New Donation: The Darrows' Travelling Trunk And More

Last month, the Riesenfeld Center received an exciting donation to its Clarence Darrow Collection. The items were generously donated by Elva Paulson, an artist and great-niece of Ruby Darrow. The donation includes many items related to Clarence and Ruby’s travels together, as well as a new group of letters to and from Ruby. The Riesenfeld Center is grateful to Elva for this new donation, which adds to the Center’s preeminent collection of Darrow's letters, writings, books, and other material from his life and career.

We recently also received additional items from Elva, including Darrow’s traveling trunk, which nicely complements the travel memorabilia now in the collection. The traveling trunk, made by J.H. McNamara Trunk Works Co. in Chicago, is a unique tie to the famous attorney. Rivets in the side form Clarence's initials, "CSD," and there is also a travel sticker listing several hotels in the White Mountains in New Hampshire that were owned by Barron, Merrill, & Barron. The donation also includes a couple of handkerchiefs embroidered with Darrow's name and several new letters.

We’ve now been able to sift through all of the letters in the two donations, which range in content but largely consist of family correspondence. Two letters from Ruby (circa 1928) are addressed to her nephew, Fred Hamerstrom, Jr. (Elva Paulson’s father), to whom she writes with ideas about a fiction story he was working on. Ruby’s writing is always very expressive--she underlines often, uses dashes and exclamation points, and frequently connects a long list of short phrases. In one letter to Fred, Jr., she includes about ten pages of her narrative suggestions, including dialogue and critiques of the opening and closing parts of his story. She also provides ideas of who might be able to provide good feedback. She notes that she already sent the story along to George Eaton, “one of the cleverest writers of today in [the] magazine field” for advice ahead of presenting it to George T. Bye, who was a prominent literary agent at the time.

Ruby was interested in literature, which makes sense given that she was a journalist in Chicago at the time she met Clarence. We don’t know what happened to this story of Fred, Jr.’s, but it seems that his career aspirations changed soon after. In 1931, Fred married Frances Flint, and the two became notable naturalists and ornithologists. Both studied under Aldo Leopold at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and they are best known for their work with prairie chickens and raptors in central Wisconsin.

Other letters from the donation show the relationship between Ruby and her brother, Fred Sr., after Clarence’s death. Two letters from the early 1940s, from Fred to Ruby, detail family updates. The other letter, written a year later, gives information about his daily life on the east coast. He writes about a Paul Revere festival in his town, his daily walks, finances, and his reminiscences as he gets older. Fred tells Ruby, “I’ll understand perfectly that you can’t be writing so often,” though they remained in contact.  

All of the letters have given us more insight into Ruby’s family and her relationships, and we have learned more about her life after Darrow’s passing. The generous donation from Elva Paulson enhances our Clarence Darrow collection and will allow for further examination of Clarence and Ruby’s relationship and travel, in addition to insights about Ruby’s later life.

   - Sophia Daley, Archives and Digital Collections Associate

Student Prize Contest: Morris L. Cohen Essay Competition

The Legal History and Rare Books Section (LHRB) of the American Association of Law Libraries, in cooperation with The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., announces the 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. Professor Cohen’s scholarly work was in the fields of legal research, rare books, and historical bibliography.

The purpose of the competition is to encourage scholarship in the areas of legal history, rare law books, and legal archives, and to acquaint students with the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) and law librarianship. Essays may be on any topic related to legal history, rare law books, or legal archives. The competition is open to students currently enrolled in accredited graduate programs in library science, law, history, and related fields. Both full- and part-time students are eligible. Membership in AALL is not required.

The winner will receive a $1,000 prize from The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., and will present the essay at an LHRB-SIS sponsored webinar. The winner and runner-up will have the opportunity to publish their essays in LHRB-SIS’s online scholarly journal Unbound: A Review of Legal History and Rare Books.

The submission deadline for the competition is 11:59 p.m., June 30, 2026 (EDT). Please see more information about the contest below, including the application package:

Cohen Essay Contest Flyer

Cohen Essay Contest: Full Contest Information

Cohen Essay Contest: Application

New Donation: The Travels of Clarence and Ruby Darrow

The Law Library and Riesenfeld Center have recently received a wonderful new donation of letters to and from Ruby Darrow, and memorabilia related to Clarence and his wife Ruby's travels together abroad, particularly during 1929 and 1930, during an important period in their lives. The new donation, generously gifted by Elva Paulson, a relative of Ruby Darrow, adds to the Law Library's extraordinary collection of material related to Clarence Darrow's life and career and sheds further light on Clarence and Ruby's lives. 

The group of letters associated with Ruby reveal family details, such as support she offered for her young nephew's writing career, and some add to a small collection of material from Ruby's life after Clarence passed away in 1938. The collection of travel memorabilia documents Ruby and Clarence's travels to Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, particularly from 1929 and early 1930, and includes hundreds of postcards picturing locales that they visited, as well as itineraries, a passport, casino tickets, menus, photographs, hotel brochures, and more. Some of the material can be correlated by location to letters written and received by Darrow at the time. 

During the period when they were travelling, the Darrows were significantly affected by the "great" American stock market crash, beginning on October 24, 1929, which ended the "Roaring Twenties" and triggered the Depression. The growing reality of the new financial environment and anxiousness surrounding it appear in some of Clarence's letters, particularly those written to his son, Paul, which are housed in the Library's Darrow Collection. In letters from abroad, Darrow instructs Paul to look after family business arrangements, and receives word from other family members on how the crash has affected them. 

The Library's Darrow Collection holds more than one thousand letters to and from the great American trial attorney, as well as publications by and about Darrow, photos, selected case material, books from Darrow's library, and a small archive of documents from Ruby's later life. The new letters and travel memorabilia are a great addition to the Darrow collection and will enrich our knowledge of Clarence and Ruby. 

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections

Law Library and Riesenfeld Center Wins Award

The Law Library and Riesenfeld Rare Books Center has recently received an award from the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL). In recognition of the Riesenfeld Center’s digital exhibit, "Evolution on the Stand: Revisiting the Scopes Trial at 100," the Academic Law Libraries Special Interest Section (ALL-SIS) of AALL has awarded the Library its 2026 Digital Publication Award, honoring the exhibit’s significant contribution to legal literature that is born and remains digital. The Law Library has the unique honor of receiving four awards in the past six years from AALL for digital and print media that highlight its special collections. 

"Evolution on the Stand: Revisiting the Scopes Trial at 100" explores the history and legacy of the famed 1925 Scopes Trial as seen through the Law Library’s unique special collections. The exhibit emphasizes the role played at trial by Clarence Darrow, drawing upon the Library’s preeminent collection of Darrow’s letters and other writings, and also showcases the depth of the historical legal resources in the Library’s Riesenfeld Center. The site includes original court documents from the trial, speeches, debates, and other publications that shed light on its proceedings and aftermath, as well as detailed trial summaries and timelines to trace the longer history of a heated debate over the role of evolution in public education. 

The digital site was created by Michael Hannon ('98), Associate Director for Special Collections & Digital Initiatives, Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections, Joy Brown, Law Library Digital Technology Specialist, and Sophia Daley, Archives and Digital Collections Associate. 

Wednesday, April 15: Celebrate Clarence Darrow's Birthday!

Come out and celebrate Clarence Darrow's birthday with the Law Library, next Wednesday, April 15!  

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 15, 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.

Early State Law Collection Cataloged

The Library and Riesenfeld Center has an exceptionally strong collection of colonial American law and early state laws. These materials include an extensive set of colonial session laws, which forms the basis of these treasures. In addition, pamphlets and political works from the Revolutionary era, state constitutions (on which the Constitution is based), and early law reports and practice guides substantially chart the development of the American legal system from the colonial period through the early republic. Early US state material is also a historically valuable and interesting area in the collection. Considered as falling within a state's territorial period, and up through about 1875 or at least within ten years of statehood (if statehood was achieved later), these texts are represented in the Center's collections by foundational constitutional documents and legislative debates, the earliest session laws, rules of order, procedural manuals, treatises, addresses and reports by the government, as well as case reports.  

This important collection has been cataloged over many years, a project that has recently been completed. Cataloging librarian and rare books cataloger Sarah Yates, along with (now retired) cataloger Claire Stuckey, have heroically cataloged these materials to accurately describe the Library's collection and make it more discoverable, sometimes with notes about the material reflecting the uniqueness of our volumes. 

Much of the material has strong interest for state and national history. As an example, a volume of Rhode Island session laws from 1779 provides extensive details about state militia forces, payments, and mobilization during the Revolutionary War. Another volume of laws from Vermont in 1789, contemporary with the first American Congress, features handwritten descriptions of a boy's work in the fields along with hand-drawn images. 

Pictured here is also an interesting volume of city ordinances from New York (1799), regulating a host of activities, from selling meat and bread to keeping animals off the streets (on the latter of which, see a notable article by Henrik Hartog). The signature on the title page of the volume is "Jacob de la Montaigne," an alderman of the city who with other council members passed the ordinances. De la Montaigne was also an alderman in 1804, when the city council among other provisions suspended the law prohibiting the ringing of bells at funerals, in order to mourn the death of famous New Yorker Alexander Hamilton. Taken together, the state volumes with their unique associations and annotations form a rich collection. 

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections

Wednesday, April 1: Rare Books Open House!

Come out to the Riesenfeld Center's open house for April, next 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, April 1, 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.) 

Wednesday, March 4: Rare Books Open House!

Come out to the Riesenfeld Center's open house for March, next 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, March 4, 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.) 

Riesenfeld Center Workshop: The Woodart Collection

In the Riesenfeld Center, one of the most interesting small archives is the Woodart Collection, consisting of eleven documents related to the remarkable life of Anna Petronella Woodart. Born into slavery in 18th-century Jamaica, Woodart was manumitted in 1756 by her father, a wealthy English plantation owner, and named in his will as his only natural daughter and sole heir to his fortune. In 1760 and 1762, Anna was granted full English rights and privileges in Jamaica and England, and was soon married, at about age seventeen, to an English merchant named James Williams, an arrangement that likely was made by her guardians and the estate's trustees. Anna had several children with James and appeared to live comfortably, in part due to an annual income from the estate. The Woodart collection sheds important light on the terms of Anna's marriage, she and her husband's property and her father's (and uncle's) estates. But much is still unknown about her life and children, even the places of her residence, some of which may come to light with additional research. 

  
Several weeks ago, attendees from UMN's Center for Premodern Studies (CPS) and the University Libraries visited the Riesenfeld Center for a discussion of the Woodart Collection, as part of CPS's workshop series, "Interrogating Archives." The archive raised interesting questions for the participants regarding Anna's family and children and the still unknown information about her life. It also raised important questions about Anna's freedom and legal agency, since she was part of a family property strategy and one that led to Anna and her husband becoming the owners of enslaved people, creating a complex and difficult legacy. The Woodart Collection has also been used by several scholars and referenced in publications, including an article by Brooke Newman and a book by Daniel Livesay. We hope that the good discussion will be a stimulus to further work and reflection, not least because interesting parts of Anna's story are yet to be told. Many thanks to the workshop's participants for their comments and to my colleague Sophia Daley for co-hosting the archives session. 

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections

Monday, December 8: Finals Study Break!

Come out Monday, December 8, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., for a study break during finals! 

Grab coffee and freshly baked donuts outside the Riesenfeld Rare Books Center in N30.  

The Rare Books Center is on the Subplaza, at the end of the hallway past Common Grounds and Student Orgs in N20.

When: Monday, December 8, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Where: Outside the Riesenfeld Rare Books Center (N30, subplaza level). 

What: Coffee and donuts!

Good luck on finals, and best wishes for the holidays from the Law Library!

Thursday, November 20: 80th Anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials

Join the Riesenfeld Rare Books Research Center and Human Rights Center on Thursday, November 20, for an open house and display commemorating the 80th anniversary of the opening of the Nuremberg Trials on November 20, 1945. 

The open house and display will feature material from the Center's archives related to St. Paul native Horace Hansen, a lead prosecutor at the Dachau Trials, as well as information about Minnesota legal professionals with connections to the Nuremberg trials.

Bagged snacks and drinks will be provided.

What: 80th Anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials Open House

Where: Riesenfeld Rare Books Research Center, N30*

When: 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday, November 20

* The Center is located on the Subplaza, past Legal Grounds Cafe.

Tuesday, November 11: Law Library Movie Night!

All are invited to the Law Library and Riesenfeld Center's fall 2025 Movie Night, on Tuesday, November 11, from 3:30 to 6 p.m.!

Enjoy pizza, popcorn, candy and pop, and an evening of classic cinema, featuring Inherit the Wind (1960)! 

What: Inherit the Wind (1960), 

When: 3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday, November 11

Where: Room 20 (subplaza) 

There will be a short quiz for two Law School sweatshirt prizes afterwards, and brief discussion of the movie's fidelity to the trial.

Inherit the Wind (1960) brought The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes (1925) to cinematic life, portraying the battle between Darwinian evolution and creationism in a form that captured the fireworks of the landmark courtroom showdown between Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan.   

Don’t miss this memorable film that (sometimes with inadvertent, campy humor) fictionalized the trial that shook a nation.

The screening is part of the Library and Riesenfeld Center's commemorations of the Scopes Trial and its yearlong exhibit currently open in the Riesenfeld Center.

Wednesday, October 29: Halloween Open House!

All are invited to the Riesenfeld Rare Books Center's special Halloween Open House on Wednesday, October 29, from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.! 

Come out to see spooky treasures from our collection, including books on witchcraft trials, macabre murders, the fate of 'bloody' hanging judges, and manuals of judicial torture - and pick up free snacks, drinks, and Halloween candy!

Come out in costume and get a picture on our Tumblr page!

When: Wednesday, Oct. 29th, 12 p.m - 3 p.m.
Where: Riesenfeld Rare Books Center*
What: Rare books, snacks, drinks, candy and costumes!

*The Center is in N30 on the Subplaza, on the hallway past Legal Grounds Cafe and N20.) 

New Riesenfeld Center Acquisitions: Clarence Darrow

The Riesenfeld Center recently acquired several items to add to its preeminent collection of letters, publications and trial material from the career of legendary defense attorney, Clarence Darrow (1857-1938). A new letter from Darrow concerns a dinner party held in 1931 to honor Lincoln Steffens, the noted American journalist, with an image of the seated attendees in New York. An enclosed list of attendees shows that Darrow was still associated with many of the journalists late in his career that he had known much earlier, including his old friend Steffens. Darrow's friendships and associations with journalists like Steffens and H. L. Mencken helped considerably to promote his trials and the social issues on which he frequently spoke and debated, often to large crowds across the country. Present at the tribute dinner was also Edward Bernays, a pioneer of American public relations and political psychology who contributed significantly to the war efforts in WWI and WWII. 

Another is a copy of "Big" Bill Haywood's autobiography (1929), with original illustrated dust jacket and formerly owned by women's rights activist Clarina Michelson. The feared Haywood was one of Darrow's important clients, a founding member of the International Workers of the World (IWW, or "Wobblies") and a controversial American labor leader. Darrow successfully defended Haywood against a murder charge in 1907, cementing his reputation as perhaps the nation's foremost defense attorney. The Library and Riesenfeld Center's Darrow Collection also features a partial transcript from the famous murder case, the separately-printed closing arguments of the prosecution and defense, and letters related to the case. As a renowned labor lawyer during the first half of his career, Darrow defended Eugene Debs and prevailed in several high-profile cases that are part of the Library's extensive Darrow Digital Collection. 

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections

New Library Digital Exhibit: The Scopes Trial at 100

The Law Library and Riesenfeld Center are pleased to announce the release of a new digital exhibit:

“Evolution on the Stand: Revisiting the Scopes Trial at 100” 

The digital exhibit commemorates the centennial anniversary of one of America’s most storied courtroom dramas, The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes. The 1925 trial of John Scopes, accused of violating a Tennessee law prohibiting the teaching of evolution, became a national sensation and the focal point of a public debate over the roles of science and religion in public education. The digital exhibit highlights the Law Library’s preeminent collection of famed defense attorney Clarence Darrow’s letters, publications, photographs, and trial materials. The digital exhibit also preserves and builds upon a physical exhibit that is open in the Riesenfeld Rare Books Center throughout 2025. The new digital site adds to and expands the series of digital research sites and exhibits that are available as part of the Library's digital special collections. 

The new digital exhibit features more than forty items drawn from the Riesenfeld Center's rare books collection, including letters, original trial documents, witness statements, inscribed books, speeches, and debates. In addition, there are daily trial summaries and transcripts, and timelines that contextualize the Scopes trial within a larger debate on the history of evolutionary thought and the roles of science and religion in American public education.  

“Evolution on the Stand: Revisiting the Scopes Trial at 100” was created by Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections Ryan Greenwood, Archives & Digital Collections Associate Sophia Daley, Digital Technology Specialist Joy Brown, and Associate Director for Access Services & Digital Initiatives Michael Hannon.

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections

Wednesday, October 1: Rare Books Open House!

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

Enjoy snacks and drinks, and tour historical treasures from the library's rare books and special collections.  The material in the Riesenfeld Center includes more than 25,000 volumes of rare and special texts printed from the fifteenth through twenty-first centuries, the Law School archives, and unique modern manuscript collections.

When: Wednesday, October 1, 12 p.m - 3 p.m.

Where: Riesenfeld Rare Books Research Center*

What: Rare books, bagged snacks and treats, candy, and refreshments!

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

Wednesday, September 24: Exhibit Open House!

All are invited to our fall exhibit open house, next Wednesday, from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.!

"Evolution on the Stand: Revisiting the Scopes Trial at 100"

When: Wednesday, September 24, 12 p.m. - 4 p.m.

Where: Riesenfeld Rare Books Research Center (N30, Subplaza level, past Legal Grounds and Student Orgs. in N20).

Snacks, fruit, and refreshments will be served!

One of our most storied courtroom dramas, the 1925 Scopes Trial became a national sensation and the focal point of a public debate over the places of evolution and religion in public education. At trial and on appeal, the defense team aimed to test the constitutionality of a Tennessee law that prohibited teaching that humans were the product of Darwinian evolution. 

The trial did not resolve contemporary tensions between science and fundamentalist religion, but rather thrust them further into the national consciousness. Over the past century, the Scopes Trial has continued to influence public discourse about the teaching of evolution and the role of religion in public schools. For its impacts in the courtroom and classroom, the Scopes Trial remains an fascinating chapter in American legal and cultural history.

“Evolution on the Stand: Revisiting the Scopes Trial at 100,” commemorates the centennial of the case, inviting viewers to revisit the trial’s cultural context, as well as its prominent figures, issues, and legacy. The exhibit highlights the role played at trial by famed defense attorney Clarence Darrow, and the University of Minnesota Law Library’s Clarence Darrow Collection, more than 1,000 letters written by and to the great trial attorney, together with speeches, debates and other material by and about Darrow. Drawn from this collection, the exhibit spotlights letters, books, pamphlets, cultural artifacts, and a series of original court documents from the case. 

“Evolution on the Stand: Revisiting the Scopes Trial at 100” was curated by Ryan Greenwood, Sophia Daley, Joy Brown, and Michael Hannon.

Wednesday, September 17: Celebrate Constitution Day!

Come out and celebrate Constitution Day in the Law Library lobby! 

Stop by and grab donuts and coffee on Wednesday, September 17, and pick up a crossword puzzle about the US Constitution for prizes. Collect a pocket copy of the Constitution also!

Don't forget to take a selfie with James Madison!   

When: Wednesday, September 17, 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Where: Law Library Lobby
What: Donuts, Coffee, Tea and Prizes! 

Celebrating the Minnesota-Uppsala Exchange Program

More than forty years ago, in 1982, the University of Minnesota Law School and Uppsala University's Faculty of Law began an international exchange program that continues to this day. The program represents a rich tradition of faculty and student exchange, travel and friendship that continues to connect hundreds of present and former participants across the globe.

The Minnesota-Uppsala exchange program is one of the oldest of its kind in the world. It was first proposed as the result of a visit to Minnesota by John Eric Wickstrom, Sweden’s former Minister of Education, in late 1980. Minnesota Law School Dean Robert Stein and Uppsala Faculty of Law Dean Anders Agell discussed the proposed exchange program in 1981. Their plan was finalized in 1982 and included the exchange of faculty, students and library resources between the two schools. Uppsala Professor Stig Strömholm, a towering figure in Swedish academia, served as the first faculty member to participate in the exchange, in the fall semester of 1982. This marked a grand beginning for the program, which has sent countless students and faculty between the two schools since that time.      

This week Minneapolis and Uppsala, Sweden, will proudly celebrate the 25th anniversary of their “sister city” relationship, a fruitful partnership that brings a delegation of distinguished visitors from Uppsala to Minneapolis for a series of events.

As part of the visit and celebrations, the University of Minnesota Law School and the Uppala University Faculty of Law will honor the long history of the exchange program between the two schools with the launch, on September 15, 2025, of a new commemorative volume of De lege, the Uppsala Law Faculty’s annual scholarly publication. The new volume features a terrific collection of reflections by faculty and students who participated in the exchange program since its inception in 1982.  

As a companion to the September 15 launch and celebration of the Minnesota-Uppsala exchange program, the Riesenfeld Center has contributed a display, which can be seen in the Law School foyer, drawn from the De lege volume and showcasing images of exchange program events and participants through the years.  

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections

Jewels of the Collection Available Online

The Law Library and Riesenfeld Center have made available online its award-winning print publication, Jewels of the Collection (University of Minnesota Law Library, 2023), which presents an extensive selection of treasures and an overview of the history and collection strengths of the Riesenfeld Rare Books Center. 

The publication won the 2024 Joseph L. Andrews Legal Literature Award from the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL). The Andrews Award recognizes significant textual contributions to legal bibliographical literature and is one of the most prestigious awards presented by AALL. The award criteria evaluate works for originality and creativity, and honor publications in legal bibliography, legal research, and those that advance the field of law librarianship.

Jewels of the Collection is a catalog of one hundred selected items from the Riesenfeld Rare Books Center's collections. Its aim is to introduce rare and unique legal materials that explore a global legal heritage. The catalog's selections are accompanied by detailed descriptions that explain their significance and place them in historical context. Included in the publication are many books, pamphlets, letters, and other documents that represent important contributions to law and history, or are landmark 'firsts' of legal literature. Other items are notable for associations with famous authors and owners, such as Clarence Darrow, whose preeminent collection of letters is held at the Riesenfeld Center. Still others have been selected because they stand as unique artifacts and works of art. The volume trains a spotlight on works that provide important insights into the historical development, and progress, of diverse traditions of law.

Jewels of the Collection was co-authored by Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections, and Patrick Graybill, the former Library Digital Initiatives Technologist, with editorial support from law librarians Michael Hannon, Connie Lenz, and Sarah Yates. Publications authored or edited by University of Minnesota Law librarians have now won the Joseph L. Andrews Award five times, a remarkable achievement.