Books in the Law Society & Politics in the Midwest series

In addition to having a reputation as an epicenter for middle American values, Indiana is a cultural crossroads that has produced a legal and constitutional heritage. This book traces this history by identifying the themes that mark the state's legal development and establish its broader context in the Midwest and nation.

Historians have long argued that the Great War eradicated German culture from American soil. This book examines the experiences of German-Americans living in Missouri during the First World War, evaluating the personal relationships at the local level that shaped their lives and the way that they were affected by national war effort guidelines.

Beginning in 1803, the Ohio legislature enacted what came to be known as the Black Laws. These laws instituted barriers against blacks entering the state and placed limits on black testimony against whites. This book tells the story of racial oppression in Ohio.

On July 2 and 3, 1917, race riots rocked the small industrial city of East St Louis, Illinois. This title takes the reader beyond that pivotal time in the city's history to explore black people's activism from the antebellum era to the eve of the post - World War II civil rights movement.

In the antebellum Midwest, Americans looked to the law, and specifically to the jury, to navigate the terrain of a rapidly changing society. Through an analysis of the composition of juries and an examination of their courtroom experiences, the author demonstrates how central the law was for people who lived in Abraham Lincoln's America.

A study of the odd disparity between the number of women on death row who are executed and the number of men. The Ohio system stands as typical of the nation and this work challenges the overriding notion of fairness in the application of and rationale for the death penalty.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, legislators in the Nebraska Territory grappled with the responsibility of forming a state government as well as with the larger issues of reconstructing the Union, protecting civil rights, and redefining federal-state relations.

For more than 200 years no institution has been more important to the development of the American democratic polity than the state legislature. This book relates the history of the Ohio General Assembly from its eighteenth-century origins in the Northwest Territory to its twenty-first-century incarnation as a full-time professional legislature.