Podcast appearances and mentions of Laura F Edwards

What can dresses, bedlinens, waistcoats, pantaloons, shoes, and kerchiefs tell us about the legal status of the least powerful members of American society? In the hands of eminent historian Laura F. Edwards, these textiles tell a revealing story of ordinary people and how they made use of their material goods' economic and legal value in the period between the Revolution and the Civil War. Only the Clothes on Her Back: Clothing and the Hidden History of Power in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Oxford University Press, 2022) by Dr. Laura F. Edwards uncovers practices, commonly known then, but now long forgotten, which made textiles—clothing, cloth, bedding, and accessories, such as shoes and hats—a unique form of property that people without rights could own and exchange. The value of textiles depended on law, and it was law that turned these goods into a secure form of property for marginalized people, who not only used these textiles as currency, credit, and capital, but also as entree into the new republic's economy and governing institutions. Dr. Edwards grounds the laws relating to textiles in engaging stories from the lives of everyday Americans. Wives wove linen and kept the proceeds, enslaved people traded coats and shoes, and poor people invested in fabrics, which they carefully preserved in trunks. Dr. Edwards shows that these stories are about far more than cloth and clothing; they reshape our understanding of law and the economy in America. Based on painstaking archival research from fifteen states, Only the Clothes on Her Back reconstructs this hidden history of power, tracing it from the governing order of the early republic in which textiles' legal principles flourished to the textiles' legal downfall in the mid-nineteenth century when they were crowded out by the rising power of rights. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

What can dresses, bedlinens, waistcoats, pantaloons, shoes, and kerchiefs tell us about the legal status of the least powerful members of American society? In the hands of eminent historian Laura F. Edwards, these textiles tell a revealing story of ordinary people and how they made use of their material goods' economic and legal value in the period between the Revolution and the Civil War. Only the Clothes on Her Back: Clothing and the Hidden History of Power in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Oxford University Press, 2022) by Dr. Laura F. Edwards uncovers practices, commonly known then, but now long forgotten, which made textiles—clothing, cloth, bedding, and accessories, such as shoes and hats—a unique form of property that people without rights could own and exchange. The value of textiles depended on law, and it was law that turned these goods into a secure form of property for marginalized people, who not only used these textiles as currency, credit, and capital, but also as entree into the new republic's economy and governing institutions. Dr. Edwards grounds the laws relating to textiles in engaging stories from the lives of everyday Americans. Wives wove linen and kept the proceeds, enslaved people traded coats and shoes, and poor people invested in fabrics, which they carefully preserved in trunks. Dr. Edwards shows that these stories are about far more than cloth and clothing; they reshape our understanding of law and the economy in America. Based on painstaking archival research from fifteen states, Only the Clothes on Her Back reconstructs this hidden history of power, tracing it from the governing order of the early republic in which textiles' legal principles flourished to the textiles' legal downfall in the mid-nineteenth century when they were crowded out by the rising power of rights. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

What can dresses, bedlinens, waistcoats, pantaloons, shoes, and kerchiefs tell us about the legal status of the least powerful members of American society? In the hands of eminent historian Laura F. Edwards, these textiles tell a revealing story of ordinary people and how they made use of their material goods' economic and legal value in the period between the Revolution and the Civil War. Only the Clothes on Her Back: Clothing and the Hidden History of Power in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Oxford University Press, 2022) by Dr. Laura F. Edwards uncovers practices, commonly known then, but now long forgotten, which made textiles—clothing, cloth, bedding, and accessories, such as shoes and hats—a unique form of property that people without rights could own and exchange. The value of textiles depended on law, and it was law that turned these goods into a secure form of property for marginalized people, who not only used these textiles as currency, credit, and capital, but also as entree into the new republic's economy and governing institutions. Dr. Edwards grounds the laws relating to textiles in engaging stories from the lives of everyday Americans. Wives wove linen and kept the proceeds, enslaved people traded coats and shoes, and poor people invested in fabrics, which they carefully preserved in trunks. Dr. Edwards shows that these stories are about far more than cloth and clothing; they reshape our understanding of law and the economy in America. Based on painstaking archival research from fifteen states, Only the Clothes on Her Back reconstructs this hidden history of power, tracing it from the governing order of the early republic in which textiles' legal principles flourished to the textiles' legal downfall in the mid-nineteenth century when they were crowded out by the rising power of rights. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

What can dresses, bedlinens, waistcoats, pantaloons, shoes, and kerchiefs tell us about the legal status of the least powerful members of American society? In the hands of eminent historian Laura F. Edwards, these textiles tell a revealing story of ordinary people and how they made use of their material goods' economic and legal value in the period between the Revolution and the Civil War. Only the Clothes on Her Back: Clothing and the Hidden History of Power in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Oxford University Press, 2022) by Dr. Laura F. Edwards uncovers practices, commonly known then, but now long forgotten, which made textiles—clothing, cloth, bedding, and accessories, such as shoes and hats—a unique form of property that people without rights could own and exchange. The value of textiles depended on law, and it was law that turned these goods into a secure form of property for marginalized people, who not only used these textiles as currency, credit, and capital, but also as entree into the new republic's economy and governing institutions. Dr. Edwards grounds the laws relating to textiles in engaging stories from the lives of everyday Americans. Wives wove linen and kept the proceeds, enslaved people traded coats and shoes, and poor people invested in fabrics, which they carefully preserved in trunks. Dr. Edwards shows that these stories are about far more than cloth and clothing; they reshape our understanding of law and the economy in America. Based on painstaking archival research from fifteen states, Only the Clothes on Her Back reconstructs this hidden history of power, tracing it from the governing order of the early republic in which textiles' legal principles flourished to the textiles' legal downfall in the mid-nineteenth century when they were crowded out by the rising power of rights. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What can dresses, bedlinens, waistcoats, pantaloons, shoes, and kerchiefs tell us about the legal status of the least powerful members of American society? In the hands of eminent historian Laura F. Edwards, these textiles tell a revealing story of ordinary people and how they made use of their material goods' economic and legal value in the period between the Revolution and the Civil War. Only the Clothes on Her Back: Clothing and the Hidden History of Power in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Oxford University Press, 2022) by Dr. Laura F. Edwards uncovers practices, commonly known then, but now long forgotten, which made textiles—clothing, cloth, bedding, and accessories, such as shoes and hats—a unique form of property that people without rights could own and exchange. The value of textiles depended on law, and it was law that turned these goods into a secure form of property for marginalized people, who not only used these textiles as currency, credit, and capital, but also as entree into the new republic's economy and governing institutions. Dr. Edwards grounds the laws relating to textiles in engaging stories from the lives of everyday Americans. Wives wove linen and kept the proceeds, enslaved people traded coats and shoes, and poor people invested in fabrics, which they carefully preserved in trunks. Dr. Edwards shows that these stories are about far more than cloth and clothing; they reshape our understanding of law and the economy in America. Based on painstaking archival research from fifteen states, Only the Clothes on Her Back reconstructs this hidden history of power, tracing it from the governing order of the early republic in which textiles' legal principles flourished to the textiles' legal downfall in the mid-nineteenth century when they were crowded out by the rising power of rights. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

What can dresses, bedlinens, waistcoats, pantaloons, shoes, and kerchiefs tell us about the legal status of the least powerful members of American society? In the hands of eminent historian Laura F. Edwards, these textiles tell a revealing story of ordinary people and how they made use of their material goods' economic and legal value in the period between the Revolution and the Civil War. Only the Clothes on Her Back: Clothing and the Hidden History of Power in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Oxford University Press, 2022) by Dr. Laura F. Edwards uncovers practices, commonly known then, but now long forgotten, which made textiles—clothing, cloth, bedding, and accessories, such as shoes and hats—a unique form of property that people without rights could own and exchange. The value of textiles depended on law, and it was law that turned these goods into a secure form of property for marginalized people, who not only used these textiles as currency, credit, and capital, but also as entree into the new republic's economy and governing institutions. Dr. Edwards grounds the laws relating to textiles in engaging stories from the lives of everyday Americans. Wives wove linen and kept the proceeds, enslaved people traded coats and shoes, and poor people invested in fabrics, which they carefully preserved in trunks. Dr. Edwards shows that these stories are about far more than cloth and clothing; they reshape our understanding of law and the economy in America. Based on painstaking archival research from fifteen states, Only the Clothes on Her Back reconstructs this hidden history of power, tracing it from the governing order of the early republic in which textiles' legal principles flourished to the textiles' legal downfall in the mid-nineteenth century when they were crowded out by the rising power of rights. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What can dresses, bedlinens, waistcoats, pantaloons, shoes, and kerchiefs tell us about the legal status of the least powerful members of American society? In the hands of eminent historian Laura F. Edwards, these textiles tell a revealing story of ordinary people and how they made use of their material goods' economic and legal value in the period between the Revolution and the Civil War. Only the Clothes on Her Back: Clothing and the Hidden History of Power in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Oxford University Press, 2022) by Dr. Laura F. Edwards uncovers practices, commonly known then, but now long forgotten, which made textiles—clothing, cloth, bedding, and accessories, such as shoes and hats—a unique form of property that people without rights could own and exchange. The value of textiles depended on law, and it was law that turned these goods into a secure form of property for marginalized people, who not only used these textiles as currency, credit, and capital, but also as entree into the new republic's economy and governing institutions. Dr. Edwards grounds the laws relating to textiles in engaging stories from the lives of everyday Americans. Wives wove linen and kept the proceeds, enslaved people traded coats and shoes, and poor people invested in fabrics, which they carefully preserved in trunks. Dr. Edwards shows that these stories are about far more than cloth and clothing; they reshape our understanding of law and the economy in America. Based on painstaking archival research from fifteen states, Only the Clothes on Her Back reconstructs this hidden history of power, tracing it from the governing order of the early republic in which textiles' legal principles flourished to the textiles' legal downfall in the mid-nineteenth century when they were crowded out by the rising power of rights. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

Do individuals have the right to “keep and bear” arms? Do “the people” have any collective rights to public safety? Now that the United States Supreme Court requires each side to argue based on the “history” and “tradition” of 1791 and 1868, what do scholars tell us about legal practices and public understanding in those times? Dr. Laura F. Edwards argues that Americans in the South transformed their understanding of inequality during the half century following the Revolutionary War. Drawing on extensive archival research in North and South Caroline, she outlines the changes in the legal system, highlighting the importance of localized legal practices that favored maintaining the "peace”: a concept intended to protect the social order and its patriarchal hierarchies. Ordinary people, rather than legal professionals and political leaders, were central to its workings. People without rights – even those enslaved – “had influence within the system because of their positions of subordination, not in spite of them.” Edwards documents how, by the 1830s, state leaders secured support for a more centralized system that excluded people who were not specifically granted individual rights, including women, African Americans, and the poor. The People and Their Peace: Legal Culture and the Transformation of Inequality in the Post-Revolutionary South (UNC Press, 2009) concludes that the emphasis on rights affirmed and restructured existing patriarchal inequalities, giving them new life within state law with implications that affected all Americans. This award-winning 2009 book is now central to a new Supreme Court case (United States v. Rahimi) dealing with domestic violence and guns – and has been cited in the legal briefs. Dr. Laura F. Edwards is the Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty at Princeton University and the award-winning author of four books. Most recently, she wrote Only the Clothes on Her Back: Textiles, Law, and Commerce in the Nineteenth-Century United States published by Oxford in 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Do individuals have the right to “keep and bear” arms? Do “the people” have any collective rights to public safety? Now that the United States Supreme Court requires each side to argue based on the “history” and “tradition” of 1791 and 1868, what do scholars tell us about legal practices and public understanding in those times? Dr. Laura F. Edwards argues that Americans in the South transformed their understanding of inequality during the half century following the Revolutionary War. Drawing on extensive archival research in North and South Caroline, she outlines the changes in the legal system, highlighting the importance of localized legal practices that favored maintaining the "peace”: a concept intended to protect the social order and its patriarchal hierarchies. Ordinary people, rather than legal professionals and political leaders, were central to its workings. People without rights – even those enslaved – “had influence within the system because of their positions of subordination, not in spite of them.” Edwards documents how, by the 1830s, state leaders secured support for a more centralized system that excluded people who were not specifically granted individual rights, including women, African Americans, and the poor. The People and Their Peace: Legal Culture and the Transformation of Inequality in the Post-Revolutionary South (UNC Press, 2009) concludes that the emphasis on rights affirmed and restructured existing patriarchal inequalities, giving them new life within state law with implications that affected all Americans. This award-winning 2009 book is now central to a new Supreme Court case (United States v. Rahimi) dealing with domestic violence and guns – and has been cited in the legal briefs. Dr. Laura F. Edwards is the Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty at Princeton University and the award-winning author of four books. Most recently, she wrote Only the Clothes on Her Back: Textiles, Law, and Commerce in the Nineteenth-Century United States published by Oxford in 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Do individuals have the right to “keep and bear” arms? Do “the people” have any collective rights to public safety? Now that the United States Supreme Court requires each side to argue based on the “history” and “tradition” of 1791 and 1868, what do scholars tell us about legal practices and public understanding in those times? Dr. Laura F. Edwards argues that Americans in the South transformed their understanding of inequality during the half century following the Revolutionary War. Drawing on extensive