A Judgment for Solomon tells the story of the d'Hauteville case, a controversial child custody battle fought in 1840. It uses the story of one couple's bitter fight over their son to explore some timebound and timeless features of American legal culture. This eagerly followed trial sparked a national debate over the legal rights and duties of mothers and fathers, husbands and wives. The d'Hauteville case explains why popular trials become "precedents of legal experience"-- mediums for debates about highly contested social issues. It also demonstrates the ability of individual women and men to contribute to legal change by turning to the law to fight for what they want.
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"Which parent should get the custody of a small child? In this compelling story of a bitter struggle over a 2-year old boy nearly 150 years ago, Michael Grossberg shows how Americans developed what were then new solutions to the competing claims of mothers and fathers. Everyone interested in the developing law of child custody in our own time--highlighted in the tormented cases of Baby 'M', Baby Jessica, Baby Michael, and many others not widely publicized--will be fascinated by this book." Linda K. Kerber, May Brodbeck Professor in the Liberal Arts and Professor of History, University of Iowa
"A Judgement for Solomon aims to do more than describe an admittedly fascinating trial...This is a thoughtful work. Grossberg provocatively re-creates one particular legal conflict from a moment of widespread gender upheaval. A Judgement for Solomon deserves the attention of a wide range of readers." The Journal of American History
"A Judgment for Solomon tells a fascinating story; at the same time, it is also a persuasive and thoughtful reflection on legal storytelling. We follow one couple (and their families) across the terrain of nineteenth century America and Europe, as they fought with each other and with the law for possession of a child. As we do so, Grossberg guides us through the tortured emergence of a particular vision of gendered parental identities that continues even today to dominate the legal imagination and our lives. At the same time, Grossberg's sympathetic and inclusive analysis leads the reader to reflect on how and why major public trials have assumed such obsessive moral weight in American culture. In its sustained use of a case study to study a crucial transition in our legal history, Michael Grossberg's book deserves comparison with E.P. Thompson's Whigs and Hunters." Hendrik Hartog, Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor of the History of American Law and Liberty
"A Judgement for Solomon aims to do more than describe an admittedly fascinating trial...This is a thoughtful work. Grossberg provocatively re-creates one particular legal conflict from a moment of widespread gender upheaval. A Judgement for Solomon deserves the attention of a wide range of readers." The Journal of American History
"Michael Grossberg knows how to build suspense and reader interest in the strategies of both sides and the ways in which the principal players were refashioned by lawyers, judges, and newspaper writers....Grossberg is unusual among authors who devote a book to exploring a single case in that carries his tale beyond the framework of trial records and biography to consider theoretically and analytically what what it meant for propertied whites in antebellum Northeast to enter into what Alexis de Tocqueville called the 'shadow of the law." Cornelia Hughes Dayton, Journal of the Early Republic
"...an extremely valuable resource for anyone interested in the relation between law and society." Brook Thomas, Law & Social Theory
"A Judgement for Solomon aims to do more than describe an admittedly fascinating trial...This is a thoughtful work. Grossberg provocatively re-creates one particular legal conflict from a moment of widespread gender upheaval. A Judgement for Solomon deserves the attention of a wide range of readers." The Journal of American History
"A Judgment for Solomon tells a fascinating story; at the same time, it is also a persuasive and thoughtful reflection on legal storytelling. We follow one couple (and their families) across the terrain of nineteenth century America and Europe, as they fought with each other and with the law for possession of a child. As we do so, Grossberg guides us through the tortured emergence of a particular vision of gendered parental identities that continues even today to dominate the legal imagination and our lives. At the same time, Grossberg's sympathetic and inclusive analysis leads the reader to reflect on how and why major public trials have assumed such obsessive moral weight in American culture. In its sustained use of a case study to study a crucial transition in our legal history, Michael Grossberg's book deserves comparison with E.P. Thompson's Whigs and Hunters." Hendrik Hartog, Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor of the History of American Law and Liberty
"A Judgement for Solomon aims to do more than describe an admittedly fascinating trial...This is a thoughtful work. Grossberg provocatively re-creates one particular legal conflict from a moment of widespread gender upheaval. A Judgement for Solomon deserves the attention of a wide range of readers." The Journal of American History
"Michael Grossberg knows how to build suspense and reader interest in the strategies of both sides and the ways in which the principal players were refashioned by lawyers, judges, and newspaper writers....Grossberg is unusual among authors who devote a book to exploring a single case in that carries his tale beyond the framework of trial records and biography to consider theoretically and analytically what what it meant for propertied whites in antebellum Northeast to enter into what Alexis de Tocqueville called the 'shadow of the law." Cornelia Hughes Dayton, Journal of the Early Republic
"...an extremely valuable resource for anyone interested in the relation between law and society." Brook Thomas, Law & Social Theory
Book Description
This account of the d'Hauteville case, a controversial l840 child custody battle, uses the story of one couple's bitter fight to explore features of American legal culture. It explains why popular trials become "precedents of legal experience"--mediums for debates about contested social issues.
