Michael Ross

Michael Ross is a specialist in American Constitutional History, U.S. Nineteenth Century History, and the Civil War and Reconstruction Eras. His first book, Justice of Shattered Dreams: Samuel Freeman Miller and the Supreme Court During the Civil War Era (LSU, 2003), was a biography of one of the most important justices on the post-bellum Supreme Court. The book won the George Tyler Moore Civil War Center's Seaborg Award for Civil War Non-Fiction and the Association of American Jesuit College and Universities Alpha Sigma Nu Book Award. His second book, The Great New Orleans Kidnapping Case: Race, Law, and Justice in the Reconstruction Era (Oxford UP, 2014) tells the story of a sensational 1870 race trial that became intertwined with the fearsome political struggles of Reconstruction. The book won the 2014 Kemper Williams Prize and the 2015 New Orleans Public Library Choice Award for Non-Fiction and was a selection of the History Book Club. Professor Ross has also published articles in American Nineteenth-Century History, Civil War History, Journal of Women's History, Journal of Southern History, and other periodicals. Four of those articles have won prizes including the Southern Historical Association's Fletcher M. Green and Charles Ramsdell Award. He has twice delivered Silverman lectures at the United States Supreme Court. He is the Associate Editor of the Journal of Supreme Court History and has served as historical adviser to the United States Mint.