Spring 2027

American Legal History, 1860 to the Present

Surveys the development of American law from the Civil War to the early Twenty-First Century, examining its interaction with political, social, and cultural change.

offering recorded3–4 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Charlotte Whatley

Summary

1 / 3

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.16 GPA, 41.2% A/AB (n=51 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.26 GPA, 48.6% A/AB (n=35 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.25 GPA, 50.0% A/AB (n=44 letter grades).

What you’ll be able to do

  • Analyze how social, political, and cultural phenomena, such as the Civil War, industrialization, and the rise of modern mass education and administrative government shaped U.S. law and legal systems.

  • Analyze how changes in U.S. legal and political systems impacted Americans, both as individuals of all sexes, races, and classes and as members of families and business and civic organizations.

  • Assess how twentieth-century changes in legal ideas and ideologies have affected understandings of the law, the U.S. Constitution, and broader legal and political systems.

  • Find, interpret, and utilize resources relevant to law and society, including political speeches, state and federal laws, and decisions of federal courts and of the Supreme Court.

  • Analyze legal arguments in historical context, write clearly and persuasively, and construct original arguments.

Source: UW Guide 1 UW Guide 2

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Sophomore standing

  • Sophomore standing
HISTORY/LEGALST 262

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Sophomore standing

Professors

Spring 2027
Historical instructors & teaching patterns

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 450
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 450

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.16 GPA, 41.2% A/AB (n=51 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.26 GPA, 48.6% A/AB (n=35 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.25 GPA, 50.0% A/AB (n=44 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Topics

  • U.S. Constitution and Civil War amendments
  • Race relations, Civil Rights, modern business, New Deal, labor rights, women's movement, individual rights, and conservative reaction

Skills

  • Analyze how social, political, and cultural phenomena shaped U.S. law and legal systems.
  • Find, interpret, and utilize resources relevant to law and society, including laws and court decisions.
  • Analyze legal arguments in historical context, write clearly and persuasively, and construct original arguments.

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

4 earlier forecasts · 0.14 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
HISTORY/LEGALST 262 · Spring 2027

American Legal History, 1860 to the Present

Recorded 2026-10-14
HISTORY/LEGALST 262 · Spring 2027

American Legal History, 1860 to the Present

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
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    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:448:023916",
    "course_id": "HISTORY/LEGALST 262",
    "course_uid": "course_84d6ed316e92a87d165b7ef5",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "023916",
    "source_subject_id": "448",
    "title": "American Legal History, 1860 to the Present",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 4,
    "typically_offered": "Spring"
  },
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:535:023916",
    "course_id": "HISTORY/LEGALST 262",
    "course_uid": "course_84d6ed316e92a87d165b7ef5",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "023916",
    "source_subject_id": "535",
    "title": "American Legal History, 1860 to the Present",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 4,
    "typically_offered": "Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews

No records available.

Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "e3889c0688f7908fd552e3261518741a38f04138f3070e42215e59b53016e019",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}