Format Hardcover Subject Jurisprudence United States Commercial Law Sociology General Miscellaneous Civil Law Publisher Greenwood Press

The Development of Law on the Rocky Mountain Frontier: Civil Law and Society, 1850-1912 (Contributions in Legal Studies)

Bakken, Gordon Morris

Legal History

Praeger

This is a thought-provoking exploration of the development of civil law in California from 1850 to 1890. Focusing upon contract, landlord and tenant, mortgage, tort, and admiralty law, Bakken argues that the formulation of the law generally responded to socioeconomic forces. He also asserts that on the operational level, the law's reach was limited by ambiguities, judicial inexactitude, and mistakes made by the bar. Essentially, the broad policy goals of frontier law worked to stimulate marketplace forces by facilitating certain transactions. Entrepreneurs often received the aid of the developing law, but were frustrated by it at other times. Bakken scrutinizes the role of judges, legislators, lawyers, and laymen in contributing to this process. Finally, he demonstrates that the law was less certain and the policy considerations less clear when the law actually functioned on an operational level in society.

The Development of Law in Frontier California: Civil Law and Society, 1850-1890 (Contributions in Legal Studies)

History

Americas

Bakken addresses important issues of constitutional history in the context of a seminal period in the history of the American West. He describes the challenges which faced the participants in eight Western constitutional conventions. His analysis answers questions of how consensus was reached and how that consensus reflected the compromise between the particular needs of the states and fundamental principles. Bakken outlines the issues of public policy which the constitution makers faced: issues ranging from resource allocation and taxation to the role of corporations in the community. He also explains how the delegates attempted to express the values of their constituencies while striving to define the concept of the public good.

Rocky Mountain Constitution Making, 1850-1912 (Contributions in Legal Studies)

Rules & Procedures

In Practicing Law in Frontier California Gordon Morris Bakken combines collective biography with an analysis of the function of the bar in a rapidly changing socioeconomic setting. Drawing on manuscript collections, Bakken considers hundreds of men and women who came to California to practice law during the gold rush and later, their reasons for coming, their training, and their usefulness to clients during a period of rapid population growth and social turmoil. He shows how law practice changed over the decades with the establishment of large firms and bar associations, how the state's boom-and-bust economy made debt collection the lawyer's bread and butter, and how personal injury and criminal cases and questions of property rights were handled. In Bakken's book frontier lawyers become complex human beings, contributing to and protecting the social and economic fabric of society, expanding their public roles even as their professional expertise becomes more narrowly specialized.

Practicing Law in Frontier California (Law in the American West)

Legal Theory & Systems

University Of Nebraska Press

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were a revolutionary period in the lives of women, and the shifting perceptions of women and their role in society were equally apparent in the courtroom. Women Who Kill Men examines eighteen sensational cases of women on trial for murder from 1870 to 1958. The fascinating details of these murder trials, documented in court records and embellished newspaper coverage, mirrored the changing public image of women. Although murder was clearly outside the norm for standard female behavior, most women and their attorneys relied on gendered stereotypes and language to create their defense and sometimes to leverage their status in a patriarchal system. Those who could successfully dress and act the part of the victim were most often able to win the sympathies of the jury. Gender mattered. And though the norms shifted over time, the press, attorneys, and juries were all informed by contemporary gender stereotypes.

Women Who Kill Men: California Courts, Gender, and the Press (Law in the American West)

Farrington, Brenda

The period 1870–1958 was revolutionary in the lives of women. Society’s shifting perceptions of women and their role were apparent in the courtroom. Women Who Kill Men analyzes eighteen sensational cases of women on trial for murder in this period to identify the intersections of media, law, and gender in California. 
The fascinating details of these murder trials, documented in court records and embellished newspaper coverage, mirrored the changing public image of women. Most women and their attorneys relied on gendered stereotypes and language to create their defense and sometimes to leverage their status in a patriarchal system. Those who could successfully dress and act the part of the victim were most often able to win the sympathy of the jury. Gender mattered. And though the norms shifted over time, the press, attorneys, and juries were all informed by contemporary gender stereotypes.

In Practicing Law in Frontier California Gordon Morris Bakken combines collective biography with an analysis of the function of the bar in a rapidly changing socioeconomic setting. Drawing on manuscript collections, Bakken considers hundreds of men and women who came to California to practice law during the gold rush and later, their reasons for coming, their training, and their usefulness to clients during a period of rapid population growth and social turmoil. He shows how law practice changed over the decades with the establishment of large firms and bar associations, how the state's boom-and-bust economy made debt collection the lawyer's bread and butter, and how personal injury and criminal cases and questions of property rights were handled. In Bakken's book frontier lawyers become complex human beings, contributing to and protecting the social and economic fabric of society, expanding their public roles even as their professional expertise becomes more narrowly specialized.

In this volume, Gordon Morris Bakken traces the distinctive development of western legal history. The contributors’ essays provide succinct descriptions of major cases, legislation, and individual western states’ constitutional provisions that are unique in the American legal system. To assist the reader, the volume is organized by subject, including natural resources, municipal authority, business regulation, American Indian sovereignty and water rights, women, and Mormons.
Contributors are: Roy H. Andes, Dana Blakemore, Richard Griswold del Castillo, Susan Badger Doyle, James W. Ely, Jr., Brenda Gail Farrington, Dale D. Goble, Neil Greenwood, Vanessa Gunther, Louise A Halper, Claudia Hess, Kenneth Hough, Paul Kens, Shenandoah Grant Lynd, Thomas C. Mackey, Nicholas George Malavis, Timothy Miller, Danelle Moon, Andrew P. Morriss, Keith Pacholl, Laurie Caroline Pintar, Michael A. Powell, Ion Puschilla, Emily Rader, Peter L. Reich, John Phillip Reid, Lucy E. Salyer, Susan Sanchez, Janet Schmelzer, Howard Shorr, Paul Reed Spitzzeri, John Joseph Stanley, Donald L. Stelluto, Jr., Timothy A. Strand, Imre Sutton, Nancy J. Taniguchi, and Lonnie Wilson.

Law in the Western United States (Volume 6) (Legal History of North America)

University of Oklahoma Press

History has left us a classic image of western mining in the grizzly forty-niner squatting by a clear stream sifting through gravel to reveal gold. What this slice of Western Americana does not reveal, however, is thousands of miners doing the same, their gravel washing downstream, causing the water to grow dark with debris while trout choke to death and wash ashore. Instead of the havoc wreaked upon the western landscape, we are told stories of American enterprise, ingenuity, and fortune.
The General Mining Act of 1872, which declared all valuable mineral deposits on public lands to be free and open to exploration and purchase, has had a controversial impact on the western environment as, under the protection of federal law, various twentieth-century entrepreneurs have manipulated it in order to dump waste, cut timber, create resorts, and engage in a host of other activities damaging to the environment. In this in-depth analysis, legal historian Gordon Morris Bakken traces the roots of the mining law and details the way its unintended consequences have shaped western legal thought from Nome to Tombstone and how it has informed much of the lore of the settlement of the West.

The Mining Law of 1872: Past, Politics, and Prospects

University of New Mexico Press

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Books by Bakken, Gordon Morris

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bakken, Gordon Morris. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Development of Law on the Rocky Mountain Frontier: Civil Law and Society, 1850-1912 (Contributions in Legal Studies)

The Development of Law in Frontier California: Civil Law and Society, 1850-1890 (Contributions in Legal Studies)

Rocky Mountain Constitution Making, 1850-1912 (Contributions in Legal Studies)

Practicing Law in Frontier California (Law in the American West)

Women Who Kill Men: California Courts, Gender, and the Press (Law in the American West)

Women Who Kill Men: California Courts, Gender, and the Press (Law in the American West)

Practicing Law in Frontier California (Law in the American West)

Law in the Western United States (Volume 6) (Legal History of North America)

The Mining Law of 1872: Past, Politics, and Prospects

The Mining Law of 1872: Past, Politics, and Prospects