Lawrence Cappello
Assistant Professor
Director, Legal History Concentration
Director, Legal History Concentration
- (205) 348-5398
- lcappello@ua.edu
- ten Hoor Hall 220
- Website
- Curriculum Vitae
Education
- PhD, The City University of New York
Research Areas
- United States History
About
Research Interests
- U.S. Legal & Constitutional History
- The Right to Privacy
- 20th Century U.S. Social & Political History
Courses Taught
- The Great Cases in US Legal History (HY 309)
- The Right to Privacy (HY 352)
- U.S. Constitutional History I & II (HY 323 & 324)
- The First Amendment (HY 351)
- American Civilization Since 1865 (HY 104)
Awards & Honors
- UA College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Teaching Fellowship (2022-2025)
- The University of Alabama National Alumni Association Outstanding Commitment to Teaching Award (2021)
- The John L. Blackburn Advisor of the Year Award (2021)
Selected Publications
- On Privacy: Twenty Lessons for Practical People, Hachette Book Group: Workman Publishing, forthcoming.
- None of Your Damn Business: A History of Privacy in the United States, University of Chicago Press, 2019.
- “These Machines Know Too Damn Much,” Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, 2022.
- “Reports that ‘Privacy is Dead’ Have Been Greatly Exaggerated,” The Wall Street Journal, Sep 5, 2017.
- “Big Iron and the Small Government: A History of Data Collection and Privacy in the United States,” Journal of Policy History, Vol. 28, No. 4, Fall 2016.
- “Can Government Function Without Privacy?” The Atlantic, November 1, 2015.
- “Privacy and the Profit Motive,” The Nation, May 4, 2015.
Current Projects
- Watched at Work: A History of Surveillance in the American Workplace.
- Co-Director (with Dr. Julia Brock) of the Birmingham Bar Association’s Oral History Project