Weekend Roundup

• In the New Republic: Gabriel Rosenberg and Jan Dutkiewicz on the place where the meat industry meets anti-bestiality laws, past and present.

• Catch this virtual event with Ashley Rubin on her forthcoming book, The Deviant Prison: Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary and the Origins of America's Modern Penal System, 1829-1913: Jan.5 at 6-7pm EST. 

• The Wiener Library for the Study of the Nazi Era and the Holocaust, at the Sourasky Central Library, Tel Aviv University, has put some of its collections online, including prosecutions for distributing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the Nazi Justice Collection, which "contains information on the judiciary in Nazi Germany and hundreds of trial transcripts."  N/t: JQB
  

• “The new feature documentary, My Native Air: Charles Evans Hughes and the Adirondacks, co-produced by MDT Publishing and Snarky Aardvark Films, is premiering on-demand in a limited run from January 15th to February 15th, 2021.”  H/t: JQB
  

• Brittany Nichole Adams, Special Collections, Digitization, and Archival Services Librarian, Northwestern University is profiled in the Bright Young Librarians series at FineBooks and Collections.
  

• From the Washington Post's "Made by History" section: Anya Jabour (University of Montana) on why "Referring to female PhDs as ‘Dr.’ promotes equal treatment and values women’s work," including a discussion of trailblazing law reformers (and PhD holders) Sophonisba Breckenridge and Edith Abbott.

• ICYMI:  University of Mississippi fires Garrett Felber, a tenure-track assistant professor in the Arch Dalrymple III Department of History, who has studied the American carceral state. (Mississippi Free Press).  Greg Melleuish on Constitutional History in Australia (Telos Press Podcast).

Weekend Roundup is a weekly feature compiled by all the Legal History bloggers.

Female Imprimatur: Women in the Lawbook Trade.

[We have the following announcement of an online exhibit at Boston College Law School.  DRE]

Female Imprimatur: Women in the Lawbook Trade.  This exhibit was inspired by the 100th anniversary in August 2020 of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which granted suffrage to some—though certainly not all—American women. In the summer before the anniversary, Rare Books Curator Laurel Davis, Professor Mary Bilder, and Associate Law Librarian Helen Lacouture went digging into our special collections to find lawbooks with imprints featuring women printers and booksellers.   

More.

New Digital Exhibits at U Minn Law Library

 [We have the following announcement.  DRE]

The University of Minnesota Law Library has released three new digital exhibits. "Law and Struggle for Racial Justice: Selected Material from the Riesenfeld Rare Books Center," continues a series of initiatives and conversations at the Law School centered around racial justice. "Noted and Notable: Treasures of the Riesenfeld Rare Books Research Center," and "Böcker Har Sina Öden' (Books Have Their Destinies): Treasures of the Swedish Law Collection," based on 2020 spring exhibits, highlight special collections treasures chosen in particular for their value as historical artifacts.

English Manuscript Law Reports: A Query from Sir John Baker

[We have the following query from Professor Sir John Baker.  H/t: Michael Widener.  DRE.]

English Manuscript Law Reports

Over the course of my professional life as a legal historian, I have become aware both of the immense importance of unpublished law reports in the history of the common law and of the difficulty in finding them for want of adequate catalogues. The Selden Society has commissioned a descriptive catalogue, and work is under way to assemble and edit the descriptions of the thousand or so items of which we are currently aware. I have compiled lists over the years for my own use, and, since they include volumes found in librarians’ cupboards and on uncatalogued shelves, I am sure there must be other manuscripts which have not come to my attention in this rather random way. It would be a great service to scholarship if librarians could draw our attention to any manuscripts which might be included and which are not noticed in my English Legal Manuscripts in the U.S.A. The catalogue will cover the period 1500 to 1800 and will be limited to original reports of legal arguments, excluding trials, precedents of pleading, and commonplace books derived solely from printed sources. In cases of doubt, I will be glad to help with identification. Please send any information which might be helpful, including questions, to me at jhb16@cam.ac.uk.

John Baker
(Professor Sir John Baker, Cambridge)

Smith v. Allwright at University of Kentucky

Lonnie Smith Votes in 1944 Primary

 [We have the following announcement.  DRE.]

The University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) pleased to announce a new exhibit titled “Black Voters, White Primaries." Using case files from the papers of Supreme Court Justice Stanley Forman Reed, as well as other archival materials from the collections, the exhibit explores how Smith v. Allwright (1944) helped end the “white primary," a voter suppression tool that served as the first line of attack—and often the only one needed—to prevent Black Americans from voting in the Jim Crow South. BONUS: UK Rosenberg College of Law Professor Josh Douglas weighs in on voter suppression this election season.

The exhibit was created as part of UK’s John G. Heyburn II Initiative for Excellence in the Federal Judiciary, a non-partisan endeavor devoted to the preservation and study of federal judicial history, with a particular focus on Kentuckians in the federal courts. 

Credit for image:  “Courtesy University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center”