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Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Wednesday, March 13: Rare Books Open House!

Come out to the Riesenfeld Center's rare books open house for March, this Wednesday, from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.!

Enjoy snacks and drinks, and see treasures from the library's rare books and special collections! This month we highlight in particular Women's History month and St. Patrick's Day.

WhenWednesday, March 13, 12 p.m - 3 p.m.
WhereRiesenfeld Rare Books Research Center*
WhatRare books, bagged snacks and treats, and refreshments!


(*The Riesenfeld Center is in N30, on the subplaza past Student Orgs. in N20.)



Sunday, February 4, 2024

Dachau Exhibit Features Horace Hansen Collection Images

In 2021, The Riesenfeld Center released a digital exhibit commemorating the World War II career of Horace Hansen (1910-1995). Hansen was a St. Paul native and
 a chief prosecutor overseeing the main Dachau war crimes trials in occupied Germany. In that role, from 1945 to 1946, Hansen and his staff gathered evidence and prepared cases for trial at Dachau, representing the Dachau main camp trial, and the Buchenwald and Mauthausen camp trials. The trials held at the Dachau concentration camp became the largest prosecution of war crimes undertaken by American forces, resulting in more than 1,400 convictions. The Riesenfeld Center's digital exhibit features narrative accounts of Hansen's military service and war crimes investigations. In addition, the exhibit includes trial transcripts from the Dachau trials, images, and documents from Hansen's personal collection of papers, kindly donated to the Library by Jean Hansen Doth, Hansen's daughter. 


In 2022, the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, located at the notorious Nazi camp, opened a new exhibit, "Dachau Trials - Crimes, Proceedings, Responsibility." The exhibit commemorates the Dachau war crimes prosecutions, the devastating testimony and the criminal judgments passed against the accused camp staff and guards. The exhibit was opened on the 77th anniversary of the day of Dachau's liberation in 1945 and has now been extended through the end of 2024. In the exhibit, Horace Hansen has also found a place, by way of photographs he took as evidence of war crimes, and photos captured by the government at the Dachau trials that are contained in the Center's Hansen Collection. The latter images were used by the US Army to publicize and memorialize the tribunal's proceedings. We are grateful to contribute digital images to the exhibit at the Dachau Memorial, which will soon feature a virtual tour for online visitors.

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections




 

Saturday, February 3, 2024

Wednesday, February 7: Rare Books Open House!

Come out to the Riesenfeld Center's first rare books open house of the semester, this Wednesday, from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.!

Enjoy snacks and drinks, and see treasures from the library's rare books and special collections. 

WhenWednesday, February 7, 12 p.m - 3 p.m.
WhereRiesenfeld Rare Books Research Center*
WhatRare books, bagged snacks and treats, Valentine's candy, and refreshments!


(*The Riesenfeld Center is in N30, on the subplaza past Student Orgs. in N20.)



Friday, January 19, 2024

Riesenfeld Center Exhibit: Jewels of the Collection Expanded

The Riesenfeld Center's current exhibit, "Jewels of the Collection: Treasures of the Riesenfeld Rare Books Research Center," showcases the depth of the Law Library's special collections.
The Arthur C. Pulling Rare Books Collection, housed in the Riesenfeld Rare Books Research Center, comprises more than 35,000 volumes printed across six continents between the fifteenth century and today. The current exhibit features selected treasures from the Pulling Collection, as well as the Law School archives, and the Library's signature Clarence Darrow Collection, which contains more than 1,000 letters to and from the great American defense attorney.
 
The exhibit has recently been expanded, adding in particular items from the Center's American Indian Law Collection and Hermann Kantorowicz Collection. The exhibit highlights early and rare treaties, laws, and foundational cases from the American Indian collection, as well as modern manuscripts and an annotated personal copy of an influential work on jurisprudence by the German jurist Hermann Kantorowicz, whose library is held in the Riesenfeld Center's collections. 
 
Some of the treasures in the current exhibit have been selected for inclusions as important contributions to law and history, or as landmark “firsts” of legal literature. Others are notable for their associations with famous authors and owners, or because they stand as unique artifacts and works of art. Section introductions and descriptions in the exhibit place the works in their historical contexts and indicate their enduring value. The items reflect a historical legal legacy that is both national and global in its scope. We invite visitors to browse the exhibit and learn more about the richness of the Law Library’s collections.
 
 
The exhibit, "Jewels of the Collection: Treasures of the Riesenfeld Rare Books Research Center," was curated by Ryan Greenwood and Joy Brown.  
 
For more information about the exhibit or to schedule a tour, please contact Ryan Greenwood (rgreenwo@umn.edu; 612-625-7323). 



 

Thursday, December 7, 2023

Finals Study Break: Tuesday, December 12!

Come out next Tuesday for a study break during finals!  
 
Grab coffee and fresh-baked donuts outside the Riesenfeld Rare Books Center. 
 
