Robert M. O'Neil, Willard Hurst, 1980 Wisconsin Law Review 1093 (1980).
• W. Wesley Pue, Locating Hurst, 18 Law and History Review 187 (Spring 2000).
• Harry N. Scheiber, At the Borderland of Law and Economic History: The Contributions of Willard Hurst, 75 American Historical Review 744 (Feb. 1970).
• Harry N. Scheiber, Federalism and the Processes of Governance in Hurst's Legal History, 18 Law and History Review 205 (Spring 2000).
• Harry N. Scheiber, Public Economy and the American Legal System: Historical Perspectives, 1980 Wisconsin Law Review 1159 (1980).
• Israel Shenker, Historian Assesses 'Way Men Do Things', The New York Times, February 27 1972, at N34.
• John Skilton, Willard Hurst - Yes, I Knew Willard Hurst! 1997 Wisconsin Law Review 1147 (1997).
• John S. Skilton, Turning the Pages: Speech to Commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Wisconsin Law Review (1995).
• Laura L. Smail, J. Willard Hurst: An Interview Conducted by Laura L. Smail (University Archives Oral History Project, University of Wisconsin-Madison, (1981) (unpublished manuscript).
  • Background and education; Apprenticeship with Felix Frankfurter and Chief Justice Louis D. Brandeis; Invitation to come to Madison; Lloyd Garrison; Course in law and society; Research; Rockefeller grant; Deanship and accreditation issues in Law School; Relations with State Bar Association; Contrast between current students and students of fifty years ago.
• Aviam Soifer, In Retrospect: Willard Hurst, Consensus History, and The Growth of American Law, 20 Reviews in American History 124 (Mar. 1992).
• David Sugarman, Reassessing Hurst: A Transatlantic Perspective, 18 Law and History Review 215 (Spring 2000).
• Christopher Tomlins, "The Wisconsin Idea" and Legal Research: From the ASSA to Willard Hurst, held by the Institute of Legal Studies, University of Wisconsin Law School. (April 26, 2005) (video tape, Series 8, Box 1, Tape 1).
• Christopher Tomlins, Framing the Field of Law's Disciplinary Encounters: A Historical Narrative, 34 Law and Society Review 911 (2000).
• Mark Tushnet, Lumber and the Legal Process, 1972 Wisconsin Law Review 114 (1972).
• Lawrence Van Gelder, Willard Hurst, 86, Legal Scholar and Pioneer in History of Law, The New York Times, June 20 1997, at B8.
• Barbara Y. Welke, Willard Hurst and the Archipelago of American Legal Historiography, 18 Law and History Review 197 (Spring 2000).
• G. Edward White, The Origins of Modern American Legal History, University of Virginia Law School Public Law and Legal Theory Working Paper Series, Paper 118 (2009).
• BJ Ard & William J. Novak, Foreword: Willard Hurst’s Unpublished Manuscript on Law, Technology, and Regulation, 2022 WIS. L. REV. 443 (2022).

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