The digital humanities project "Petitioning for Freedom" received the Mary L. Dudziak Digital Legal History Prize from the American Society for Legal History (ASLH).
The project was developed by Katrina Jagodinsky, Susan Rosowski Associate Professor in the Department of History, and her team in the Digital Legal Research Lab at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Visitors can explore how marginalized communities navigated the courts to seek justice. Hosted by the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities (CDRH), the project is the first of its kind and explores thousands of habeas corpus petitions lodged to challenge coercion and confinement in eight states.
Jagodinsky said the award is the highest accolade in this specific field.
"The award is a testament to the incredible effort of our team of CDRH staff and student researchers from history and many other programs," she said.
The ASLH was founded in 1956 to foster interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching in the broad field of legal history. It is based the U.S. but international in scope. Awarded annually, the prize is named in honor of Mary L. Dudziak, a digital history pioneer and a leading scholar of twentieth century U.S. legal history and international relations.
ASLH's comment:
"'Petitioning for Freedom' offers a deeply researched and carefully curated online database of over 2,000 habeas petitions filed across the American West in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The database inventory continues to be updated monthly with a diverse array of petitions from those challenging slavery, peonage, removal and deportation, state custody over Indigenous wards, and abusive husbands’ custody over their dependents.
"The database offers a regularized schema of records whose handwritten originals are often buried under the haphazard organization and inconsistent recording practices of their rendering courts, and alongside this, the project site provides numerous essays and stories drawn from the habeas proceedings to help researchers at all levels understand the records and make informed interpretations about the deployment of legal power against and on behalf of the less empowered peoples of the American West."