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First Sentence:
Thursday, July 16, 1840, would be the first of many vexing days that summer and fall for Presiding Judge George Washington Barton of the Philadelphia Court of General Sessions. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
paternal custody rights, marital tyranny, legal lessons, marital fault, courtroom stories, marital exits, narrative competition, courtroom combat, marital cruelty, child doctrine, legal beliefs, custody law, maternal preference, popular trials, maternal custody, courtroom story, custody rules, interactive reality, informal separation, public verdicts, paternal rights, custody claims, marital unity, private bargaining, marital conduct Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Rhode Island, United States, Court of General Sessions, New Hampshire, New England, David Sears, John Barry, Law Reporter, Public Ledger, Boston Brahmin, Miriam Sears, South Carolina, University of Pennsylvania, Beacon Street, Miller's Report, Nancy Shippen Livingston, John Cadwalader, Philadelphia Gazette, Alexis de Tocqueville, Boston Post, Chief Justice Tilghman, Congress Hall, David Paul Brown, Ellen Sears Grand New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Thursday, July 16, 1840, would be the first of many vexing days that summer and fall for Presiding Judge George Washington Barton of the Philadelphia Court of General Sessions. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
paternal custody rights, marital tyranny, legal lessons, marital fault, courtroom stories, marital exits, narrative competition, courtroom combat, marital cruelty, child doctrine, legal beliefs, custody law, maternal preference, popular trials, maternal custody, courtroom story, custody rules, interactive reality, informal separation, public verdicts, paternal rights, custody claims, marital unity, private bargaining, marital conduct Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Rhode Island, United States, Court of General Sessions, New Hampshire, New England, David Sears, John Barry, Law Reporter, Public Ledger, Boston Brahmin, Miriam Sears, South Carolina, University of Pennsylvania, Beacon Street, Miller's Report, Nancy Shippen Livingston, John Cadwalader, Philadelphia Gazette, Alexis de Tocqueville, Boston Post, Chief Justice Tilghman, Congress Hall, David Paul Brown, Ellen Sears Grand New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 54
books:
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10
books
cite this book:
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- The Anthropology of Experience by Victor W Turner on 6 pages
- Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia by E. Digby Baltzell on 5 pages
- Democracy in America (Signet Classics) by Alexis de Tocqueville on 4 pages
- Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville on page 2, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Meanings for Manhood by Mark C. Carnes in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
See all 54 books this book cites
- Framing American Divorce: From the Revolutionary Generation to the Victorians by Norma Basch in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- The Challenge of American History by Louis P. Masur on page 215, and page 272
- Free Speech in its Forgotten Years, 1870-1920 (Cambridge Historical Studies in American Law and Society) by David M. Rabban in Front Matter
- Recasting American Liberty: Gender, Race, Law, and the Railroad Revolution, 1865-1920 (Cambridge Historical Studies in American Law and Society) by Barbara Young Welke in Front Matter
- City of Courts: Socializing Justice in Progressive Era Chicago (Cambridge Historical Studies in American Law and Society) by Michael Willrich in Front Matter
See all 10 books citing this book
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