INTERESTS:
As a scholar, I am most interested in the interplay of law and society in the American past. Much of my work has focused on social values or movements and the legal system. Currently, as I revise my book on Virginia murders, I am working on a book length study of the National Woman’s Party and its litigation campaign in the 1930s to make women’s service on juries a federal right under the 14th Amendment.
EDUCATION:
B.A., History, Florida Atlantic University, 1977, Faculty Scholars Program.
M.A., American History, Ohio State University, 1979.
Ph.D., American History, University of Virginia, 1987.
MAJOR PUBLICATIONS:
"Southerners and the Shaping of the 18th Amendment," Georgia Journal of Southern Legal History, 1 (Spring/Summer 1991), 81-107
"The Convoluted State: The Federal System, the Prohibition Movement, and the Liquor Tax, 1862-1920," Social History of Alcohol Review 25 (Spring 1992), 10-27
"The Killing of John R. Moffett and the Trial of J. T. Clark: Race, Prohibition, and Politics in Danville, 1887-1893," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 101 (1993), 375-404
"The Prohibitionists’ Lincolns," Illinois Historical Journal 86 (Summer 1993), 93-118
Administration and Prison Suasion: Law Enforcement in the American Temperance Movement, 1880-1920," Contemporary Drug Problems 21 (Fall 1994), 375-399
Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment, Temperance Reform, Legal Culture and the Polity, 1880-1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Studies in Legal History series, 1995)
FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS:
Honorable Men: Law and Custom in Four Notable Virginia Murder Trials, 1868-1937 Advance Contract received from University of North Carolina Press
Articles on Charles Minor Blackford and James B. Merwin in American National Biography
Comment: "Social Reform and Violence: The Case of the American Prohibitionists," Journal of Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics.
BOOK REVIEWS:
David Beito, Taxpayers in Revolt in The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 88 (Winter 1990), 110-111
Philip J. Schwarz, Twice Condemned Slaves and the Criminal Laws of Virginia, 1705-1865 in Western University Journal of Law 17 (Fall 1989), 243-247
John J. Rumbarger, Profits, Power and Prohibition: Alcohol Reform and the Industrializing of America, 1800-1930 in Social History of Alcohol Review 21-22 (Spring & Fall 1990), 46-49
Wilbur Miller, Revenuers and Moonshiners: Enforcing Federal Liquor Law in the Mountain South, 1865-1900 in Journal of Southern History 59 (February 1993), 149-150
W. Fitzhugh Brundage Lynching in the New South, Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930 in Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 102 (April 1994), 284-285
Randolph E. Bergstrom, Courting Danger: Injury and Law in New York City, 1870-1910 forthcoming in American Journal of Legal History
John C. Burnham, Bad Habits, Kenneth J. Meier, The Politics of Sin, Robert L. Rabin & Stephen D. Sugarman, Smoking Policy forthcoming in Journal of Policy History
Kenneth M. Murchison, Federal Criminal Law Doctrines: the Forgotten Influence of National Prohibition forthcoming in Law and History Review
PRESENTATIONS:
"Leaking at the Seams: Prohibition and the Federal System" at the session "Federalism and Regulation: the Late Nineteenth Century," Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Washington, District of Columbia, 1987
"Southern States' Liquor Policies and the Federal Tax System, 1880-1920" at the session "Moonshiners, Prohibitionists, and Outlaws: Law and Resistance in the New South," Southern Historical Association Annual Meeting, Norfolk, Virginia, 1988
"The State Goes into Liquor Selling, the South Carolina Dispensary, 1896-1916" at the session "Reform and the Politics of Race in the Post-Reconstruction South, 1879-1920," American Historical Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, Illinois, 1991
"The Convoluted State: The Federal System, the Prohibition Movement, and the Liquor Tax, 1865-1920" at the session "The State, Liquor, and Prohibition, 1865-1933," Alcohol and Temperance History Group Meeting, Chicago, Illinois, 1991
"The Killing of the Rev. Moffett: The Politics of Power in Danville" at the Session "Crime and Community in Danville, Virginia, 1883-1930," Southern Historical Association Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia, 1992
"Lincoln in the Prohibitionists’ Mind" at the Session "Symbolic Dimensions of Temperance Reform," International Congress on the Social History of Alcohol, London, Ontario, 1993
lung still lived." Apparently
the age of Ch'ien-lung was quite distant. Jason, still not having
the slightest idea when that was, merely nodded and tried to look impressed.
"It was terribly important that I begin well. Though my friends
bought every preparation book and model answer pamphlet they could find,
I hardly ever looked at them. If those model answers could really
help, everyone would pass. I knew there was no easy way. I
worked as hard as I possibly could. One summer my family even used
the proceeds from a good harvest to have me study with a retired official,
a Chin-shir from the fourth year of Tao Kuang! Everything was going
wonderfully. Finally, it was time to start the district exams.
I knew I was ready. My only fear was that my grandfather might die
before the tests began. I would hardly be allowed to take the exam
if I were in mourning."
What I remember most was sitting there in the huge examination
hall, not only with my friends and classmates, but with a host of other
locals whose faces I hardly remembered. The older men had shaved
their beards, obviously trying to look young as possible. It was said that
the youngest were given the easiest questions. Those fellows, to
a man, had already flunked before, and hardly wanted more difficult questions."
His voice was getting more enthusiastic as he told his tale.
Pausing, Wu seemed to look within himself. Gradually his brows
came together, and his normally expressive features seemed to pucker, as
if he tasted a sour, repressed memory.
"Did you know, they say that the bandit Heavenly King of the Taiping
Long Hairs took the exams five times? And flunked them every time!
No wonder he started a revolution!" Wu's mood seemed to lighten.
The black eyes flashed in amusement as he commented on the leader of the
movement which Jason vaguely knew to be tearing the country apart in the
regions to the north of Canton.
"I remember sitting there with my inkstone, a gift from my Yeh-yeh,
grandfather, and the brushes, and lunch. I even had a bowl to relieve
myself. My Mei-mei, little sister, had giggled when she saw it, but
one could hardly take the time to relieve oneself. We sat there in incredible
tension. Those who accompanied us left. Finally the first questions
were carried around the room on a placard. What I remember most is
not the question, for it was an easy one from the Analects, but the suppressed
sighs of relief or pain as my comrades recognized the question, or not.
I, though, could not have been more confident. I started immediately,
stalling only for a moment, to remind myself to use my best calligraphy.
For, in my enthusiasm for the answer, I might forget the necessity of making
my characters as perfect as possible. Almost an hour later, I recall looking
up at the face of my cousin, his sheet obviously blank. I hurt a
moment for him; still, it was marvelous to feel so prepared myself."
"The rest of the afternoon was made tense only by
the incessant humming of one of my neighbors. We were supposed to
compose a poem as part of the examination; no doubt his constant mumbling
helped him form the work. It is well known that one can be dismissed
for such obnoxious habits, but no one from the Yamen said a thing. Still,
my work proceeded. When it grew dark, and our papers were stamped,
I had to wait a long time for a group of fifty to gather, so we would be
allowed to leave. As we stood there, one sensed both excitement and
exhaustion. Among the oldest, especially those newly shaven, there
was more tension; an
