About Petitioning for Freedom

Petitioning for Freedom is a relational database of habeas petitions from county, state, and federal courts in Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington between 1812 and 1924. These strategically selected jurisdictions hosted a diverse array of interpersonal, institutional, and carceral habeas challenges that reflect national debates over freedom and unfreedom in the long nineteenth century.

With funding from the National Science Foundation, the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation, and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, this project features the work of dozens of student researchers and a talented cohort of faculty and staff from the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities and the Department of History led by Dr. Katrina Jagodinsky.

The database is designed with community constituents in mind, built to invite exploratory navigation conducive to visitors curious about their family and local histories. We also aim to promote scholarship in legal mobilization, the emergence of legal networks, and judicial reasoning. To serve such a broad range of audiences, the site features multiple search and browse functions. All visitors may download our dataset in CSV or JSON formats and those without institutional affiliations may inquire about access to document images.

Eager to bring these histories to a public audience sooner than later, we are launching this site while our dataset is still being populated. This means not all jurisdictions are available yet. For the most current geographical coverage, visitors should go to the Locations page where all included states and courts are listed. Those who want to receive updates about site content should follow us on Instagram @DigLegalRschLab.