‘Grandfather of American Legal History’ Dies at 86

Emeritus Law Professor J. Willard Hurst, widely regarded as the grandfather of American legal history, died at his home Wednesday from throat cancer. He was 86.

Hurst joined the law faculty in 1937 and taught for 44 years. His pioneering work in documenting how law affects society gave rise to and legitimized the field of legal history.

“Certainly in his day he was the preeminent legal historian,” says Bill Foster, an emeritus professor of law at UW–Madison and close friend of Hurst.

Hurst was born Oct. 6, 1910, in Rockford, Ill., to James D. and Mabel Weinert Hurst. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Williams College in 1932 and went on to Harvard Law School, where he graduated at the top of his class in 1935.

Hurst then worked as a research fellow for Professor Felix Frankfurter, who later was named to the U.S. Supreme Court, and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis before joining the UW–Madison law school faculty.

When Hurst first came to Madison, he was encouraged by the dean of the Law School, Lloyd Garrison, to design a program in law and society. Hurst started that work, and he set out to study the law’s impact on the state’s lumber industry, which he documented in Law and Economic Growth: The Legal History of the Wisconsin Lumber Industry.

Hurst wrote several books, essays, articles and reviews throughout his career, with all of them addressing issues of law relating to society. Several of his books became standard texts for law students.

Hurst’s influence as a teacher and scholar was far-reaching, say former students and colleagues. “He was the finest teacher I ever had,” says Robben Fleming, who served as chancellor of UW–Madison from 1964-67, president of the University of Michigan from 1967-79 and then president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Fleming graduated from the law school in 1941 and worked as Hurst’s research assistant for one year while a student. “Willard was so knowledgeable about what he taught, worked hard at it and made you feel it was important,” says Fleming, who is now semi-retired and living in Ann Arbor, Mich. “I’m a tremendous admirer of him. It was an enormous pleasure to work for him, to know him and to have him as a friend.”

Foster says Hurst was the “house intellectual” at the UW–Madison Law School. “He forced us to think of problems separate from the law in an historic sense and to think about the economic, social and political consequences,” says Foster. “In other words, he trained us to see around corners.”

Adds Edward J. Reisner, assistant dean of the UW–Madison Law School: “Virtually everyone who is a legal historian today owes something to Willard Hurst.”

During summers Hurst taught at Northwestern, Stanford, Utah and Florida, and he served one year as the Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at Cambridge University in England.

During World War II he served on the Board of Economic Warfare from 1942-43 and was a lieutenant in the U.S. Naval Reserve from 1943-46. The Navy loaned him to the Department of Justice in 1944 so he could help prepare the first modern treason case to come before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hurst became a full professor in 1946, and from 1962 until his retirement in 1981 he served as the Vilas Professor of Law. After retirement he continued his research and writing.

Hurst told The New York Times in 1990 that he turned down the deanship of Yale Law School three times and also turned down a chair at Harvard. “I guess I was just too pleasure-loving,” he said at the time. “I was having too good a time in Wisconsin.”

Hurst was a member of the American Philosophical Society, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Phi Beta Kappa, Order of the Coif, Phi Delta Phi and American Society of Legal History.

To honor Hurst’s contribution to the field of law, the Law and Society Association established the James Willard Hurst Prize to be awarded each year for the best published work in American legal history. An endowed chair at the UW–Madison Law School was recently established in Hurst’s name, and Law Professor Arthur F. McEvoy III was named to the J. Willard Hurst Professorship in May.

Survivors include his wife, Frances W. Hurst; a son, Professor Thomas Hurst of Gainsville, Fla.; a daughter, Dr. Deborah Hurst (Senter) of Piedmont, Calif.; and five grandchildren. Funeral arrangements are pending.