archival research in North and South Caroline, she outlines the changes in the legal system, highlighting the importance of localized legal practices that favored maintaining the "peace”: a concept intended to protect the social order and its patriarchal hierarchies. Ordinary people, rather than legal professionals and political leaders, were central to its workings. People without rights – even those enslaved – “had influence within the system because of their positions of subordination, not in spite of them.” Edwards documents how, by the 1830s, state leaders secured support for a more centralized system that excluded people who were not specifically granted individual rights, including women, African Americans, and the poor. The People and Their Peace: Legal Culture and the Transformation of Inequality in the Post-Revolutionary South (UNC Press, 2009) concludes that the emphasis on rights affirmed and restructured existing patriarchal inequalities, giving them new life within state law with implications that affected all Americans. This award-winning 2009 book is now central to a new Supreme Court case (United States v. Rahimi) dealing with domestic violence and guns – and has been cited in the legal briefs. Dr. Laura F. Edwards is the Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty at Princeton University and the award-winning author of four books. Most recently, she wrote Only the Clothes on Her Back: Textiles, Law, and Commerce in the Nineteenth-Century United States published by Oxford in 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Do individuals have the right to “keep and bear” arms? Do “the people” have any collective rights to public safety? Now that the United States Supreme Court requires each side to argue based on the “history” and “tradition” of 1791 and 1868, what do scholars tell us about legal practices and public understanding in those times? Dr. Laura F. Edwards argues that Americans in the South transformed their understanding of inequality during the half century following the Revolutionary War. Drawing on extensive archival research in North and South Caroline, she outlines the changes in the legal system, highlighting the importance of localized legal practices that favored maintaining the "peace”: a concept intended to protect the social order and its patriarchal hierarchies. Ordinary people, rather than legal professionals and political leaders, were central to its workings. People without rights – even those enslaved – “had influence within the system because of their positions of subordination, not in spite of them.” Edwards documents how, by the 1830s, state leaders secured support for a more centralized system that excluded people who were not specifically granted individual rights, including women, African Americans, and the poor. The People and Their Peace: Legal Culture and the Transformation of Inequality in the Post-Revolutionary South (UNC Press, 2009) concludes that the emphasis on rights affirmed and restructured existing patriarchal inequalities, giving them new life within state law with implications that affected all Americans. This award-winning 2009 book is now central to a new Supreme Court case (United States v. Rahimi) dealing with domestic violence and guns – and has been cited in the legal briefs. Dr. Laura F. Edwards is the Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty at Princeton University and the award-winning author of four books. Most recently, she wrote Only the Clothes on Her Back: Textiles, Law, and Commerce in the Nineteenth-Century United States published by Oxford in 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Do individuals have the right to “keep and bear” arms? Do “the people” have any collective rights to public safety? Now that the United States Supreme Court requires each side to argue based on the “history” and “tradition” of 1791 and 1868, what do scholars tell us about legal practices and public understanding in those times? Dr. Laura F. Edwards argues that Americans in the South transformed their understanding of inequality during the half century following the Revolutionary War. Drawing on extensive archival research in North and South Caroline, she outlines the changes in the legal system, highlighting the importance of localized legal practices that favored maintaining the "peace”: a concept intended to protect the social order and its patriarchal hierarchies. Ordinary people, rather than legal professionals and political leaders, were central to its workings. People without rights – even those enslaved – “had influence within the system because of their positions of subordination, not in spite of them.” Edwards documents how, by the 1830s, state leaders secured support for a more centralized system that excluded people who were not specifically granted individual rights, including women, African Americans, and the poor. The People and Their Peace: Legal Culture and the Transformation of Inequality in the Post-Revolutionary South (UNC Press, 2009) concludes that the emphasis on rights affirmed and restructured existing patriarchal inequalities, giving them new life within state law with implications that affected all Americans. This award-winning 2009 book is now central to a new Supreme Court case (United States v. Rahimi) dealing with domestic violence and guns – and has been cited in the legal briefs. Dr. Laura F. Edwards is the Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty at Princeton University and the award-winning author of four books. Most recently, she wrote Only the Clothes on Her Back: Textiles, Law, and Commerce in the Nineteenth-Century United States published by Oxford in 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Do individuals have the right to “keep and bear” arms? Do “the people” have any collective rights to public safety? Now that the United States Supreme Court requires each side to argue based on the “history” and “tradition” of 1791 and 1868, what do scholars tell us