Bobbleheads Exhibit Open House: Wednesday, March 2

All are invited to an open house this Wednesday, February 2, for the opening of the Law Library's 2016 spring exhibit:

"Equal Caricature Under Law: Supreme Court Bobbleheads by The Green Bag"

Wednesday, March 2, in the Riesenfeld Center (N30, Sub Plaza Level)

Open House: 12 noon - 4:00 p.m.

Snacks and refreshments will be served through the day.     

Artful and highly collectible, the Supreme Court bobbleheads depict historical and current justices with witty references to the justices' notable cases.  The bobbleheads are produced in limited runs, and are typically obtained only by receiving and redeeming a sought-after certificate.  The Law Library is proud to hold the only complete institutional collection of the figurines, apart from a similar collection at the Yale Law Library.  

The exhibit includes over 30 historical volumes drawn from the Riesenfeld Center's Arthur C. Pulling Rare Books Collection.  From the Federalist Papers to Brandeis's famous dissent in Olmstead v. United States, these volumes, and accompanying biographical information, highlight the featured justices' careers and their significant work.

2016 Spring Exhibit: "Equal Caricature Under Law: Supreme Court Bobbleheads by The Green Bag"

Bobbleheads of Justices Bader Ginsburg, Breyer,
Thomas and Scalia.

The University of Minnesota Law Library and Riesenfeld Center are pleased to announce the 2016 spring exhibits:

"Equal Caricature Under Law: Supreme Court Bobbleheads by The Green Bag"

"Equal Caricature Under Law: Supreme Court Bobbleheads by The Green Bag," showcases the complete set of Supreme Court bobbleheads produced by the entertaining (and scholarly) journal of law, The Green Bag.  Our collection was recently and generously donated by the Honorable James M. Rosenbaum ('69), Federal District Court Judge for the District of Minnesota (ret.).

Artful and highly collectible, the Supreme Court bobbleheads depict historical and current justices with witty references to the justices' notable cases.  The bobbleheads are produced in limited runs, and are typically obtained only by receiving and redeeming a sought-after certificate.  The Law Library is proud to hold the only complete institutional collection of the figurines, apart from a similar collection at the Yale Law Library.  

The exhibit includes over 30 historical volumes drawn from the Riesenfeld Center's Arthur C. Pulling Rare Books Collection.  From the Federalist Papers to Brandeis's famous dissent in Olmstead v. United States, these volumes, and accompanying biographical information, highlight the featured justices' careers and their significant work.

In addition to the bobblehead exhibit, our gallery also features an exhibit of the personal and judicial papers of the Honorable David S. Doty ('61), Senior Federal District Court Judge for the District of Minnesota.  Judge Doty served for over twenty years as the arbitrator for the National Football League collective bargaining agreement, and has decided numerous important criminal and civil cases.

"Equal Caricature Under Law: Supreme Court Bobbleheads by The Green Bag," and the personal and judicial papers of Judge David S. Doty, are on display in the Riesenfeld Rare Books Center from this Wednesday, March 2, through August 1, 2016.  There will be a digital version of the exhibit to follow.

The exhibits were designed and curated by Barbara Berdahl, Special Collections Assistant Librarian, Pat Graybill, Digital Technology Specialist, and Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections.  

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections

Clarence Darrow and Leopold and Loeb on PBS

Clarence Darrow at right, with defendants Leopold and Loeb
center (Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society)

The Riesenfeld Center holds the preeminent national collection of personal letters written by and to Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), as well as numerous books, pamphlets, and other writings by and about the great American trial attorney. The manuscript letters have been transcribed and digitized as part of the Law Library's award-winning Clarence Darrow Digital Collection. The Darrow Digital Collection is a full research portal that also includes a biography and timeline of Darrow's career, over two hundred images, a collection of important Darrow case materials and summaries, and a searchable Westlaw database of all Darrow cases and cases that refer to Darrow.

Last year, an associate producer at PBS contacted us to use one of our Darrow photographs in a documentary on the Leopold and Loeb "trial of the century." At the 1924 trial, one of the most controversial of Darrow's storied career, Darrow successfully mounted an insanity defense to save the lives of two wealthy young Chicagoans who murdered a boy simply, as they admitted, "for the thrill of it."

The PBS documentary on Leopold and Loeb, titled "The Perfect Crime," has now been broadcast as part of the PBS American Experience documentary series, and can be viewed online.  The film expertly captures the courtroom drama and describes Darrow's strategy on behalf of his doomed clients. The website for the documentary also features the Darrow Digital Collection as a source for further reading.

