Richard F. Hamm – författare

Richard Hamm examines prohibitionists' struggle for reform from the late nineteenth century to their great victory in securing passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. Because the prohibition movement was a quintessential reform effort, Hamm uses it as a case study to advance a general theory about the interaction between reformers and the state during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Most scholarship on prohibition focuses on its social context, but Hamm explores how the regulation of commerce and the federal tax structure molded the drys' crusade. Federalism gave the drys a restricted setting--individual states--as a proving ground for their proposals. But federal policies precipitated a series of crises in the states that the drys strove to overcome. According to Hamm, interaction with the federal government system helped to reshape prohibitionists' legal culture--that is, their ideas about what law was and how it could be used. Originally published in 1995. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Between 1868 and 1935, four killings in the state of Virginia attracted extensive press coverage and led to the press itself playing a role in the construction of the killings and the reporting of them. This text explores the interplay of national media and culture with Southern law and values.

Explores how and why an elite member of the legal profession, Arthur Garfield Hays, confronted and fought against the ingrained racism of his society, illuminating key aspects of the long civil rights era.Beginning in 1925 the corporate lawyer and civil libertarian Arthur Garfield Hays began battling segregation. This book details Hays’s work on the Mayor's Commission that investigated the1935 Harlem riot; his role in a 1937 restrictive covenant case in Westchester, County; his representing a challenger to the segregated draft in World War II; his part in ending the exclusion of African Americans from the American Bar Association; and his opposition to strong fair employment legislation. Motivated by his conception of a good society that valued civil liberties, democracy, and individualism, Hays fought for African Americans’ legal rights under the Constitution. His activism was limited by his conservative economic views and his fear of an active state that intervened in private matters. His career illuminates the potential and perils of interracial co-operation during the long civil rights movement. Because the issues he confronted continue today—police mistreatment of African Americans, housing discrimination, limits on African Americans in the professions, racial discrimination in the military, and how to build government structures to limit discrimination—this book speaks to our time as well as his.