about legal practices and public understanding in those times? Dr. Laura F. Edwards argues that Americans in the South transformed their understanding of inequality during the half century following the Revolutionary War. Drawing on extensive archival research in North and South Caroline, she outlines the changes in the legal system, highlighting the importance of localized legal practices that favored maintaining the "peace”: a concept intended to protect the social order and its patriarchal hierarchies. Ordinary people, rather than legal professionals and political leaders, were central to its workings. People without rights – even those enslaved – “had influence within the system because of their positions of subordination, not in spite of them.” Edwards documents how, by the 1830s, state leaders secured support for a more centralized system that excluded people who were not specifically granted individual rights, including women, African Americans, and the poor. The People and Their Peace: Legal Culture and the Transformation of Inequality in the Post-Revolutionary South (UNC Press, 2009) concludes that the emphasis on rights affirmed and restructured existing patriarchal inequalities, giving them new life within state law with implications that affected all Americans. This award-winning 2009 book is now central to a new Supreme Court case (United States v. Rahimi) dealing with domestic violence and guns – and has been cited in the legal briefs. Dr. Laura F. Edwards is the Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty at Princeton University and the award-winning author of four books. Most recently, she wrote Only the Clothes on Her Back: Textiles, Law, and Commerce in the Nineteenth-Century United States published by Oxford in 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

Do individuals have the right to “keep and bear” arms? Do “the people” have any collective rights to public safety? Now that the United States Supreme Court requires each side to argue based on the “history” and “tradition” of 1791 and 1868, what do scholars tell us about legal practices and public understanding in those times? Dr. Laura F. Edwards argues that Americans in the South transformed their understanding of inequality during the half century following the Revolutionary War. Drawing on extensive archival research in North and South Caroline, she outlines the changes in the legal system, highlighting the importance of localized legal practices that favored maintaining the "peace”: a concept intended to protect the social order and its patriarchal hierarchies. Ordinary people, rather than legal professionals and political leaders, were central to its workings. People without rights – even those enslaved – “had influence within the system because of their positions of subordination, not in spite of them.” Edwards documents how, by the 1830s, state leaders secured support for a more centralized system that excluded people who were not specifically granted individual rights, including women, African Americans, and the poor. The People and Their Peace: Legal Culture and the Transformation of Inequality in the Post-Revolutionary South (UNC Press, 2009) concludes that the emphasis on rights affirmed and restructured existing patriarchal inequalities, giving them new life within state law with implications that affected all Americans. This award-winning 2009 book is now central to a new Supreme Court case (United States v. Rahimi) dealing with domestic violence and guns – and has been cited in the legal briefs. Dr. Laura F. Edwards is the Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty at Princeton University and the award-winning author of four books. Most recently, she wrote Only the Clothes on Her Back: Textiles, Law, and Commerce in the Nineteenth-Century United States published by Oxford in 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do individuals have the right to “keep and bear” arms? Do “the people” have any collective rights to public safety? Now that the United States Supreme Court requires each side to argue based on the “history” and “tradition” of 1791 and 1868, what do scholars tell us about legal practices and public understanding in those times? Dr. Laura F. Edwards argues that Americans in the South transformed their understanding of inequality during the half century following the Revolutionary War. Drawing on extensive archival research in North and South Caroline, she outlines the changes in the legal system, highlighting the importance of localized legal practices that favored maintaining the "peace”: a concept intended to protect the social order and its patriarchal hierarchies. Ordinary people, rather than legal professionals and political leaders, were central to its workings. People without rights – even those enslaved – “had influence within the system because of their positions of subordination, not in spite of them.” Edwards documents how, by the 1830s, state leaders secured support for a more centralized system that excluded people who were not specifically granted individual rights, including women, African Americans, and the poor. The People and Their Peace: Legal Culture and the Transformation of Inequality in the Post-Revolutionary South (UNC Press, 2009) concludes that the emphasis on rights affirmed and restructured existing patriarchal inequalities, giving them new life within state law with implications that affected all Americans. This award-winning 2009 book is now central to a new Supreme Court case (United States v. Rahimi) dealing with domestic violence and guns – and has been cited in the legal briefs. Dr. Laura F. Edwards is the Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty at Princeton University and the award-winning author of four books. Most recently, she wrote Only the Clothes on Her Back: Textiles, Law, and Commerce in the Nineteenth-Century United States published by Oxford in 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do individuals have