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections, and Michael Hannon, Associate Director for Access Services & Digital Initiatives

New Rare Titles on U.S. Constitutional Law

A replica of Fulton's steamer Clermont (Courtesy of the Library of Congress) 

Recently we acquired several interesting works related to 19th-century U.S. constitutional law. The earliest of these, "The Right of a State to Grant Exclusive Privileges" (New York, 1811), by iconic inventor Robert Fulton and his partner Robert Livingston, is a rare and impassioned defense of their state-granted steamboat monopoly on the Hudson River in New York, which had been challenged by boat operators in Albany.

Several years after Fulton's pamphlet, steamboat operator Aaron Ogden - granted the same exclusive rights of navigation between New York and New Jersey - squared off in court against his former business partner Thomas Gibbons. At stake was the great question of whether Congress or the states could regulate interstate commerce. A historic 1824 Supreme Court decision, led by John Marshall and based on the Constitution's Commerce Clause, settled the issue in favor of Congress and paved the way for expanded federal regulation. The pamphlet of Fulton and Livingston provides excellent context for the issue, including arguments on concurrent jurisdiction, the Commerce Clause and states' rights.

Another pamphlet related to monopolies, "The Opinion of Mess. Binney and Chauncey, on the Acts of the Legislature of New-Jersey" (Trenton, 1834), defends the right of a legislature to extend exclusive corporate privileges by contract, and to restrict a subsequent legislature's ability to rescind those rights. Three years later, the noted Charles River Bridge case (1837) was settled by the Supreme Court, which rejected asserted monopoly rights in a charter granted to the Charles River Bridge Company for their Massachusetts bridge. The New Jersey pamphlet provides contemporary background for these early constitutional issues.

Abraham Lincoln, by Abraham Byers (1858)

Two others are also notable. "The Decision of Chief Justice Taney, in the Merryman Case" (1862), contains Taney's opinion on the controversy over Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War. Merryman, a Maryland militia member, had been arrested and imprisoned for treason, and his writ of habeas corpus was rejected by his Union army jailers. US Supreme Court Justice Taney, then sitting as a federal circuit court judge, declared that only Congress could suspend habeas corpus. Lincoln replied publicly that the Constitution was silent on whether Congress or the President had the authority to suspend habeas corpus in times of rebellion or invasion, and that with Congress in recess, he was compelled to act.

Finally, Samuel Bassett's 1854 pamphlet, "An Address Made to the People," on the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, advocates state nullification of the Act and demands jury trials for alleged runaway slaves. Failure to fulfill that constitutional guarantee rendered the Act unconstitutional and void. The pamphlet was a particularly special find because there is only one other recorded copy in libraries.

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections    

Rare Swedish and Norwegian Law

Den Norske Low-Bog (Copenhagen, 1604)

Among the interesting historical collections at the Riesenfeld Rare Books Center are significant works of rare Swedish and Norwegian law. These books range from rare medieval law codes, to law dictionaries, to a British printing of Nazi documents seized on Norway's Lofoten Islands during WWII.

The Swedish collection comprises about 50 rare titles. The earliest volume, the Leges Suecorum Gothorumque (1614), is a collection of medieval Swedish law published in Stockholm early in the reign of King Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632), the monarch who transformed Sweden into an early modern power. Another of the early volumes, the Lexicon Juris Sveo-Gothici (Uppsala, 1665), defines and traces Swedish legal terms with reference to Roman law, not unlike the De Jure Sveonum et Gothorum Vetusto (Stockholm, 1672), a work on civil and criminal procedure.

Sverikes rikes lagh-boker (Stockholm, 1666)

Many of the early Swedish books have bookplates, signatures and annotations. These important features recently gained the attention of Visiting Professor Eric Bylander, from Uppsala University, who undertook research on the collection this past fall. A rare book collector and expert in heraldry, in addition to his modern legal expertise, Bylander uncovered in our Swedish books interesting connections to noted jurists, families and booksellers, and has continued his research back in Sweden.

The Norwegian law collection contains slightly fewer volumes, though a number are also notable. Among these is the Magnus Lagabøters landslov, an important 13th-century collection of laws promulgated by King Magnus VI (or Magnus Lagabøte, the Law-Mender) of Norway. This past November, Professor Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde visited the Law School from the University of Bergen to lecture on this collection. As Sunde noted, it was one of the most comprehensive law codes in medieval Europe and remained in force for over four centuries. Sunde is currently preparing a critical edition of the text based on a large and complex manuscript tradition, as part of a project he leads at Bergen.  

Notes in Sverikes rikes lagh-boker

    
Although our collection lacks any manuscripts of the Magnus Lagabøters landslov, the Riesenfeld Center was recently able to acquire a work containing the first printed edition of the text to add to the collection.


   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections