Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Archives
(above) Wade H. Ellis, 1889 BL, served as Attorney General of Ohio, 1904-1908. This photo is from W&L Leyburn Library Special Collections' glass plate negatives of photographer Michael Miley.
Powell Archives News
April 25, 2013Wade H. EllisThe career of a heretofore unheralded law school alumnus was brought to the archive's attention recently by the Ohio Attorney General's Office. They are doing an exhibit on state attorneys general and inquired about Wade H. Ellis, 1889 BL, who served in that office from 1904 to 1908. Described by the New York Times as "one of the intimate friends of the President" (Theodore Roosevelt,) he went on to serve as Assistant Attorney General of the United States (1908-1910) where he battled the trusts. In 1930 he argued before the Supreme Court of the United States. He died in 1948. A photo of him in his postgraduate days can be seen (and purchased) through Amazon.com. --------------------------------------------------- March 26, 2013Sally SmithOnly during the recent visit of former Powell clerk, Judge Jeffrey Sutton, did we learned of the 2010 death of Sally Smith. To say that she was the long-time secretary to Justice Powell, both at the Court and for many years before that at Hunton & Williams, only begins to state her significance to the Powell "work family." She was, in the words of another former clerk, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, "The anchor of our chambers ... unflappable in the face of work or adversity." She even received a favorable mention in Woodward and Armstrong's The Brethren. --------------------------------------------------- March 25, 2013Another Tucker AcquisitionOur Tucker family holdings were further enriched by the purchase of seven published Tucker related volumes and one hand-written address book from the library of a late granddaughter of Henry St. George Tucker. Included in the purchase were: Tucker, Beverly. A Series of Lectures on the Science of Government (1845) (HST autograph) Tucker, Beverly. The Principles of Pleading (1846) (HST autograph) Tucker, St. George. Blackstone’s Commentaries (1803) 3 vols. (v. 1, 3, 4) Tucker, St. George. Tucker’s Blackstone . Highly annotated Tucker, John Randolph. American Bar Association Address (1893) brittle. Vanity binding with printed front title “For Henry St. George Tucker From his Father Henry St. George Tucker." Letters of John Randolph (1834) Passmore, Rev. Joseph C. Bishop Butler’s Ethical Discourses (1855) Tucker, John Randolph. Manuscript address book. These are apparently political contacts. --------------------------------------------------- March 22, 2013Tucker Letters Donated to ArchivesCarter Tucker, great-great-grandson of our first Dean, John Randolph Tucker, has graciously donated about seventy-five letters, most of which were addressed to J. R. Tucker. Some are from his son, and our third dean, Henry St. George Tucker. The sole letter written by John Randolph Tucker is addressed to his son, "Harry." This was truly the stereotypical story of finding a shoe box in the attic filled with valuable ancestral letters. They all are all in excellent physical condition, despite their having been forgotten for so long. As best can be determined, this is the largest recent discovery of 19th century Tucker materials. It comes around the time of the publication of St. George Tucker's Law Reports and Selected Papers, 1782-1825, in three volumes, edited by Charles F. Hobson. ---------------------------------------------------- December 6, 2012Powell Archives in The National Law JournalTony Mauro of The National Law Journal called earlier this week to talk about our observance of the anniversary of twenty years of research at the Powell Archives (see July and August entries below.) He summarized our discussion in an article published yesterday in the Journal's newsletter, Supreme Court Insider. As a subscription is required to view this, I have put the typescript of the article on the Powell Archives Wordpress blog found at the bottom of the law library home page. ------------------------------------------------------ November 14, 2012"Best of" Powell OpinionsAs mentioned in the post of October 15, Justice Powell annotated a document listing all of the opinions in which he had written for the Court. The check marks he made next to 26 of the cases apparently denoted those of which he was most proud. All of these cases have now been scanned and can be viewed online. Some of these will be featured individually here in the coming weeks. ------------------------------------------------------ October 26, 2012Palmore v. United StatesThe legal history blog Jotwell has this entry about a recent Virginia Law Review article, Prosecuting Federal Crimes in State Courts, which discusses the ramifications of the 1973 Palmore v. U.S. case. Justice Powell's complete file for this case can now be viewed online. ------------------------------------------------------ October 15, 2012Complete List of Powell OpinionsA listing of all opinions of Lewis F. Powell, Jr. when writing for the Court is now available. The list is arranged alphabetically by case title. There is also a partial listing arranged by selected topics. Both of these lists were compiled by Ronald Mann when he was a clerk to Justice Powell in OT 1986. ------------------------------------------------------ August 14, 201220 Years of Research in the Powell Archives: The HistoriansWe conclude our look back at the first two decades of research in the Powell Archives with the historians. When the Powell Archives opened we had, perhaps naively, assumed that historians would make up the majority of researchers. While that hasn’t proven to be the case, the legal historians are certainly well represented amongst our users. A casual inspection of the roles (again, only listing those who have publicly acknowledged working here) reveals names like J. Gordon Hylton, Rorin Platt, David J. Garrow, Howard Ball, Paul Sracic, Roger Kirst, Thomas Hilbink, Michael Yavenditti, Todd Peppers, Camille Walsh, Tracey Maclin, Robert Kerr, Lynda Dodd, Ronald Mann, Charles Flood, Earl Maltz, Logan Sawyer, Duane Tanabaum, Nancy Maclean, Charles H. Ford and Laura Kalman.