the right to “keep and bear” arms? Do “the people” have any collective rights to public safety? Now that the United States Supreme Court requires each side to argue based on the “history” and “tradition” of 1791 and 1868, what do scholars tell us about legal practices and public understanding in those times? Dr. Laura F. Edwards argues that Americans in the South transformed their understanding of inequality during the half century following the Revolutionary War. Drawing on extensive archival research in North and South Caroline, she outlines the changes in the legal system, highlighting the importance of localized legal practices that favored maintaining the "peace”: a concept intended to protect the social order and its patriarchal hierarchies. Ordinary people, rather than legal professionals and political leaders, were central to its workings. People without rights – even those enslaved – “had influence within the system because of their positions of subordination, not in spite of them.” Edwards documents how, by the 1830s, state leaders secured support for a more centralized system that excluded people who were not specifically granted individual rights, including women, African Americans, and the poor. The People and Their Peace: Legal Culture and the Transformation of Inequality in the Post-Revolutionary South (UNC Press, 2009) concludes that the emphasis on rights affirmed and restructured existing patriarchal inequalities, giving them new life within state law with implications that affected all Americans. This award-winning 2009 book is now central to a new Supreme Court case (United States v. Rahimi) dealing with domestic violence and guns – and has been cited in the legal briefs. Dr. Laura F. Edwards is the Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty at Princeton University and the award-winning author of four books. Most recently, she wrote Only the Clothes on Her Back: Textiles, Law, and Commerce in the Nineteenth-Century United States published by Oxford in 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-south

Do individuals have the right to “keep and bear” arms? Do “the people” have any collective rights to public safety? Now that the United States Supreme Court requires each side to argue based on the “history” and “tradition” of 1791 and 1868, what do scholars tell us about legal practices and public understanding in those times? Dr. Laura F. Edwards argues that Americans in the South transformed their understanding of inequality during the half century following the Revolutionary War. Drawing on extensive archival research in North and South Caroline, she outlines the changes in the legal system, highlighting the importance of localized legal practices that favored maintaining the "peace”: a concept intended to protect the social order and its patriarchal hierarchies. Ordinary people, rather than legal professionals and political leaders, were central to its workings. People without rights – even those enslaved – “had influence within the system because of their positions of subordination, not in spite of them.” Edwards documents how, by the 1830s, state leaders secured support for a more centralized system that excluded people who were not specifically granted individual rights, including women, African Americans, and the poor. The People and Their Peace: Legal Culture and the Transformation of Inequality in the Post-Revolutionary South (UNC Press, 2009) concludes that the emphasis on rights affirmed and restructured existing patriarchal inequalities, giving them new life within state law with implications that affected all Americans. This award-winning 2009 book is now central to a new Supreme Court case (United States v. Rahimi) dealing with domestic violence and guns – and has been cited in the legal briefs. Dr. Laura F. Edwards is the Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty at Princeton University and the award-winning author of four books. Most recently, she wrote Only the Clothes on Her Back: Textiles, Law, and Commerce in the Nineteenth-Century United States published by Oxford in 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Legal historian Laura F Edwards discusses her new book on clothing and textiles in 19th-century America, Only the Clothes on Her Back. Speaking to Elinor Evans, she reveals the meaning and care that went into garments, and how clothes and textiles could lend subversive power to marginalised people.(Ad) Laura F Edwards is the author of Only the Clothes on Her Back: Clothing and the Hidden History of Power in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Oxford University Press, 2022). Buy it now from Amazon:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Only-Clothes-Her-Back-Nineteenth-Century/dp/0197568572/?tag=bbchistory045-21&ascsubtag=historyextra-social-histboty Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Laura F. Edwards (NHC Fellow, 2007–08), Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty, Princeton University Laura F. Edwards's compelling book considers the sweeping transformation of American law produced in the wake of the Civil War. Through her analysis of constitutional amendments, Supreme Court decisions, and legal claims espoused by everyone from national politicians to everyday citizens, Edwards demonstrates how the notion of rights became so integral in post-Civil War America, especially in the lives of African Americans, women, and organized laborers. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/1AP81lTCJ0U https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/virtual-book-club-a-legal-history-of-the-civil-war-and-reconstruction/

The striped velvet pantaloons of James, an enslaved man in the South Carolina upcountry, might not seem like an important legal artifact, but they are. Laura F. Edwards discusses how the legalities of textiles recast our understanding of Americans’ relationship to law and the economy in the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War.

