Wednesday, April 17: Celebrate Clarence Darrow's Birthday!

Come out and celebrate Clarence Darrow's birthday with the Law Library, next Wednesday, April 17!  

Pick up cake and donuts in honor of Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), America's legendary defense attorney. Don't forget to take a quiz about Darrow's life and career for prizes, and take a selfie with the legal giant. 

When: Wednesday, April 17, 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Where: Law Library lobby

What: Birthday cake, donuts, coffee, tea, and prizes!

The Law Library and Riesenfeld Center holds the preeminent collection of letters to and from Darrow, as well as works by and about the great attorney. For more information about Darrow, including some of his most famous cases, please see the Library's award-winning Darrow Digital Collection.

Wednesday, April 3: Rare Books Open House!

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

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

When: Wednesday, April 3, 12 p.m - 3 p.m.
Where: Riesenfeld Rare Books Research Center*
What: Rare books, bagged snacks and treats, and refreshments!

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

14th Annual Morris L. Cohen Student Essay Competition

The Legal History and Rare Books Special Interest Section (LH&RB-SIS) of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), in cooperation with The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., announces the Fourteenth Annual Morris L. Cohen Student Essay Competition. The competition is named in honor of Morris L. Cohen, late Professor Emeritus of Law at Yale Law School. 

The competition is designed to encourage scholarship and to acquaint students with the AALL and law librarianship, and is open to students currently enrolled in accredited graduate programs in library science, law, history, and related fields. Essays may be on any topic related to legal history, rare law books, or legal archives. The winner will receive a $1,000.00 prize from The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., and will be invited to present their paper to AALL members via webinar.

Winning and runner-up entries will be invited to submit their entries to UNBOUND: A Review of Legal History and Rare Books, the official journal of LH&RB. Past winning essays have gone on to be accepted by journals such as NYU Law Review, American Journal of Legal History, University of South Florida Law Review, William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law, the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, and the French Historical Review.

The entry form and instructions are available at the LH&RB website:

 

https://www.aallnet.org/lhrbsis/awards-grants/

Entries must be submitted by 11:59 p.m., on May 15, 2024 (EDT).

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.

When: Wednesday, March 13, 12 p.m - 3 p.m.
Where: Riesenfeld Rare Books Research Center*
What: Rare books, bagged snacks and treats, and refreshments!

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

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

 

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. 

When: Wednesday, February 7, 12 p.m - 3 p.m.
Where: Riesenfeld Rare Books Research Center*
What: Rare books, bagged snacks and treats, Valentine's candy, and refreshments!

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

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).