This dissertation examines the processes that created supreme courts of appeal in Virginia and Louisiana and challenges the traditional view of Louisiana as an anomaly in the American judicial system. Comparison of the development of the Supreme Court of Louisiana to that of Virginia reveals important similarities in judicial practices and procedures, legal theory, and the role the courts played in the early political development of each state. In every area, the two states shared important intellectual and historical experiences.;In order to investigate the creation of these jurisdictions, this dissertation examines the political climate of both states; the background, education, and politics of the judges; the rules of court which they developed; and the jurisprudence that defined the structure and operation of the courts. Accordingly, the judicial history of both states reflects the political changes which governed the era. The study of the development of the jurisdictions, moreover, chronicles the structural changes that influenced a pronounced shift from "moral" or "republican" principles of law to a more pragmatic and activist approach to justice in nineteenth-century America. Finally, the profound influence of the common law and Anglo-American patterns of judicature on Louisiana's legal institutions suggests a reconsideration of the state's place in the mainstream of American legal history.

The backcountry of colonial Virginia and North Carolina saw a process of urbanization during the third quarter of the eighteenth century uniquely shaped by a large-scale migration from colonies to the north, aided by the westward extension of local government. This rapid development did not lead to the creation of a hierarchical economic system of central places, but rather linear networks shaped by the geography of the region. Ironically, this phenomenon occurred in an area of two American colonies usually considered to be devoid of towns.;This dissertation is a study of twenty-eight towns established from 1744 to 1776 in the Piedmont Southside and Great Valley of Virginia and in Piedmont North Carolina. The towns are categorized by their primary function (administrative, migrant, or trade), and then analyzed individually, taking into account the circumstances of their establishment, their intended purpose, their design, and actual development.;The goal of this work is not only to provide a regional town study, but also to identify commonalities in town development, including methods of establishment, economic activities on local and regional levels, the roles of public institutions, and what factors helped determine success or failure. The interaction between towns is also explored to determine trade and communication links, any network systems, and areas of urban influence. The study is an attempt to identify and describe the growth of a significant colonial urban movement.

As a social history of the town and people of Carlisle, Pennsylvania from 1750 to 1810, this dissertation traces the evolution of communal identity in the early American backcountry. By focusing on the growth and development of one urban community, this work details not only how and why one group of backcountry inhabitants took pride in their town's outward accomplishments and material prosperity, but also explains how Carlisle's evolutionary growth prompted the town's people to see themselves as key players in an economic and social universe that stretched far beyond the geographic boundaries of their localized realm.;Using state and county records, personal correspondence, business account books, and material evidence to delineate expanding networks of association on the local and regional levels, this study demonstrates that it was the combined expectations and aspirations generated by personal interactions and economic exchanges that governed how the men and women of Carlisle defined themselves and their roles within the rapidly changing worlds of colonial, revolutionary, and early national America.;In Carlisle, as in the rest of the American backcountry, communal identity was ultimately determined by the convergence of several competing, but nonetheless complementary, developmental forces. Carlisle's sense of itself was profoundly shaped by the independent and highly localized social, economic, and personal associations forged among the town's men and women in the private sphere of backcountry homes and in the public realm of frontier marketplaces. Carlisle's identity was also derived, however, from the town's gradual social, economic, and cultural integration into the metropolitan realms of the eastern port cities of Philadelphia and Baltimore.

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