In this podcast I talk with Laura F. Edwards, Peabody Family Professor of History at Duke University about her book, A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction: A Nation of Rights (Cambridge University Press 2015). Per the book's introduction, “[a]lthough hundreds of thousands of people died fighting in the Civil War, perhaps the war's biggest casualty was the nation's legal order. A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction explores the implications of this major change by bringing legal history into dialogue with the scholarship of other historical fields. Federal policy on slavery and race, particularly the three Reconstruction Amendments, are the best-known legal innovations of the era. Change, however, permeated all levels of the legal system, altering American's relationship to the law and allowing them to move popular conceptions of justice into the ambit of government policy. The results linked Americans to the nation through individual rights, which were extended to more people and, as a result of new claims, were reimagined to cover a wider array of issues. But rights had limits in what they could accomplish, particularly when it came to the collective goals that so many ordinary Americans advocated. Ultimately, Laura F. Edwards argues, this new nation of rights offered up promises that would prove difficult to sustain.” Some of the topics we cover are: –The way, in the lead up to the Civil War, all arguments came back to the Constitution. –How wartime policies in both the Confederacy and the states that remained in the Union fundamentally remade the –legal authority of the nation. –Why the Confederacy's legal order was at odds with its stated governing principles. –Popular conceptions of Reconstruction-era legal change.

In this podcast I talk with Laura F. Edwards, Peabody Family Professor of History at Duke University about her book, A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction: A Nation of Rights (Cambridge University Press 2015). Per the book’s introduction, “[a]lthough hundreds of thousands of people died fighting in the Civil War, perhaps the war’s biggest casualty was the nation’s legal order. A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction explores the implications of this major change by bringing legal history into dialogue with the scholarship of other historical fields. Federal policy on slavery and race, particularly the three Reconstruction Amendments, are the best-known legal innovations of the era. Change, however, permeated all levels of the legal system, altering American’s relationship to the law and allowing them to move popular conceptions of justice into the ambit of government policy. The results linked Americans to the nation through individual rights, which were extended to more people and, as a result of new claims, were reimagined to cover a wider array of issues. But rights had limits in what they could accomplish, particularly when it came to the collective goals that so many ordinary Americans advocated. Ultimately, Laura F. Edwards argues, this new nation of rights offered up promises that would prove difficult to sustain.” Some of the topics we cover are: –The way, in the lead up to the Civil War, all arguments came back to the Constitution. –How wartime policies in both the Confederacy and the states that remained in the Union fundamentally remade the –legal authority of the nation. –Why the Confederacy’s legal order was at odds with its stated governing principles. –Popular conceptions of Reconstruction-era legal change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this podcast I talk with Laura F. Edwards, Peabody Family Professor of History at Duke University about her book, A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction: A Nation of Rights (Cambridge University Press 2015). Per the book's introduction, “[a]lthough hundreds of thousands of people died fighting in the Civil War, perhaps the war's biggest casualty was the nation's legal order. A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction explores the implications of this major change by bringing legal history into dialogue with the scholarship of other historical fields. Federal policy on slavery and race, particularly the three Reconstruction Amendments, are the best-known legal innovations of the era. Change, however, permeated all levels of the legal system, altering American's relationship to the law and allowing them to move popular conceptions of justice into the ambit of government policy. The results linked Americans to the nation through individual rights, which were extended to more people and, as a result of new claims, were reimagined to cover a wider array of issues. But rights had limits in what they could accomplish, particularly when it came to the collective goals that so many ordinary Americans advocated. Ultimately, Laura F. Edwards argues, this new nation of rights offered up promises that would prove difficult to sustain.” Some of the topics we cover are: –The way, in the lead up to the Civil War, all arguments came back to the Constitution. –How wartime policies in both the Confederacy and the states that remained in the Union fundamentally remade the –legal authority of the nation. –Why the Confederacy's legal order was at odds with its stated governing principles. –Popular conceptions of Reconstruction-era legal change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

