MURPHY, PAUL L. (1923–1997)

Born in Caldwell, Idaho in 1923, Paul L. Murphy earned his B.A. at the College of Idaho in 1947 and his M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley in 1948 and 1953, respectively. At the time of his death in 1997, he was Regents' Professor of History and American Studies and Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and Distinguished Adjunct Professor at Hamline University School of Law. He was also serving as President of the American Society for Legal History. Murphy expressed his deep personal commitment to individual autonomy, individual dignity, and individual self-determination in his teaching and scholarship and his active involvement in the american civil liberties union. He was an inspirational teacher, a superb scholar, and a loving friend.

In 1963 Murphy reminded scholars, lawyers, and judges of the importance of history in constitutional interpretation. He challenged historians to reclaim constitutional history and accord the field its proper place within American history generally and to provide "the most accurate, thoroughly documented, and impeccable history we are capable of producing" to help lawyers and judges build "a new order seeking a new level of equal rights and social justice through law." Murphy set the example with his own scholarship. His books include The Constitution in Crisis Times, 1918–1969 (1972); The Meaning of Freedom of Speech: First Amendment Freedoms from Wilson to FDR (1972), which won the ABA's Silver Gavel Award; and World War I and the Origin of Civil Liberties in the United States (1979). With James Morton Smith, he edited a document collection, Liberty and Justice, long regarded as a standard text in United States constitutional history. Murphy also published numerous articles, essays, and reviews in professional journals, law reviews, and book chapters on such diverse subjects as political parties, Native American rights, the Passaic Textile Strike of 1926, various bill of rights guarantees, and judges.

Murphy's scholarship, like his teaching, was interdisciplinary. His approach emphasized the importance of social, economic, political, and cultural contexts in which constitutional cases arise and judicial decisions are made. Through prodigious research in remarkably wide-ranging materials, which he synthesized into crisp narrative, Murphy explained changing legal doctrine within the evolving social, economic, and political structures of twentieth-century America. Political activists, minorities, social and political elites, public interest groups, economic and social organizations, business institutions, professional associations, and academics play important roles in shaping public attitudes toward civil liberties and individual rights, which, in turn, affect judicial outcomes. As a scholar and an academic, Murphy embodied the best of the American liberal tradition. A student and custodian of the first amendment, a sacred article of his personal constitution, Murphy championed the role of law in securing individual freedom, justice, and equality.

Robert J. Kaczorowski
(2000)

Bibliography

Murphy, Paul L. 1963 Time To Reclaim: The Current Challenge of American Constitutional History. American Historical Review 69:64–79.

——1972 The Constitution in Crisis Times, 1918–1969. New York: Harper & Row.

——1972 The Meaning of Freedom of Speech: First Amendment Freedoms From Wilson to FDR. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press (Winner of the American Bar Association Gavel Award).

——1979 World War I and The Origin of Civil Liberties in the United States. New York: W.W. Norton.