Biddleblog

What an exciting week at the Archives! I had a patron come all the way from the hinterlands of Norway to conduct research in arguably our most valuable records: The American Law Institute's "Statement of Essential Human Rights" Collection. (More after the jump.)

Biddle has created a new exhibit that showcases some of the materials culled from the National Bankruptcy Archives. (More after the jump.)

Last week, the Copyright Office's Section 108 Study Group released a report that suggests changes in current copyright law for the benefit of librarians and their patrons. (More after the jump.)

Last spring, the Archives was happy to receive a grant from the ACTEC Foundation to process the papers of Richard V. Wellman. 

Dick Wellman was a professor at University of Michigan Law School and, later, University of Georgia School of Law.  But he is probably best known as the chief reporter (and, later, Executive Director of the Joint Editorial Board) for the Uniform Probate Code, first promulgated by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Law (NCCUSL) and the American Bar Association in 1969.  Like the Uniform Commerical Code, the Uniform Probate Code sought to streamline and simplify a vast area of the law: in this case, laws governing wills, estates, and intestacy.  Wellman's papers represent a significant addition to the NCCUSL Archives, which are located right here at Penn Law.

Wellman's efforts to encourage states to adopt the UPC lasted his entire career, even up to his death in 2005, as evidenced by the correspondence that the Archives has between Wellman and state representatives from that year.  Wellman's lifelong advocy for the UPC was not gone unnoticed; at a 2001 symposium on the UPC at Albany Law School, a colleague tasked with introducing Wellman referred to the professor as, simply, "Mr. UPC."

The generous funding from ACTEC has allowed us to hire a graduate student in library science to process Wellman's papers under my supervision.  Her name is Doris Wang.  She'll be writing some blog entries every now and again to provide you with a window into the process by which an archival collection is organized and made available to researchers.  She'll also attempt to provide you with a better understanding of how Wellman's papers reflect the nature of his groundbreaking work on the UPC.  Some of those papers include:

• Wellman's hand-drafted notes on early versions of the UPC
• The first official draft of the UPC from a 1967 meeting.
• State-by-state files kept by Wellman in his efforts to get the UPC enacted and the issues surrounding those efforts.

Doris and I look forward to helping you learn more about the professional career of this important figure in American law.

Thanks to a generous contribution from the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, the National Bankruptcy Archives, located here at Penn Law School, was able to shoot a promotional video providing more information about the Archives' unique holdings.  You can watch the video below.

Stepping into the processing area of the Biddle Law Library Archives, one can easily be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of great collections stored there--especially when one's previous archival experience amounts to two cartons processed over the period of a four-month semester!  However, I'm up the for the challenge.  As Jordon indicated in his previous post, the collection I will be organizing are the papers of Richard V. Wellman, Director of the Uniform Probate Code.  And this is only a tiny fraction of what is actually in the archives.  (More after the jump.)

I was excited to finish processing recently a small but very interesting collection: 12 notebooks filled with the research and lectures of former Penn Law Professor John Dickinson.

Born in Maryland in 1894, Dickinson was born into a legal history pedigree: he was a direct descendant of another John Dickinson, a Founding Father and lawyer who had authored the first draft of the Articles of Confederation. 

The younger Dickinson excelled in Greek and Latin from an early age, graduating from Princeton at the age of 19.  From there, Dickinson taught American and Medieval history before returning to Princeton to earn his Ph.D.  In 1919, the newly minted Professor Dickinson immediately enrolled in law school at Harvard, where he received his LL.B. in 1921.  While practicing law in New York and Los Angeles, Dickinson explored his lifelong passion of writing.  His efforts culminated in the 1927 publication of Administrative Justice and the Supremacy of Law in the United States, widely considered a legal classic.  After turning down offers from Harvard and Yale, Dickinson arrived at Penn Law School in 1929.  He would remain here until his retirement in 1948.