In this podcast I talk with Laura F. Edwards, Peabody Family Professor of History at Duke University about her book, A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction: A Nation of Rights (Cambridge University Press 2015). Per the book’s introduction, “[a]lthough hundreds of thousands of people died fighting in the Civil War, perhaps the war’s biggest casualty was the nation’s legal order. A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction explores the implications of this major change by bringing legal history into dialogue with the scholarship of other historical fields. Federal policy on slavery and race, particularly the three Reconstruction Amendments, are the best-known legal innovations of the era. Change, however, permeated all levels of the legal system, altering American’s relationship to the law and allowing them to move popular conceptions of justice into the ambit of government policy. The results linked Americans to the nation through individual rights, which were extended to more people and, as a result of new claims, were reimagined to cover a wider array of issues. But rights had limits in what they could accomplish, particularly when it came to the collective goals that so many ordinary Americans advocated. Ultimately, Laura F. Edwards argues, this new nation of rights offered up promises that would prove difficult to sustain.” Some of the topics we cover are: –The way, in the lead up to the Civil War, all arguments came back to the Constitution. –How wartime policies in both the Confederacy and the states that remained in the Union fundamentally remade the –legal authority of the nation. –Why the Confederacy’s legal order was at odds with its stated governing principles. –Popular conceptions of Reconstruction-era legal change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this podcast I talk with Laura F. Edwards, Peabody Family Professor of History at Duke University about her book, A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction: A Nation of Rights (Cambridge University Press 2015). Per the book’s introduction, “[a]lthough hundreds of thousands of people died fighting in the Civil War, perhaps the war’s biggest casualty was the nation’s legal order. A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction explores the implications of this major change by bringing legal history into dialogue with the scholarship of other historical fields. Federal policy on slavery and race, particularly the three Reconstruction Amendments, are the best-known legal innovations of the era. Change, however, permeated all levels of the legal system, altering American’s relationship to the law and allowing them to move popular conceptions of justice into the ambit of government policy. The results linked Americans to the nation through individual rights, which were extended to more people and, as a result of new claims, were reimagined to cover a wider array of issues. But rights had limits in what they could accomplish, particularly when it came to the collective goals that so many ordinary Americans advocated. Ultimately, Laura F. Edwards argues, this new nation of rights offered up promises that would prove difficult to sustain.” Some of the topics we cover are: –The way, in the lead up to the Civil War, all arguments came back to the Constitution. –How wartime policies in both the Confederacy and the states that remained in the Union fundamentally remade the –legal authority of the nation. –Why the Confederacy’s legal order was at odds with its stated governing principles. –Popular conceptions of Reconstruction-era legal change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this podcast I talk with Laura F. Edwards, Peabody Family Professor of History at Duke University about her book, A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction: A Nation of Rights (Cambridge University Press 2015). Per the book’s introduction, “[a]lthough hundreds of thousands of people died fighting in the Civil War, perhaps the war’s biggest casualty was the nation’s legal order. A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction explores the implications of this major change by bringing legal history into dialogue with the scholarship of other historical fields. Federal policy on slavery and race, particularly the three Reconstruction Amendments, are the best-known legal innovations of the era. Change, however, permeated all levels of the legal system, altering American’s relationship to the law and allowing them to move popular conceptions of justice into the ambit of government policy. The results linked Americans to the nation through individual rights, which were extended to more people and, as a result of new claims, were reimagined to cover a wider array of issues. But rights had limits in what they could accomplish, particularly when it came to the collective goals that so many ordinary Americans advocated. Ultimately, Laura F. Edwards argues, this new nation of rights offered up promises that would prove difficult to sustain.” Some of the topics we cover are: –The way, in the lead up to the Civil War, all arguments came back to the Constitution. –How wartime policies in both the Confederacy and the states that remained in the Union fundamentally remade the –legal authority of the nation. –Why the Confederacy’s legal order was at odds with its stated governing principles. –Popular conceptions of Reconstruction-era legal change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices