Welcome

Because this is a research workshop your primary task will be to complete a significant research paper on Kansas legal history. We will not meet as a class very often. What I plan is to have several long sessions at various research libraries to introduce you to the collections, a few class meetings to discuss common readings, and, at the end of the semester, several more class meetings to discuss your research. The libraries we will visit are: Spencer Library at KU, Kansas Collection; The Kansas Research Library at the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka; the Midwest Branch of the National Archives in Kansas City, Mo.. These library trips will require two hours or so. The best time to do these is in the afternoons. Could each of you send me your schedules so that I can find times for these and arrange them? As for the class meetings, I also thin it would be best if these were two hour sessions in the late afternoon, of possible. In the past I have done these at my house. I will provide wine and food for these. You will also be expected to visit the Brown v. Board Museum in Topeka and at least one local history museum.

Below you will find a list of readings that I want you all to read during the course. Copies will be on reserve in the law library. These readings will form the basis for a general class discussions.

I would like to schedule our first meeting for the week of January 22. Please email me your class schedules, if you have not already done so, so that I may find a time for us to meet next week.

Class Readings:

Books:

Craig Miner, A history of the Sunflower State, 1854-2000 (2005)

Virgil Dean, ed., Law & Lawyers in Kansas History (1992)

Robert Richmond, Requisite Learning and Good Moral Character (1982)

Michael Hoeflich, Federal Law on the Tall Grass Prairie: A sesquicentennial History of the Federal District of Kansas (2011)

Michael Hoeflich & Steven McAllister, A Legal History of Kansas (in manuscript)

Kip Sperry, Reading Early American Handwriting (2010)

Articles:

M.H. Hoeflich, “ Legal Fees in Nineteenth Century Kansas,” KULRev. (2000)

M.H. Hoeflich & R. Mead,” Law, Lawyers & Law Books in Early Kansas,” KULRev. (2002)

M.H. Hoeflich, The Lawyers of Old Lecompton, in Hoeflich et al. edd., Tall Grass Essays (2003)

M.H. Hoeflich, “Roman Law on the Tall Grass Prairie,” in Panta Rei: Studi in Honore Prof. Manlio Bellomo (2004)

M.H. Hoeflich, “Legal History and the History of Material Culture in the U.S.” Common-Place (2005)

M.H. Hoeflich,” A Legal & Political History of Territorial Kansas,” in

The Uniting States (2004)

M.H. Hoeflich, “Why the History of Kansas Law Has Not Been Written,” in

Kansas History (Winter 2004)

M.H. Hoeflich, “Aunt Kate & Uncle Jimmy: An Incident in the Early History of KU Law School, KULRev. (2005)

M.H.Hoeflich & Brian Moline, “Some Kansas Lawyer-Poets,” KULRev. (2007)

M.H. Hoeflich, “The Great Kansas Seed Swindle,” KULRev. (2007)

M.H.Hoeflich, “Serendipity in the Stacks, Fortuity in the Archives,”

Law Library Journal (2007)

M.H.Hoeflich, “The Old Sage of the Arkansaw: Polk Cline,” Kansas Bar Journal (March, 2008)