When: Tuesday, December 12, 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. 
Where: Outside the Riesenfeld Rare Books Center (N30, on the subplaza past Student Orgs. in N20)
What: Coffee and donuts!  
 
Good luck on finals, and best wishes for the holidays from the Law Library!
 


 
 
 

Friday, December 1, 2023

New Darrow Acquisitions & Darrow’s Library

The Riesenfeld Center has recently acquired several new items relating to Clarence Darrow’s interests and career, as well as those of his wife, Ruby. These items join the Law Library’s Darrow collection, which includes more than 1,000 letters, as well as books, speeches, debates, trial briefs and transcripts, and other material about Darrow and his noteworthy career and life. To learn more about Darrow, you can visit our award-winning digital research site, which makes available extensive material from our collection.

 

Two of the library’s newest acquisitions are pamphlets featuring some of Darrow’s work. The first, an issue of the leftist periodical The Debunker published in 1931, features Darrow’s essay, “Absurdities of the Bible.” Darrow, a known agnostic, delves into a handful of stories from the Bible, including the creation of Adam and the performing of several miracles. Darrow states that “I am an agnostic because I trust my reason…Anybody who can believe those old myths and fables isn’t governed by reason.”


Another new pamphlet to the collection relates to Benjamin Gitlow, a communist whose civil liberties Darrow defended in a noted ‘Red Scare’ trial in 1920. Gitlow, a member of the Labor Committee of the Communist Labor Party and a staffer for the left-wing magazine The Revolutionary Age, was tried under New York’s Criminal Anarchy Act of 1902. This was done on the grounds that the magazine’s printing of the Left Wing Manifesto constituted encouragement of the violent overthrow of the government. Darrow was hired as part of the defense team, and his speech in Gitlow’s defense is excerpted in this pamphlet. Ultimately, Gitlow was found guilty and sentenced to five to ten years of hard labor, being released in 1922 after successful appeals.


We have also acquired several books belonging to Darrow and members of his family. The first, Darrow’s wife Ruby’s copy of The Summing Up, by Somerset Maugham, connects to several letters in our collection, in which Ruby discusses Maugham, his books, and his relationship to Darrow. This copy features pasted-in newspaper clippings related to Maugham and penciled-in annotations by Ruby, showing her admiration for Maugham and proving this to be a well-read copy of his work. We also acquired two books belonging to Darrow’s son, Paul. The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball that Floats in the Air was a Christmas gift inscribed to Paul from Darrow in 1889, when Paul was six. The other, Sailor on Horseback, by Irving Stone, was inscribed to Paul and his wife with a note about Stone’s biography on Darrow that was to come: “I pledge myself to give everything I’ve got to make the Clarence Darrow biography at least as good as this book, and I hope a great deal better.”


Two other books with inscriptions to Darrow also join our collection. The Life and Adventures of Carl Laemmle, by John Drinkwater, includes a warm inscription written to Darrow by the author. Laemmle was an influential German-American film producer, who produced Mystery of Life (1931), a film about evolution, which Darrow narrated and appeared in. The Child You Used to Be was sent by the author, Leonora Pease, to Darrow. While most of our collection includes kind notes to Darrow, this one includes a criticism of Darrow’s novel, Farmington: “To Clarence Darrow--A man who wrote a human boy’s book, with allusions in it to little girls, all dressed up and sitting in a row like dolls or painted angels, I offer this c[h]ronicle of real ‘little girlhood.’”


This assortment of books joins our growing collection of materials owned by Darrow and members of his family. We are excited to have created a new collection designation for these materials, which allows for browsing the interests and relationships found through this associative ownership. All of these new acquisitions provide additional context and depth to what we know about Darrow’s beliefs, career, and relationships, viewed through the collection.

 

- Sophia Charbonneau, Special Collections Assistant 

 

Monday, November 6, 2023

Thursday, November 9: Book Talk by Professor John Bessler on the Death Penalty

On Thursday, November 9, please join us for a book launch event for Professor John Bessler (U. Baltimore School of Law)
, sponsored by the Law School's Human Rights Center
 
Bessler's talk, based on his recently published book, "The Death Penalty's Denial of Fundamental Human Rights," will detail how capital punishment violates universal human rights-to-life; to be free from torture and other forms of cruelty; to be treated in a non-arbitrary, non-discriminatory manner; and to dignity. 
 
The talk will open with remarks on the history of the death penalty and torture, and capital punishment reform, featuring books from the Arthur C. Pulling Rare Books Collection at the Riesenfeld Center.
 
Professor Bessler will be joined by discussants Amy Bergquist and Professor Ryan Greenwood. 
 
Click here for more information or to register for the event.

When: Thursday, November 9 at 4:00-5:00 p.m.
Where: Mondale Hall, Room 35
 
Reception with light snacks to follow.
 
1 standard CLE credit is available. Event code #493912.