This seminar explores the interaction between law and culture in American history. Themes and topics include: constitutionalism and the rule of law; the development of the legal profession; the law of employment and the family; the Civil War and Reconstruction; the legal regulation of race, class, and gender relations; the growth of the administrative state; the history of legal thought; lawyers for the New Deal; and the evolution of the civil rights movement. Many of the readings will be primary sources; in addition to treatises, statutes, constitutions, and landmark cases, we will examine range of religious, philosophical, and literary works, in order to situate the legal materials in broader cultural context. There will also be a limited number of secondary sources, which will serve as a basis for discussing historical methodology as well as the substantive material itself. No previous background in American history is assumed.