For nearly 20 years, Dickinson embodied the spirit of interdisciplinary study promoted by the Law School, teaching on a range of topics, including constitutional law, legal theory, and Greco-Roman law.  It was this last interest that inspired Dickinson to return to his roots in the classics to write a sprawling study of Western thought from the Ancient era to the present.  The centerpiece of the work was to be an in-depth study of Roman law and institutions.  Sadly, the manuscript was never completed, as Dickinson died suddenly in 1952 from an embolism.

The notebooks that the Law School Archives just accessioned include Dickinson's handwritten notes in drafting the book.  One volume is particularly interesting: it's a series of lectures that Dickinson might have given in one of his classes on the laws of Ancient Greece and Rome.  Below is a picture I captured of one of these lectures:



At the time of the scholar's passing, Dickinson's colleague, fellow Penn Law Professor George Haskins, wrote of Dickinson in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, "Seldom has anyone combined such a unique versatility and competence in so many fields of learning and endeavor.  A scholar of of world repute and a leader among men and in affairs, he died in the prime of life, his course not run."  Dickinson's final manuscript may have never been published, but the Archives is honored to have records of his preliminarly work. 

If you're interested in taking a look at Professor Dickinson's notes, contact me or drop by the Archives.

Coming into this project, I had assumed that all the materials I would be working with would be documents in nature.  The first couple of boxes I cracked open and accessioned seemed to agree with this.  However, during the accessioning stage, the Richard Wellman Papers yielded some surprising finds--as you can see above, not everything in an archival collection is made of paper.

 

 

In preparation for a researcher who was visiting the American Law Institute Archives, I was reviewing some Executive Director files when I came across the following letter, excerpted here:

Who's it from?

 

Continuing a thread from my previous post, I discovered a couple of other non-paper items in the Wellman Papers:  a cassette tape and 3.5 inch diskette.  Both of these data formats in today's world are pretty much obsolete.  This leads me to a question:  How do archivists address these materials especially if the institution does not have the equipment read the data from these forms of information storage?

The first thought that I popped in mind in relation to the diskette was, "Where on earth would I find a computer nowadays with a floppy disk drive?"  As we well know, computers and their users now employ external hard drives, flash drives, cd-roms, and dvd-roms to store their files. 

This thought, in turn, lead me to remember a computer I had used as an undergraduate that was still at my parents house, but I was not about to travel all the way to my parents home just to view the contents of the diskette!  In addition, even if I were to take up the task of traveling the distance, would the diskette be readable or had it degraded with time as computer storage devices often do with the passage of time?

This is when an archivist takes up the mantle of a detective or an archaeologist.  Using the context of the diskette, in this case the diskette was found in a manila envelope with a copy of a draft document.  I think it would be safe to infer that the diskette found with the draft copy contained an electronic copy of the paper draft.  The case for this argument seemed to be proven by the contents of the letter found with the draft and diskette.

In comparison, the cassette tape looked to be a remnant of the early 1980s.  The cassette brand did not match the name of any brand that I believe to still be available on the market.  I also had to think of the potential degradation of the magnetic tape found in the cassette.  This especially has to be considered when one doesn't know where the plastic case containing the cassette had been stored prior to current home here at Biddle.  Had the box been stored properly in a temperature-controlled environment and stored in the appropriate boxes and folders?  It's hard to say.  And unlikely, says Jordon.

Going back to the quandary I brought up before, how does one view the contents of these non-document materials especially if the equipment is not readily available?  When I put this question to Jordon he casually brought up a similar situation he had experienced.  Through online forums, he had asked the local archival community for a specific media player to play an old videotape, and had enlisted the help of another department at Penn for the equipment to read a corrupted diskette.  I thought both methods showed ingenuity and demonstrate a willingness between departments, organizations, and individual archivists to help each other in the fight against technological obsolescence.

From working in the archives, I have found certain tasks, while essential to archival practice, can be mundane and rather repetitive.  Two that come to mind are accessioning, where new materials are formally received by the receiving institution and given a quick survey to provide a basic inventory for the archival record, and arrangement, where materials are are arranged in their original order and often rehoused in archival containers and folders.  However, in the course of working with a collection, one can find small treasures such as unusual items, documents that provide insight into the creator of the collection, or in the case of the Wellman Papers, letters and correspondence showing the relationship between Richard Wellman and the University of Pennsylvania.

 

Some of the documents I uncovered revealed the origins of why Richard Wellman had his papers relating to the Uniform Probate Code sent to Penn Law Archives.  That same document gave evidence to the established agreement between the Uniform Law Commissioners (ULC) and Penn to archive the ULC's records to be made available to scholars and those interested in the papers.  In addition, another letter documented the transaction of sending Wellman's papers to Penn.
 

Wellman also had ties to the Penn Law community.  Some of his correspondence showed him seeking the opinion of professors on specific cases or aspects of probate law.  Other correspondence demonstrated his interest in some faculty members such as Curtis Reitz and their work in relation to National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL).

Gems like these make the archival process more interesting, breaking up the monotony of some tasks.  They serve to validate the work of archivists or archivists-in-training as well as provide a valuable look into an archival collection.

 

There are many interesting projects currently going on in the National Bankruptcy Archives, a repository of records and papers related to bankruptcy, debtor-creditor relations, and the reorganization of debt.

 

Our pilot project funded by the Leon S. Forman Bankruptcy Archives Digitization Program was recently completed.  Approximately 50 oral histories conducted with important bankruptcy figures of the last 50 years have been digitized.  Funding for this project was provided by a fund established with generous contributions from Blank Rome, LLP and the American College of Bankruptcy Foundation.  Many of the oral histories are available on our website.  This page is under construction, so stop by frequently if you want to monitor our progress.

The Archives recently processed a series of reference material that Ken Klee, bankruptcy lawyer and Professor at UCLA Law school, compiled in the course of writing a forthcoming book about the history of bankruptcy argued before the United States Supreme Court.  The Archives already maintains many of Klee's papers from the first phase of his career as a lawyer and counsel to Congress on bankruptcy-related legislation in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.  We feel fortunate to add this new series of papers to his collection, and we look forward to documenting more of Professor Klee's recent activites.

Finally, the Archives has acquired the papers of Henry J. Sommer, a consumer bankruptcy attorney based in Philadelphia.  (Since Mr. Sommer lives in the Philadelphia area, I actually drove to his house in Mount Airy one Saturday morning to help him load his papers into the back of my car!)  This is the first collection of papers in the National Bankruptcy Archives that primarily reflect the field of consumer bankruptcy.  Arguably the most prominent consumer bankruptcy attorney of his generation, Sommer has spent the last thirty years advocating for the rights of ordinary debtors.  In addition to his groundbreaking work at the Philadelphia branch of Community Legal Services in the 1970s and 1980s, Sommer has also served in various governmental and public interest advisory roles.  He recently served as President of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, and he is Editor-in-Cheif of Collier on Bankruptcy.  Sommer's papers are scheduled to be processed soon.

For more information about these and other projects in the National Bankruptcy Archives, please visit our website or contact me directly.

 

Thanks to a grant from the ACTEC Foundation, the Biddle Law Library Archives was able to process the papers of Richard V. Wellman, the primary architect of the Uniform Probate Code.  A finding aid for the processed collection can be found here.

At 28 linear feet, the Wellman Papers comprise one of the largest collections in the Archives of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL). The NCCUSL Archives primarily consists of the papers of individuals who have worked on various projects by NCCUSL, an organization that endeavors to promote greater uniformity in the law by drafting uniform laws and model acts.  As NCCUSL Archivist (one of my many hats around the Library), I am responsible for maintaining both electronic and print records related to these NCCUSL projects.  Professor Wellman's papers represent the latter.  

Born in 1922, Wellman taught at the University of Michigan and the University of Georgia.  He is perhaps best known as the chief reporter for the Uniform Probate Code, first promulgated by NCCUSL and the American Bar Association in 1969.  Like the Uniform Commerical Code, the Uniform Probate Code sought to streamline and simplify a vast and complex area of the law: in this case, laws governing wills, estates, and intestacy.  The Wellman Papers include correspondence, meeting materials, and drafts related to Wellman's work on the Uniform Probate Code as well as other UPC-related projects.  The collection should prove to be a boon for researchers interested in the history of the law of wills and estates, as it is probably the largest known body of probate-related archival material.

When word got out that we were processing Wellman's papers, I was notified that another institution had papers related to Wellman's work for the California Law Revision Commission.  We recently accessioned these papers and they should be available soon as part of the processed collection.

Please contact me for more information about the Wellman Papers and other collections in the NCCUSL Archives.

 

Many of you in the Penn Law community might have taken a class from Professor Geoffrey C. Hazard on civil procedure.  Still others might know Professor Hazard as one of the foremost experts on legal ethics in the United States. 

 

However, Professor Hazard was also Director of the American Law Institute from the mid-1980s through the 1990s.  During his tenure, the Institute participated in a number of notable projects, including restatements of the law of property, foreign relations law, and the law governing lawyers; revisions and enhancements to the Uniform Commercial Code; and the Transnational Civil Procedure project, a joint initative with UNIDROIT.

I have spent the better part of this year organizing Professor Hazard's files in the American Law Institute Archives and am now opening them to the wider research community.  Professor Hazard's papers constitute one of the largest collections in the Archives.  He created and collected prodigiously: the collection comprises 47 linear feet of correspondence, drafts, reports, and other papers on a variety of projects.  Notably, the Geoffrey C. Hazard Director's Files include Professor Hazard's work on behalf of the American Law Institute to write rules and procedures which governed lawyers in the ethical practice of the law. 

If you are interested in learning more about Geoffrey Hazard's ALI-related work, I encourage you to browse our online finding aid or contact the Archives.  You can also learn more about the American Law Institute Archives by visiting the department's home page.

 

While playing housekeeper in the archives vault recently, I came across an unprocessed collection of essays written by former Penn Law students.  What I found particularly interesting about this collection is that most of the essays date back to the late 1800s, in the time before typewriters -- let alone spell check, computers, and EndNote -- were widely used.  Word processors were human.

Browsing through these essays, which number about 125, I was struck by the manner in which they were forged.  I can't remember the last time I drafted an essay in longhand, can you?  And the penmanship would make this chicken-scratch expert blush.  If I can barely draft a shopping list that doesn't resemble a tablet of mystical runes, will the next generation even know how to put pen to paper?

At times students really went all out on the design of the title pages, often using calligraphy, colored inks, and ribbon.  Here's a representative example:

 

 

And you think plugging in Bluebook citations is a struggle?  Try writing out footnotes by hand.

 

 

The handwriting looks the same, only smaller!  Cute.

Truth be told, processing this collection was pretty complicated.  These essays were kept together by a range of fasteners: staples, paperclips, string, and scotch tape.  Most of these had to be removed because, over time, these fasteners can get rusty or toxic and damage what's really important, the essays.  Archivists of the future, I apologize for ever using brads.

 

 

Beyond the anachronistic nature of the technology, I was also intrigued by the variety of topics covered in these essays.  As far as I can tell, none of the authors went on to fame and fortune.  (Although, there does appear to be material from locally famous attorneys, such as George Biddle, namesake of the Biddle Law Library.)  This collection provides a fascinating window into what Penn Law students were thinking and writing about long ago.

If you're interested in taking a look at these essays, a sampling of them is currently on display in the Biddle Law Library's reference area.  For additional information about the collection, check out the finding aid, e-mail me or stop by the Archives.

