Quiz Answers: St. Patrick's Day and Women's History Month

Thanks to all for taking the St. Patrick's Day and Women's History Month Quiz!

Below are the answers - for more see further below on Belva Lockwood and the Irish case reports, both featured in the quiz.

1. Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902); the Declaration of Independence. 

2. Belva Ann Lockwood (1830-1917), in Kaiser v. Stickney, 102 U.S. 176 (1880). She won her next case before the Supreme Court: United States v. Cherokee Nation, 202 U.S. 101 (1906), confirmed that the government owed the Cherokee an outstanding balance of $1,111,284.70 subject to fees.

3. Burnita Shelton Matthews (1894-1988); Constance Baker Motley (1921-2005). 

4. John Davies. Le primer report des cases & matters en ley resolues & adiudges en les Courts del Roy en Ireland. Dublin: Printed by Iohn Franckton, printer to the Kings most excellent Maiestie, 1615. 

5. All are true.

6. The Irish Jurist; first volume, first issue published November 4, 1848 (1848/1849 for year is fine).

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Belva Ann Lockwood matriculated at the National University Law School (later absorbed by George Washington) after being denied, based on gender, at several other D.C.-area schools. She also had to petition President Ulysses S. Grant to receive her diploma from National in 1873. In 1876, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to admit her to its bar; in 1879, they finally relented: Lockwood became the first woman admitted before that court. In 1880, she argued Kaiser v. Stickney, related to a debt payment, becoming the first woman to argue before the Supreme Court. Lockwood ran for U.S. President as the candidate for the National Equal Rights Party in 1880 and 1884, amidst a career of activism and legal work also with her husband. In 1906, she won in United States v. Cherokee Nation. Some of her achievements are captured on the Green Bag's terrific bobblehead; Jill Norgren has written excellent books and several other pieces (one here, and here) about Lockwood's trailblazing career. 

The first printed Irish case reports came not long after a difficult turning point in Irish history. At the culmination of the Tudor military reconquest in 1603, James I of England (r. 1603–1625) imposed English common law throughout Ireland, replacing an older Gaelic (Brehon) law and transforming Irish landholding and inheritance. For more on early Irish law, see this excellent reference guide by Janet Sinder.

John Davies (1569–1626) served as England’s attorney general in Ireland from 1606 and published the first Irish case reports, Le primer report des cases. He brought attention to law that was unique to Ireland: in the Case of Tanistry, for example, English primogeniture ran up against the custom of Irish royal inheritance by kin-group election. The complexity of Irish history and law could not in fact be immediately subjected to the new “common” law. The Library's copy of the reports is a rare first edition. The book is also our earliest imprint from Dublin, which soon became an important player in the legal printing trade. 

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections 

St. Patrick's Day and Women's History Month Quiz!

Welcome to our St. Patrick's Day and Women's History Month Quiz!

Answer the questions below to be entered to win swag from the bookstore!  The most correct entry wins $25 worth of swag from the Law School bookstore (t-shirts, mugs, hats, keychains, etc., or a combination), with a drawing in case of ties. UMN law students only are eligible.

Also available: an RBG prize - a poster of RBG by a local artist!

1. At the 1848 Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY, who presented the Declaration of Sentiments? Which document are the first lines modelled on?

2. Who was the first woman to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court?  Which case did she win, and what settlement did she win?

3. Who was the first woman to serve as a judge on a United States district court? Who was the first Black woman to serve as a judge on a United States district court?

4.  The first book of Irish case reports, printed in Dublin, was from what year?  Who printed the book?  (Searching the library catalog quickly should help; the book is in our collection.)

5.  Which if any of the following was not among the Irish Penal Laws affecting Catholics during some part of the 18th century (see this very good UMN Law Library site and database, or wikipedia for the short version, on Irish Penal Laws): 

a) prohibited from intermarrying with Protestants; b) prohibited from inheriting Protestant land; c) prohibited from serving in the Irish Parliament; d) prohibited from serving as lawyers and judges; e) prohibited from voting.

6.  What is the oldest Irish law journal and date of the first volume?

New Digital Exhibit: Horace R. Hansen and the Dachau War Crimes Trials

The Law Library is pleased to announce the release of a new digital exhibit this spring:

“A Witness to Barbarism: Horace R. Hansen and the Dachau War Crimes Trials”

Captain Horace R. Hansen (1910–1995), a St. Paul native and graduate of the University of Minnesota, was a lead prosecutor at the Dachau war crimes trials (1945–1947). Assigned to Dachau in October of 1945, Hansen served as a chief prosecutor in the War Crimes Division of the U.S. Third Army and prepared key concentration camp cases for trial before the American military tribunals.  Collectively, the Dachau Trials represented the largest prosecution of Nazi war criminals undertaken by the occupying American forces in post-war Germany.  

The Library’s digital exhibit details Horace Hansen’s World War II service as a soldier, war crimes investigator, and prosecutor.  It also describes the main Dachau concentration camp trial and the genesis of Hansen’s later book about his experience, Witness to Barbarism (2002).  The new exhibit is based on several generous donations from Mr. Hansen’s daughter, Jean Hansen Doth, now held in the Library’s Riesenfeld Rare Books Research Center.  Included on the digital site are a valuable series of documents and images, including the digitized transcript of United States v. Martin Gottfried Weiss, et al., the main Dachau camp trial.  Mr. Hansen’s wartime career bears direct witness to barbarism, and reflects on its legal remedies in a powerful way that still resonates today.

The new digital exhibit will be opened as a physical exhibit in the Riesenfeld Center in the fall.  For more information about the exhibit or the Hansen archival collection, please do not hesitate to contact me (rgreenwo@umn.edu; 612-625-7323).

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections