Hurst, James Willard (1910–97)

Abstract

J. Willard Hurst of the University of Wisconsin was the most influential scholar ever within the realm of US legal history. By emphasizing factors beyond legal doctrine and by altering the way people think about time, place, and change itself, Hurst enlivened and transformed an entire academic field. Doing legal history from the outside—from the perspective of sociological jurisprudence—led Hurst to turn his back on the ‘great man’ tradition and to reject the previously dominant focus on formal judicial opinions. He firmly opposed teleological accounts that tended to celebrate the gradual improvement of law over time. Instead, Hurst focused on economic matters—as shaped by the general culture—and on the ordinary processes of statutes, administrators, low-level cases, and the everyday work of lawyers. In particular, Hurst concentrated on tracking what he termed ‘the expansion of middle-class energy.’ Throughout his decades of scholarship, teaching, and mentoring, Hurst combined unremitting and careful attention to massive low-level details with sweeping descriptions of general patterns. Hurst not only redefined an entire academic field, but he also did a great deal to open the borders of legal history to other disciplines.