------------------------------------------- August 7, 201220 Years of Research in the Powell Archives: The BiographersAs mentioned in the first posting in this series, it was Justice Powell’s authorized biographer, John C. Jeffries, who made most extensive use of the Powell papers. Through the years, however, there have been other biographers who have benefitted from using these papers. Their subjects ranged from Edward R. Murrow to Clarence Thomas. Dennis Huchinson; Tinsley Yarbrough; Kevin Merida and Michael Fletcher; and Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel are among those who have used everything from a few letters to a broad and extensive array of Powell papers in their work. Because of Justice Powell’s professional associate with, and personal fondness toward Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Supreme Court reporter Joan Biskupic likely used more Powell materials in her study of O’Connor than did any other biographer save Jeffries. She used much less for her Justice Scalia biography, as their Court tenures overlapped by only one term. ------------------------------------------------ August 1, 2012Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. Now OnlineThirty-one years ago today, The Buggles mechanically warbled "... put the blame on VTR," when their hit "Radio Killed the Video Star" was the first music video played as MTV was launched. Around the same time, Universal City Studios tried to put the blame in that very place when they initiated a the suit against Sony in what came to be known as "the Betamax case." Read about how the Justices grappled with a new technology and its challenges to intellectual property precedents. And in a turn reminiscent of the term just past, see how a dissent written like a majority opinion, indeed, became the opinion for the Court. -------------------------------------------------- July 31, 201220 Years of Research in the Powell Archives: The Quantitative Poli Sci ScholarsAs mentioned in the second posting in this series, it was political science professor, Beverley B. Cook, who was the first extensive user of the Powell papers. The next important figure to reap research value from the collection was Lee Epstein. Her (and coauthor Jack Knight’s) The Choices Justices Make drew heavily on the work from that visit. In an interesting twist, it became a textbook for political science classes here in the College here at Washington and Lee. Prof. Epstein literally wrote the book on quantitative legal research. More significantly to the history of the Powell Archives, her research methodology and quantitative analysis as applied to decision making in the Court, attracted some of the most able graduate students to her program at Washington University. (She later went on to Northwestern law school and is now a chaired professor at USC law school.) Following her own research trip to Lexington, she began sending her doctoral students. They worked as both research assistants to her and did research on behalf of their dissertations and other writings. These students included Jim Spriggs, Tim Johnson and Andrew Martin, all now distinguished teachers and scholars. Jim Spriggs’ introduction to the Powell Archives led to multiple visits by the publishing trinity of Spriggs, Forrest Maltzman and Paul Wahlbeck. They not only used the Powell papers in their research, but also copied, coded and entered thousands of pages from the case files into the National Science Foundation funded Supreme Court Database. As these scholars progressed in their academic careers, several have completed a circle by having their own students do research in the Powell papers, again both as research assistants and for their own dissertations and publications. Thus, the Powell Archives is serving a third generation of this network. Political science researchers at the Powell Archives extend well beyond this group, of course. Now almost all political science scholars working on Powell’s period on the Court pass through the archives physically or virtually. Indeed as I write this, two such researchers are in residence. Quantitative political science researchers are likely to remain the largest percentage of our external researchers for the indefinite future. ------------------------------------------------------ July 19, 2012The Pioneer: Beverley B. CookIn the mid-1990s, the Powell Archives was in an unusual situation regarding promotion of its holdings. Even the usual public notices of the availability of Justice Powell's case files, might have earned rebuke from the Court, and reconsideration by Powell of his liberal access policy. The World Wide Web at that time was not a viable vehicle for dissemination of such such information. That all changed with a visit, in the summer of 1996, from Beverley Cook, emeritus professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Prof. Cook used material she found here, in a paper on Justice Blackmun she delivered that same summer at the American Political Science Association annual meeting in San Francisco. Very soon researchers -- especially political scientists -- began making appointments to visit the archives. The level of interest has not subsided since. In her essay on Cook in Women In Law, Lee Epstein wrote, "... it was Beverley Blair Cook ... who paved the way for women in the scientific study of courts and law." To her long list of accomplishments we now add the footnote, she paved to way to researcher awareness of significance of the Lewis F. Powell, Jr. papers. ---------------------------------------------------- Earlier Powell Archives News |
The Powell PapersSpreadsheet guide to the Supreme Court Case Files Supreme Court Case files in electronic format Listing of Supreme Court Opinions Written by Powell (alphabetical) Listing of Supreme Court Opinions Written by Powell (topical) Charles E. Burks Collection Other Manuscript CollectionsLaughlin, Charles Vaill, Papers, 1940-1983 Ritz, Wilfred J., Papers of, 1955-1985 Parker, Frank R. Papers, 1963-1997 Butler, M. Caldwell, Papers, 1972-1982; 1995-1997 Tucker, John H. Papers 1916-1946 Sharp, Stephen Papers, 1969-1980 Ray, Robert W., Papers, 1994-2001 Powell, Lewis F. Collection, 1937-1999 Washington and Lee University School of Law Collection Davis, John W. Collection, 1888-1953 Tucker, Henry St. George, 1874-1933 Powell, Josephine Rucker, 1929-1996 Compton, A. Christian, 1974-2001 (unprocessed; contact the archives) Law School ArchivesIndex of older law exams, 1981-2008 Faculty biographical sketches, 1849-2008 Introductory address to the law class of 1849 Photos of Prof. Roger D. Groot
Records ManagementShredding Schedule for Law School ---------------------------------------------------------- Online ExhibitsAmerican Bar Association Presidents Christmas Cards From the Josephine Rucker Powell Collection Distinguished Alumnae of W&L Law Fortieth Anniversary of Justice Powell Joining the Supreme Court Mary Kay DePoy Harris, First Law Review Editor-in-Chief
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