Collection Spotlight: Historical American Law

Historical American law is in many ways the heart of the Riesenfeld Center's rare books collection. Not unusually, the present rare books collection had its origin in the acquisition of law books needed for faculty and student use, and traces to the early years of the Law School. The Law Library itself can be traced to 1888, in the office of William Pattee, the School's first dean, whose collection included essential case reports, treatises and abridgements. A more formal Law Library (shown above) opened in 1899, in the Law School's new building in Pattee Hall, and quickly expanded. 

Arthur C. Pulling, the Law School's first Law Librarian, began a distinguished collecting tradition when he arrived in 1912. During his thirty-year tenure, he gathered a preeminent national collection of historical and contemporary law, with an understanding that historical volumes were necessary for principles and cases in the common law tradition and relevant in the courts of his own day. In the beginning, the Law Library had a great need for law reports, particularly from US state courts, and eagerly collected the American-authored treatises that began to proliferate in the late 19th century. Perhaps the first 'rare' book that Pulling collected, Daines Barrington's Observations on the More Ancient Statutes (1766), was an important historical commentary on English statutory law; Pulling also collected American classics, including commentaries on the Constitution by Joseph Story and on American law by James Kent. 

Beyond these, Pulling invested in colonial American session laws, essential pamphlets of the colonial period - often political in nature - and other works printed in America prior to 1800. Debates of state constitutional conventions, orders to muster and organize soldiers for the American Revolution, and early practice guides and justice of the peace manuals were also collected. These provide insight into the scope of Pulling's vision: he viewed all historical law as potentially useful, and beyond that appeared to have a completist's desire to collect in key jurisdictions (mainly England and America) in as great a depth as possible. Coming to Minnesota from Harvard, his goal was to emulate the institution that shaped his vision of what a law library should be.  

The following are two highlights from the Center's American law collection, both added to the collection not by Pulling but former curator Katherine Hedin, as part of a tradition that has continued to today. This "collection spotlight" series, based on our current exhibit and an award-winning Law Library publication, will showcase prominent collection areas within the Riesenfeld Center. 

Poor Richard Improved: Being an Almanack and Ephemeris ... for the Year of Our Lord 1766 (Philadelphia: Printed and Sold by B. Franklin, and D. Hall, 1765). 

No almanac was more popular in the colonies than Poor Richard’s, which made Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) a successful Philadelphia printer. With details on astrology, astronomy, agriculture, and colonial affairs, together with Franklin’s witty advice, the almanac appealed to a wide audience, selling thousands of copies annually. These compact almanacs are ephemeral works that are today scarce. This edition is remarkable for its inclusion of the new Stamp Act (1765), which kindled many colonists’ ire. Franklin, after hearing of colonial opposition while resident in London, made a speech before Parliament in early 1766 against the law, which was repealed soon after.

Elie Vallette, The Deputy Commissary’s Guide within the Province of Maryland: Together with Plain and Sufficient Directions f or Testators t o Form, and Executors t o Perform Their Wills and Testaments... (Annapolis: Printed by Ann Catharine Green and Son, 1774). 

Women were significant figures in early American printing. The first colonial publisher, Elizabeth Glover, oversaw the printing of the historic Bay Psalm Book (1640). Mary Katharine Goddard undertook the second printing of the Declaration of Independence, and the first to include its signatories. Anne Catharine Green (ca. 1720–1775), like Goddard a printer in Maryland, published newspapers and books with her husband and later with her children. The Deputy Commissary’s Guide, the first colonial work on wills and estates, features the only copper-plate engraved title page from colonial Maryland.

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections