Our Digital Legal Research Lab is an interdisciplinary hub for the social scientific study of freedom making in the United States over the long nineteenth century. Our team explores legal mobilization among marginalized actors who leveraged the law to challenge enslavement, deportation, coercive confinement, coverture, and institutionalization. Building an interactive and relational database of petitions for freedom, our lab is committed to training undergraduates in critical legal inquiry, archival research methods, data collection and processing, and in transcription and encoding techniques that allow us to demonstrate patterns and strategies in legal mobilization and legal decision making. Vital to legal scholars and practitioners interested in concepts of justice, liberty, and due process, the database features thousands of freedom stories that are central to the American legal tradition.

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2024

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Maternal Chains: Black Women's Legal Battles for Freedom in Pre-Emancipation America, Roshawnna Brinkley

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"Huddled Masses:" The Immigration Act of 1917 in Habeas Corpus, Chikamso Chijioke

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Sexual Surveillance: Morality Policing of Greeks and Italians in the Early 20th Century, Isabella Ferrell

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To Have and To Hold: Habeas Corpus and the Mobilization of Female Petitioners, 1832–1924, Miranda Martinez

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Equal Protection of Life, Liberty, and Labor: Habeas Corpus & the 14th Amendment, 1901–1904, Madison Mendiola

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The Harding Brothers and Underage Enlistment in the Age of American Expansion, 1851–1857, Ryan Minton

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Legal Proxies and Advocates: Exploring Inter-case Relationships in 19th- and 20th-Century Habeas Corpus, Ethan Reiter

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Profiled Pickpockets: Seattle's Black Community & 1890s Habeas Mobilization, Zoë Williams

2023

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Habeas at Home and Heart: Progressive Era Cases of Spousal Confinement to Nebraska's Psychiatric Households, Isabelle Childs

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"The Best Interests of the Child:" Parental Claims in Nebraska Child Custody Cases, 1877–1924, Esme Krohn

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One Among Many: Charlotte Kolmitz,Assistant U.S. Attorney in Seattle, 1918 -1925, Anna Synya

2022

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Legal Strategies Used by Black Men During the Antebellum Period, A. D. Banse

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Habeas Corpus: Breaking Reservation Boundaries, Samantha Byrd

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Habeas Corpus as a Means for Economic Freedom in the Progressive Era, Janana Khattak

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A Home Shielded by Laws: Freedom Suits and Enslaved Mothers, Heidi Martin

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In the Waiting: The Role of the Slave Bastille in Antebellum D.C., Ellyzabeth Morales-Ledesma