Victoria Saker Woeste
last rev. 1/14
Victoria Saker Woeste
American Bar Foundation
750 North Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, Illinois 60611
312.988.6602
312.988.6579 (fax)
Professional Affiliation
Research Professor, American Bar Foundation
Teaching Positions
Professor of Law, International and Comparative Law Program, Indiana University-Cairo University, Egypt, Summer 2011
Visiting Professor of Law and American Studies, Indiana University-Indianapolis, 2010-2011
Adjunct Professor of Law, Northwestern University, Spring 2001
Education
Ph.D., Jurisprudence and Social Policy, University of California at Berkeley, 1990
M.A., Jurisprudence and Social Policy, University of California at Berkeley, 1985
B.A., University of Virginia, 1983, with distinction in history and honors in American Studies
Honorsand Fellowships
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 2006-2007
Franklin Research Grant, American Philosophical Society, 2006-2007
Rabbi Joachim Prinz Memorial Fellowship, American Jewish Archives, 2003-2004
J. Willard Hurst Prize, 2000, awarded by the Law and Society Association for the best book on socio-legal history published in 1998 and 1999 (for The Farmer’s Benevolent Trust)
Choice Outstanding Academic Book, 1999 (for The Farmer’s Benevolent Trust)
Friends of the Princeton University Library Visiting Fellowship, 1996-97
Herman E. Krooss Dissertation Prize, 1993, awarded by the Business History Conference for the best dissertation completed between 1990 and 1993
U.S. Department of Agriculture Dissertation Fellowship, 1988-1990
Bancroft Library Fellowship, University of California at Berkeley, 1988-1989
Research Grant, U.C. Center for Cooperatives, 1988
Sourisseau Academy Research Award, San Jose State University, 1988, 1989
Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, Legal Studies Program, University of California at Berkeley, 1987
University of California Regents' Fellowship, 1986-1987
Sea Grant Traineeship, 1984-1985
Dean's Fellowship, University of California at Berkeley, 1983-1984
Anne Von Schaack Hopkins Essay Award, 1983, given by the University of Virginia History Department for the best essay on a subject that interested Thomas Jefferson
ABF Grants
Reconstituting Civic Community: Hate Speech and the State in the Post-World War II Era (2013-2015)
Law, Modernity, and the State, 1918-1927 (2000-2006)
The Family Farm, Land Monopoly, and Agribusiness (1998-1999)
Law, Regulation, and the State in Twentieth-Century America: Outsider Lawyers and Agricultural Policy, 1918-1945 (1995-1997)
Publications
Books
Jews and the Law. Co-Edited with Ari Mermelstein, Ethan Zadoff, and Marc Galanter; in press, Quid Pro Books, 2014.
Henry Ford’s War On Jews and the Legal Battle Against Hate Speech. Stanford University Press, June 2012. Paperback edition published May 2013. Documentary film under development, Michael Rose Productions, Inc., Los Angeles. Book website:
The Farmer's Benevolent Trust: Law and Agricultural Cooperation in Industrial America, 1865-1945. Studies in Legal History Series. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. 1999 Choice Outstanding Academic Book; 2000 J. Willard Hurst Prize
Essays in Edited Collections
“Divided Citizenship: Debates over Inclusion and Qualification during the Interwar Period,” to appear in Proceedings of the 10th Annual Conference of the Center for the Study of Citizenship (forthcoming, 2014-15)
“Lawrence Friedman and the Bane of Functionalism,” in Robert W. Gordon and Morton J. Horwitz, eds., Law, Society, and History: Themes in the Legal Sociology and Legal History of Lawrence M. Friedman(Cambridge Series on Law and Society, Sally Engle Merry, general editor, Cambridge University Press,2011), 43-51
“Agriculture and the State, 1790-2000.” In Christopher Tomlins and Michael Grossberg, eds., The Cambridge History of Law in America, Vol. III: The Twentieth Century and After (1920-)(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 522-62
“Land Monopoly, Agribusiness, and the State: Discovering the Family Farm in Twentieth-Century California.” In Robert Johnston and Catherine McNichol Stock, eds., The Countryside in the Age of the Modern State: Political Histories of Rural America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001). Reprinted in Analyzing Law’s Reach (American Bar Foundation, 2008), 599-619
“The Great Writ, Federalism, and Extra-Judicial Politics: The Conference of Chief Justices, 1949-1964,” in Federalism and the Judicial Mind, ed. Harry N. Scheiber (Berkeley: Institute of Intergovernmental Studies, 1992), 131-47
Articles
“California Lawyer: Aaron Sapiro and the Progressive Vision of Law as Public Service.” California Legal History, 8 (2013), 449-64.
“The Child is Father to the Man: The Formation of Aaron Sapiro’s Jewish Identity in California, 1884-1920.” Published on SSRN April 10, 2010.
“‘It Is Our Choices That Show What We Truly Are’: Moral Choice in the Harry Potter Novels.” Published on SSRN ( Mar. 22, 2010); and on Mugglenet.com(without notes) ( (Jan. 25, 2007)
“Insecure Equality: Louis Marshall, Henry Ford, and the Problem of Defamatory Antisemitism, 1920-1929.” Journal of American History, 91:3 (December 2004), 877-905
“Aaron Sapiro.” American National Biography and Oxford University Press, American National Biography Online( 2004)
“Suing Henry Ford: The trial that forced the automaker to apologize for his anti-Semitism.” With Susan Radomsky. Legal Affairs, July-August 2003, pp. 41-43
“Lawyers, Conflicts, and Convictions in the Henry Ford Libel Lawsuits, 1920-1929.” American Bar Foundation Working Paper Series, No. 2202 (Chicago: American Bar Foundation, 2003)
“Suing Henry Ford: Rhetorics of Persuasion and Conversion Narratives in Antisemitism and Libel, 1920-1927.” American Bar Foundation Working Paper Series, No. 2203 (Chicago: American Bar Foundation, 2003)
“Modernism, Anti-Semitism, and Agriculture: The Sapiro-Ford Case, 1920-1928.”American Bar Foundation Working Paper Series, No. 2012 (Chicago: American Bar Foundation, 2001)
“Detroit’s Trial of the Century: Sapiro v. Ford, 1927.” The Court Legacy, 8:2 (September, 1999), 1-8
“Lawyers, Public Service, and Anti-Semitism: Aaron Sapiro’s Libel Suit Against Henry Ford, 1922-1927.” American Bar Foundation Working Paper Series, No. 9616 (Chicago: American Bar Foundation, 1997)
“Race, Economy, and Violence: The Legal Culture of the Cooperative Commonwealth.” American Bar Foundation Working Paper Series, No. 9411 (Chicago: American Bar Foundation, 1995)
“Busting the Raisin Trust,” Audacity, 2:4 (Summer 1994), 48-61
“Cooperatives and Corporations: The Sun-Maid Antitrust Case and the Legal Status of Agricultural Cooperation, 1890-1943.” Business and Economic History, 2d. ser., 22 (Fall 1993), 25-30
“Creating an Agricultural Trust: Law and Cooperation in California, 1890-1922.” Law and History Review, 12:1 (Spring 1992), 93-129
Encyclopedia Entries
“Louis Marshall.” In Roger K. Newman, ed., Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 362.
“Group Libel.” In David Hudson, Jr., David Schultz, and John R. Vile, eds., Encyclopedia of the First Amendment (Washington: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2008)
“Agricultural Regulation.” In Barbara Aronstein Black and Laura Kalman, eds., Oxford Encyclopedia of Legal History (New York: Oxford University Press,2008)
“American Jewish Committee,” “Dearborn Independent and The International Jew,” and “Henry Ford.” In Richard S. Levy, ed., ABC-Clio Encyclopedia of Antisemitism, Anti-Jewish Prejudice, and Persecution, vol. I (Santa Barbara, Cal.: ABC-Clio, 2005), 16-17, 162-64, 233-36
“Porter L. Brown” and “Leo Nebbia.” In Melvin Urofsky, ed., 100 Americans Making Constitutional History, 24-27, 145-47(Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2004)
“Farmer Cooperatives and Cooperative Marketing.” In Joel Mokyr, ed.,Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History, Vol. 2, 1-4 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003)
“James F. Byrnes”and “Charles E. Whittaker.” In Melvin I. Urofsky, ed.,Biographical Dictionary of U.S. Supreme Court Justices (New York: Garland Publishing, 1994); reprint edition (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2006)
Reviews
M.M. Silver, Louis Marshall and the Rise of Jewish Ethnicity in America, American Jewish Archives Journal (forthcoming, 2014)
Stuart Banner, American Property: A History of How, Why, and What We Own, Business History Review (Dec. 2012)
Douglas Brinkley, Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, the Ford Motor Company, and a Century of Progress, and Max Wallace, The American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the Rise of the Third Reich, Enterprise and Society, 6:4 (December 2005), 755-58
Sarah Barringer Gordon, The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth Century America, Law and History Review, 22:1 (Spring 2004), 206-08
“Toasting Transformation I.”Editorial Introduction, Review Essay Symposium, Transformation of American Law (I), Law and Social Inquiry, 28:4 (Fall 2003), 1121-25
A Home on the Range (film),Journal of American History, 90 (December 2003), 1139
Harry N. Scheiber, ed., The State and Freedom of Contract, Law and History Review, 20:1 (Spring 2002), 198-200
Jon Lauck, American Agriculture and the Problem of Monopoly: The Political Economy of Grain Belt Farming, 1953-1980, H-Business, Economic History Services, July 5, 2001(
Mark Fiege, Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the American West, American Historical Review, 106:1 (February 2001), 179-80
Paul Kens, Justice Stephen Field: Shaping Liberty from the Gold Rush to the Gilded Age, Journal of American History, 87:1 (June 2000): 237-38
M. Catherine Miller, Flooding the Courts: Law and Water in the West, 1850-1920, in American Journal of Legal History, 39 (April 1995), 247-49
David J. Bodenhamer, Fair Trial: Rights of the Accused in American History, in Indiana Magazine of History, 91 (March 1995), 129-30
Tracy Campbell, The Politics of Despair: The Politics of Resistance in the Tobacco Wars, in Journal of Economic History, 54 (December 1994), 951-53
“Between a Doctrine and a Hard Place,” Reviews in American History, 21:2 (June 1993), 279-84
Christian Fritz, Federal Justice in California: The Court of Ogden Hoffman, 1851-1891, and Gordon Bakken, Practicing Law in Frontier California, in American Journal of Legal History, 37 (January 1993), 96-100
Paul Wallace Gates, Law and Land in California: Essays on Land Policies, in Western Historical Quarterly, 23 (1992), 537-38
Thomas Alexander, The Rise of Multiple-Use Management in the Intermountain West: A History of Region 4 of the Forest Service, in Environmental Review, 12:3 (Fall 1988), 97-98
Works in Progress
Reconstituting Civic Community: Hate Speech and the State in the Post-World War II Era
The Family Farm and American Exceptionalism in Law and Policy
Race, Desegregation, and Hate Speech Regulation in the Post-World War II Midwest
Creating Fact from Fiction and Fiction from Fact: Tales from the Henry Ford Historiography
Courses Taught
Introduction to the American Legal System, LLM Program, School of Law, Indiana University-Indianapolis/Cairo University Egypt, Summer 2011
American Legal History, Natural Resources Law (law school); From Free Speech to Hate Speech (American studies/history), Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, 2010-11
Guest lectures on immigration and citizenship 1790-present, History 318, United States Legal and Constitutional History Since 1850 (for Dylan Penningroth), Northwestern University History Department, Fall 2007, Spring 2008
Law and Social Science (seminar), Northwestern University Law School, Spring 2001
America in the 1930s, American Studies Department, Amherst College, Spring 1994
U.S. Legal History (two-semester sequence); Law’s History; Property, Liberty, and Law; Rights and Wrongs; Program in Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought, Amherst College, 1990-1993
Professional Lectures
Book Talks for Henry Ford’s War on Jews
Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, Florida State Chairs, May 8, 2014
Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, Massachusetts State Chairs, Feb. 4, 2014
Federal Bar Association, Federal Court Historical Society, Detroit, Michigan, Nov. 18, 2013
Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, California State Chairs, San Jose, Oct. 11, 2013
Eva Bobrow Memorial Lecture Series, Kupferberg Center for the Arts, Queens College, New York, Sept. 8, 2013
“Author Meets Readers.” Law and Society Meetings, Boston, May 2013
School of Law, Arizona State University, Apr. 4, 2013
School of Journalism, Arizona State University, Apr. 4, 2013(co-sponsored by Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, The Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, ASU Hillel and the Jewish Law Students Association)
Conference session on Henry Ford’s War on Jews and the Legal Battle against Hate Speech,Center for the Study of Citizenship, Wayne State University, Mar. 21-22, 2013
Temple Judea/Books and Books, Coral Gables, Fl., Mar. 14, 2013 (co-sponsored by Attorneys’ Division, Greater Miami Jewish Federation; and The Fellows of the American Bar Foundation)
Lifelong Learning Institute, Nova Southeastern University, Mar. 14, 2013
Department of History and Harris Center for Jewish Studies, University of Nebraska, Feb. 28, 2013
Temple Israel, West Lafayette, IN, Dec. 15, 2012
Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance, Oct. 29, 2012 (co-sponsored by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Beverley Hills Bar Association, and the Los Angeles chapter of the ABF Fellows)
Constitution Day Lecture, School of Law, Syracuse University, Sep. 13, 2012
Temple Concord, Syracuse, NY, Sept. 12, 2012
Federal District Courthouse, Eastern District of Michigan, Detroit, June 26, 2012 (co-sponsored by Michigan Eastern District Federal Court and the Center for Study of Citizenship, Wayne State University)
Other Invited Talks
American Bar Association, Continuing Legal Education Seminar, Hate Speech and On-line Bullying, August 8, 2014
“Henry Ford’s War: Law,Antisemitism, and Speech in the Tribal 1920s.” ABF-Illinois Legal History Seminar, May 9, 2011; School of Law, Indiana University-Indianapolis, April 12, 2011; Race and Ethnic Studies Institute, Texas A&M University, April 30, 2010; Law and Society Workshop, Indiana University School of Law (co-sponsored by Jewish Studies Department), January 28, 2010
“Free Speech and Hate Speech.” Democracy Plaza, IUPUI, April 27, 2011
“Henry Ford: Unmasking the Self-Made Myth.” Hagley Center Research Seminar in Business History, University of Delaware, December 10, 2009
“Refighting the Last Battle: Louis Marshall and Civil Rights Litigation Strategies, 1914-1927.” Seminar Presentation, Institute for American Thought, Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, November 30, 2009
“Rule or Custom: Sorting Through the Evidentiary Thicket of Attorney Conduct and the Interpretation of Conflict of Interest.” Faculty Seminar, Case Western Reserve University Law School, March 27, 2009
“What if They Held a Race Riot and Nobody Cared? Woodland Neighborhood Jews, the Dearborn Independent, and Legal Guarantees of a Free Press in 1920s Cleveland.” History Department Faculty Seminar, Case Western Reserve University, March 26, 2009
“American Imperialism: Immigration and Defining Citizenship.” Guest Lecture, History 318, American Legal and Constitutional History Since 1850, Northwestern University, February 2008; October 2007
“Lawyering in the Shadow of Brandeis: The Supreme Court Civil Rights Practice of Louis Marshall.” Chicago Legal History Seminar, American Bar Foundation, March 6, 2007; University of Illinois School of Law, October1, 2007
“Insecure Equality: Louis Marshall, Henry Ford, and the Problem of Defamatory Antisemitism, 1920-1929.” Public Lecture, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio, March 25, 2007; CEGLA Institute for Legal History, Tel Aviv University, April 3, 2006; History Department Seminar, University of Illinois at Chicago, October 12, 2005
“Agriculture and the State, 1789-2000.” Chicago Legal History Seminar, American Bar Foundation, March 21, 2006
“Reconsidering the Activism of Louis Marshall in the Henry Ford Libel Lawsuits, 1920-1929.” Marcus Center Fellowship Seminar, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 9, 2003
“Lawyers, Conflicts, and Convictions in the Henry Ford Libel Lawsuits, 1920-1927.” Legal History Workshop, University of Virginia Law School, March 31, 2003
“Suing Henry Ford: Rhetorics of Persuasion and Conversion Narratives in Anti-Semitism and Libel, 1920-1927.” Faculty Lecture, College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters, University of Michigan-Dearborn, September 30, 2004; Public Lecture Series, Jewish Studies Program, Purdue University, March 10, 2004; Public lecture, Temple Beth El, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, May 14, 2003; Religion and the Law Conference, Program in Law and Public Affairs, Princeton University, February 28, 2003; Seminar Presentation, Department of History and Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, co-sponsored by the School of Law, University of California, Los Angeles, November 6, 2002; Institute for Legal Studies Midwest Law and Society Retreat, University of Wisconsin-Madison, September 28, 2002; Luncheon Speaker Series, Center for the Study of Law and Society, co-sponsored by the Earl Warren Legal Institute, University of California at Berkeley, September 23, 2002; American Bar Foundation Seminar Series, May 15, 2002; History Department Faculty Seminar, University of Wisconsin-Madison, November 16, 2000
“Suing Mr. Ford: Images of The Jew and The Automaker in the 1927 Sapiro-Ford Libel Lawsuit.” Noon Lecture Series, Jewish Studies Program, Purdue University, October 16, 2002
“Sapiro v. Ford: A Case of Libel and Anti-Semitism Tried in the Federal District Court at Detroit.” Judges’ Luncheon Seminar, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, Detroit, February 25, 1998
“Anti-Semitism, Internationalism, and Isolationism: Aaron Sapiro’s Libel Suit Against Henry Ford, 1920-1927.” Seminar sponsored by the Department of History, the Center for Legal Studies, and the Cohn-Haddow Center for Judaic Studies, Wayne State University, November 20, 1997
“Lawyers, Public Service, and Anti-Semitism: Aaron Sapiro’s Libel Suit Against Henry Ford, 1922-1927.” American Bar Foundation Seminar Series, February 28, 1997.
“The Farmer's Benevolent Trust: Law and Agricultural Cooperation in Industrial America.” Economic History Workshop, Northwestern University, February 8, 1996
“Race, Economy, and Violence: The Legal Culture of the Cooperative Commonwealth, 1912-1928.” Law, Deviance, and Society Research Colloquium, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, April 11, 1995
“Race, Economy, and Violence: The Legal Culture of the Cooperative Commonwealth, 1912-1928.” Legal History Workshop, University of Chicago, October 25, 1994
“The Agrarian Image in the American Mind.” Gallery Talk, Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, April 5, 1994
“Authority Outside Law: The Use of History in Adjudication.” Faculty Colloquium, School of Law, University of California at Los Angeles, April 19, 1993
“The Ventura County Verdict: Implications for College Campuses.” Conference of New England Deans of Students, Amherst College, April 15, 1993
“Law, Industrialization, and the Family Farm, 1870-1945.” Boston University Law School Legal History Seminar, October 14, 1992
“The Appeal of Associationalism: Agricultural Cooperatives and the Ideal of Market Freedom.” Five College Social History Seminar, Smith College, April 25, 1992
Papers and Comments
Participant, Roundtable on Grants and Funding, Law and Society Association, May 2014
Chair and Discussant, Author Meets Readers, Ajay Mehrotra, Making the Modern American Fiscal State: Law, Politics, and the Rise of Progressive Taxation, 1877–1929, Law and Society Association, Minneapolis, May 2014
Chair, Mobilization and Legitimation: Legal Thought and Conservatism, 1945-80, Law and Society Association, Minneapolis, May 2014
Chair and Participant, Roundtable on Citizenship and Belonging, Organization of American Historians, Atlanta, April 2014