John Lettou introduced the printing press to London in 1480. Two years later, with the help of partner William de Machlinia, he produced the first law book typeset in England. Machlinia was succeeded by Richard Pynson who, by 1500, moved the press to Fleet Street within Temple Bar. This neighborhood became popular with those printers who specialized in law books, among them George Ferras, Thomas Petit and Richard Tottell. Here, close to the Inns of Court, a nascent legal publishing industry took hold. One of the most famous documents printed in the vicinity is Magna Charta (also spelled Magna Carta), in the sixteenth century often issued with the Antiqua Statuta. Biddle Law Library has five such editions.

Pynson first printed Magna Charta in 1508. Biddle’s earliest copy bears the date 1514. Folio primo, Magna Carta, Edward[us] dei gratia, rex Anglie includes 63 statutes and King Edward I’s 1297 confirmation of Magna Charta with thirty-seven numbered chapters. The text of the Charter is in Latin, the statutes in Law French. Pynson, like many of his peers, was educated on the continent, and presumably was comfortable with both languages. A preliminary leaf notes that Pynson was designated “Regis impressorem,” an honor bestowed by King Henry VII. The text is considered reliable for its time. Its appearance, however, is startling to the modern reader. There is no title page and the publication information is found at the end of the book.

 

One of the leading figures in the development of the consumer bankruptcy field, Henry J. Sommer, has lectured at Penn Law and currently serves on the Toll Public Interest Center Advisory Board.  The Biddle Law Library Archives recently processed Sommer's papers and the collection is now open for research.

After graduating from Harvard, Sommer worked for Community Legal Services in Philadelphia as Project Head of its Consumer Law Project until 1996. He currently serves as editor-in-chief of Collier on Bankruptcy, a leading bankruptcy treatise.

The Henry J. Sommer Papers, 1975-2005, primarily reflect the first phase of the lawyer's career.  The collection includes papers Sommer accumulated while serving for the National Bankruptcy Conference, materials from Continuing Legal Education seminars and other meetings where Sommer lectured, copies of published manuscripts and articles written by Sommer, and videotapes of Sommer and colleagues holding practitioner oriented seminars on the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978.

 

The Archives considers the Sommer papers the foundation of its growing effort to collect in the area of consumer bankruptcy. We look forward to receiving additional papers covering other phases of Sommer's distinguished career.  We also recorded an oral history interview conducted with him, which is available online here.

The finding aid for the Henry J. Sommer Papers is located here.  If you are interested in learning more about this collection, contact Jordon Steele or stop by the Archives.

In an effort to expand the National Bankruptcy Archives' holdings in rare material predating the establishment of the nation's first major bankruptcy law in 1898, the Archives has begun to acquire a selection of 18th and 19th century pamphlet and manuscript materials.  Our holdings presently date back to 1789, and document debt culture in the pre-bankruptcy era.  A common topic concerns the abolishment of debtor prisons, which existed from Colonial times to approximately the mid-1800s.

Some of this collection is currently on display in the reference area of the Biddle Law Library.  However, if you can't make it to the onsite exhibit (or, if you would like to whet your appetite), below are images of some of our featured items. 

If you are interested in learning more about this collection or any of our holdings, please contact Jordon Steele or stop by the Archives. 

 

In the wake of the economic hardship brought on by the Great Depression, the United States was compelled to revisit its system of debt relief.  Legislative efforts in the 1930s culminated in the passage of a new federal bankruptcy law, known as the Chandler Act of 1938, which established an administrative system that lasted for nearly 40 years.

Prior to the Chandler Act's passage, a young Supreme Court law clerk, Francis R. Kirkham, advised Chief Justice Evan Hughes and his associates on recommended changes to bankruptcy laws as they existed at the time.  When writing the drafts of what would eventually become published as the "General Order and Rules of Bankruptcy," Kirkham researched the existing legislation, reports from the National Bankruptcy Conference (which, at this time, was the leading bankruptcy advocacy organization), and corresponded with his superiors at the Supreme Court.  These and other materials from Kirkham's working files were recently processed as part of the National Bankruptcy Archives.  

The finding aid of the Francis R. Kirkham Papers is located here.  To find out more about this collection or to schedule a research visit, contact me or stop by the Archives.

  

Written by Megan Good, Archives Intern

John Honnold was an expert in international commercial sales law and known as the Father of the Vienna Convention. After working in private practice for a few years after Harvard Law School, Honnold became Chief of the Court Review Branch, in the Office of Price Administration, during World War II. An authority on commercial sales law, Honnold helped prepare Article 6 of the Uniform Commercial Code, which concerns bulk sales. Honnold also represented the United States delegation at the International Conference on the Unification of Commercial Law at The Hague, and served as Chief of Legal Staff to the Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). He also co-wrote The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), which went into effect in 1988. Among these distinctions, Honnold also taught at Penn Law from 1946 until his retirement in 1984.

The Archives recently processed the Honnold Papers. This small but significant collection is comprised mainly of letters Honnold sent and received in the 1980s, while serving as co-chairman of the U.S. Delegation to the Vienna Conference and Chief of Staff of UNCITRAL. The papers also include Honnold’s personal copy of the Journal of Maritime Law and Commerce. 

Collections often enter the Archives through circuitous routes, and the Honnold Papers are no exception. They were given to the Archives by Maria Smolka-Day, former Biddle Foreign and International Law Librarian. She in turn received the collection from Marta Tarnawsky, her predecessor, who worked closely with Honnold on various Penn Law research projects. 

 

If you are interested in learning more about this collection, contact Jordon Steele or stop by the Archives. 

Written by Megan Good, Archives Intern.

 

Written by Megan Good, Archives Intern.

Bernard Segal was an accomplished Philadelphia lawyer devoted to civil rights advocacy. After graduating from Penn with both his undergraduate degree from Wharton in 1928 and his law degree in 1931, he became the youngest Deputy Attorney General in Pennsylvania history under William A. Schnader. When Schnader left office in 1935, he formed a law firm with Francis A. Lewis, with Segal as their first associate. Segal quickly became partner in the firm which employs over 150 lawyers today.

In 1953, ALI-ABA, the continuing legal education program jointly run by the American Law Institute and the American Bar Association, set out to develop a periodical that would impart knowledge to temper the day-to-day challenges of practicing law.  Unlike legal treatises and law reviews, which explored the theoretical underpinnings of the law, this journal aimed to provide articles, advice, and other newsworthy items that would help a lawyer make his way in the world.

This idea became a reality in January 1955 when ALI-ABA published the first issue of "The Practical Lawyer."  In the periodical's opening address to its readership, George Wharton Pepper (the organization's Council Chair and a past president of the American Law Institute, as well as a former Penn Law professor) characterized his ideal legal expert, one that "The Practical Lawyer" hoped to educate and cultivate as follows:

Somebody, with a flair for sarcasm, has defined a jurist as a man familiar with the laws of all countries except his own.  If there is an element of truth in this definition it is because the student of foreign law is apt to conceive of it as a field for intellectual exercise rather than as a body of principles and rules for guidance and control of every-day human life.  On the other hand, the lawyer in active practice knows that the law is something to do as well as something to know.  He is a fortunate man if he can maintain a just balance between these two aspects of his profession.

 

ALI Reporters with William Draper Lewis (standing) in Northeast Harbor, Maine, undated.

 

Last spring, the American Law Institute ("ALI") created an internship designed for second-year students at Penn Law School to gain familiarity with the mission of the organization.  The initiative represents the most recent example of a long-standing partnership between the Institute and Penn Law School.

The American Law Institute was founded in 1923 in response to a perceived uncertainty and complexity in American law. An association of practitioners and scholars known as the “Committee on the Establishment of a Permanent Organization for Improvement of Law” published a study that recommended an organization be formed to improve the law and its administration.  William Draper Lewis was a member of this committee and was elected the Institute's first Director.  A longtime professor at Penn Law School and, at the time of his appointment, the institution's Dean, Lewis described the lofty aim of the American Law Institute in a 1923 report to the membership as follows:

We speak of the work which the organization should undertake as a restatement; its object should not only be to help make certain much that is now uncertain and to simplify unnecessary complexities, but also to promote those changes which will tend better to adapt the laws to the needs of life.

Although he had plenty of help, Lewis is generally credited as being the main driver behind the Institute’s mission and philosophy.  The Institute's headquarters were originally operated out of Lewis' office at the Law School.

In his book, The Voice of the Past, the sociologist Paul Thompson comments on the cultural importance of oral histories, saying:

[oral history] can break down barriers between teachers and students, between generations, between educational institutions and the world outside ... it can give back to the people who made and experienc[ed] history, through their own words, a central place.

 

Penn Law and the community at large lost one of the singular figures in American legal education with the passing of Professor Clyde Summers who died on October 30, 2010. Summers was widely regarded as one of his generation’s leading authorities on labor law.  Professor Summers wrote over 125 articles on topics such as employee rights, unions, and comparative labor law.

 

The Penn Law community was saddened to learn of the recent passing of Professor John O. Honnold, Jr., a preeminent figure in international law who taught at the Law School from 1946 until his retirement in 1984.  Given Professor Honnold's stature in the legal community, there have been many tributes accorded to him, including those found in the Philadelphia Inquirer and our own Communications Department. 

The Biddle Law Library Archives also has items of interest for those who would like to learn more about Professor Honnold.  Last year, we processed a collection of John Honnold's papers, information which can be found here.  And in conjunction with an exhibit currently on display in the Biddle Law Library's main reference area, below is an oral history recorded in 2000, where Professor Honnold was interviewed as part of the Penn Law School Legal Oral History Project.  For more information about access to these and other materials related to the life of Professor John Honnold, please contact the Archives.

Written by Jessica Lydon, Archives Intern.

 

Written by Zev Fagin, Special Collections Assistant.

 

In 1970, Morris Wolf, Esq., a senior member of the Philadelphia bar, donated to the University of Pennsylvania Law School, a manuscript letter by Thomas Jefferson. Written on August 30th, 1814, from Jefferson at Monticello, the letter outlines a course of law study and readings Jefferson had prepared “near[ly] fifty years ago for the use of a young friend.” Addressed to General John Minor, the letter is most likely written for Minor’s son, John, who studied law for a short time.

Reproductions of the letter are on display (the original can be viewed by request) in the Gateway of Biddle Law Library. Accompanying the letter are selections from the rare books room at Biddle. The books on display are those recommended by Jefferson as proposed readings on pages three and four of his letter.  The texts were all printed between 1768 and 1805, and would perhaps have been the actual books that the young law student in 1814 would have had on his bookshelf.

Included in the exhibit are the books The Law of Evidence by Sir Geoffrey Gilbert, printed in 1805; Coke’s Institutes by Sir Edward Coke, printed in 1711; The Law of Uses and Trusts by Sir Geoffrey Gilbert, printed in 1811; Blackstone’s Commentaries, George Tucker’s edition, printed in 1803; A Treatise of Equity in Six Books, by Sir Geoffrey Gilbert, printed in 1792; A New Abridgement of the Law by Matthew Bacon, printed in 1768.

The exhibition will be up through March of 2012. 

 

While rummaging around in the rare books and special collections room here at Biddle one day, I came across a large, dusty, unlabeled cardboard box. Picking up the box, it felt oddly light, and upon opening the lid, I found an old Huron Copysette Manifold Carbon Paper Sets box that held 18^th century criminal court records from southeastern Pennsylvania. Despite being wrapped in brittle and faded tissue paper for what appeared to be many years, the papers were in excellent condition, although still rather fragile.  Accompanying the small collection was a letter from the President of the University Center in Virginia Inc., W. Donald Rhinesmith, dated January 7, 1969, addressed to the Curator of Manuscripts at Penn’s Law Library, donating the collection to the library.