Date sent:      Thu, 29 Feb 1996 20:24:46 -0600 (CST)
From:           CURTIS KENT ALEXANDER <broalex@falcon.cc.ukans.edu>
Subject:        Private Property

I wonder if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions about exploring the history of private land ownership in the United States. Since most of our Western and Environmental narratives seem to agree that bounding the land was the first step toward conquest, it seems like an intellectual or institutional study of the phenomenon itself would be in order (even, perhaps, a transnational study). Is anyone familiar with any studies along these lines, or doing similar work themselves?

Thanks.

Kip Curtis
University of Kansas
broalex@falcon.cc.ukans.edu

Date sent:      Sun, 03 Mar 1996 10:26:30 -0400 (EDT)
From:           SHAFFERM@UNCWIL.EDU
Subject:        Re: Private Property

On the private property issue see Theodore Steinberg's new book, Slide Mountain

Peggy Shaffer
University of North Carolina at Wilmington shafferm@uncwil.edu

On the private property issue see Theodore Steinberg's new book, Slide Mountain

Peggy Shaffer
University of North Carolina at Wilmington shafferm@uncwil.edu

Date sent:      Sun, 3 Mar 1996 14:55:36 -0500 (EST)
To:             DWilliam@nov.snu.edu
Subject:        Re: Private Property

Sydney Plotkin's KEEP OUT is a good place to start. The introductory chapters give a concise and critical history of the development of property law and zoning in the US. The rest of the book analyzes several cases of political struggle over land use planning and control in the 1970s.

Bob Rakoff
Professor of Politics and Environmental Studies Hampshire College
Amherst, MA 01002
413-582-5396
rrakoff@hampshire.edu

Date sent:      Mon, 04 Mar 96 18:47:30 CST
From:           "Michael EDMONDS" mie@ccmail.adp.wisc.edu
Subject:        Re: Private Property

In Changes in the Land, Bill Cronon devotes a chapter to the ways in which 17th-century English notions of private property conflicted with Native American ones in New england. (That is, if memory serves me correctly)

Date sent:      Mon, 4 Mar 1996 21:05:39 -0500 (EST)
From:           Gabrielle Lanier <gabriell@UDel.Edu
Subject:        Re: Private Property

On the subject of private property, you also might want to check out _Dividing the Land: Early American Beginnings of our Private Property Mosaic_ by Edward T. Price (University of Chicago Press, 1995).

Gabrielle Lanier
University of Delaware
gabriell@copland.udel.edu

Date sent:      Tue, 05 Mar 1996 12:21:55 -0500 (EST)
From:           James G Ball JBALL@drew.edu
Subject:        Re: Private Property

It took me a long time to find what I was looking for several years ago, which was an intellectual history of the concept of private property. I eventually found it: Richard Schlatter, *Private Property: the History of an Idea* New Brunswick: Rutgers, 1951.

Considering how important this concept is, it was surprising to me how hard it was to find such a source.

Jim Ball
jball@drew.edu

Date sent:      Fri, 8 Mar 1996 08:57:36 +0930
From:           Frank.Sharman@flinders.edu.au (Frank Sharman)
Subject:        Private Property

A useful, if some speculative, work on the history of private property is:

D[onlad] R[obert] Denman, Origins of Ownership, London, Allen & Unwin, 1958

An excellent, if somewhat black letter, history of the English land law which provided a starting point for US land law is:

W. B[rian] Simpson, An Introduction to the History of Land Law, Oxford, OUP, 1961. (There is a later edition; I think the words "Introduction to the" get dropped from the title. Sorry: can't trace the details at the moment).

For a study from a different jurisdiction, one of the great works of historical geography would be vital stuff:

Michael Williams, The Making of the South Australian Landscape, London and New York, Academic Press, 1974.

I think the particular relevance of this might be that, when the British saw fit to take over other people's countries, they usually did so on the assumption that they were taking over vacant land with no relevant existing land laws or laws about land ownership. Presumably in the US they had to make decisions about what land laws they would impose. Much later (c.1836) this was a central issue in the founding of South Australia. South Australia also worked on the basis of survey before settlement: nobody (other than the Crown) got to own or even lease land before it had been explored and then surveyed. South Australian land law soon became, for practical purposes and reasons, pretty different from the English law from which it started.

There is an enormous amount of material on the history of land in England. Much of it can be described as legal history. Much of the rest of it relates to feudalism and the enclosure movement. I do not think there is a single consistent narrative describing land ownership and the constraints on it. I once gathered material for a book which would be a preliminary discussion of the matter, particularly the relationship between law and land development. Of course, it never got anywhere. The only outcome of it so far and long ago (apart from a selection of miscellaneous articles) is an M.Phil. thesis called "A History of the Law and Practice of Compulsory Purchase, 1066-1845" (or something very much like that), which I presume still lurks in the recesses of Nottingham University Library. It contains at least 120,000 words, so don't ask them for a photocopy!

Frank A.Sharman, Lecturer in Legal Studies, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, 5001. Telephone: 08-201-3847. Fax: 08-201-3845.

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