The Making of Modern Law:

Landmark Records and Briefs of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, Part II: 1891–1950

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The Making of Modern Law:

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Product Category: Gale Primary Sources

Series: The Making of Modern Law

Pages: Over 1.2 million pages

Fact Sheet: View PDF

Provide researchers access to valuable, never-before-digitized historical legal documents

This unique collection, digitized for the first time, brings together records and briefs from 1891 to 1950 that have most influenced modern writing and thinking about American law and American legal history. The Making of Modern Law: Landmark Records and Briefs of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, Part II: 1891–1950 aims to address questions concerning the administration of justice, the adversary process, and the developing relationship between law and the social sciences, humanities, and sciences. These records are interesting on the human level - they are not just abstracts on legal issues, they are valuable historical documents in their own right.

This collection includes all circuits, including the major ones:

Second (New York) - enormously influential, especially for business and corporate law
DC (Washington, DC) – includes federal cases
Ninth (California) – a key circuit, particularly on western U.S. issues

The Making of Modern Law: Landmark Records and Briefs of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, Part II: 1891–1950 aims to address questions such as: How much was the work of sociologists, psychologists, and historians cited? What attention did the courts pay to those citations? What nonlegal evidence was brought to court or cited? Did the court pay attention?

Researchers will be able to gain insights into legal reasoning used by the parties in advocating their position and to identify the authorities used to support an argument.

The briefs in this collection are not readily available - this is effectively a rescue operation, opening material that is inaccessible to many researchers. Law and humanities libraries that serve scholars and students in twentieth-century American social history and politics will find this archive of special interest.

The variety of information in the records and briefs includes:

Cases on wartime issues raised during both World Wars and cases affecting conscientious objectors to the internment of Japanese Americans
Decisions that focused on American Indian rights with respect to land claims, treaty enforcement, and other matters of critical interest to Indigenous communities
Briefs related to federal economic and labor regulations, such as reviews of decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission as well as the work of those agencies created by the New Deal
Rulings that reflect changes in criminal law, with the expansion in the scope of federal crimes and enforcement of laws related to censorship, sedition (resistance against lawful authority), Prohibition, and more
Cases that address the changing state of labor relations as new laws at the state and federal levels came into effect with respect to child labor, union organizing, and worker safety

FEATURED REVIEW

The collection is an important resource not only for legal researchers but also for anyone interested in the economic, political, and social issues of the 1900s…The database is an excellent addition for libraries that already subscribe to the Making of Modern Law series or that have patrons in need of access to U.S. historical appellate court information.

- Library Journal, reviewed by Rob Tench, librarian at Old Dominion University Libraries, Norfolk, VA

Look Inside

In 1938, the Tenth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals heard Dorsey v. Old Surety Life Insurance Company (98 F.2d 872). Although technically a copyright case, Dorsey features briefs that offer firsthand look into the evolution of life insurance policies in the early 20th century. The case would also test the limits of copyright in further delineating the difference between ideas and their expression.

In 1903, the Second Circuit of the United State Court of Appeals reviewed and decided the case of Western Union Telegraph Company v. American Bell Telephone Company (125 F.342). This case offers a close look at the spread--and disputes that ensued--of telecommunications across the late 19th century United States and its impact on consumers, professional phone operators, and corporate owners and shareholders.

Rice v. Elmore (165 F.2d 387) came before the Fourth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals in 1947. This early voting rights case in what was the beginning of the end of Jim Crow laws as they applied to the southern United States tested a state party's ability to bar African Americans from participating in primary elections.

The case of the United States v. McBride (284 F. 416), heard by the Fifth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals, examined the allowable extent of the search of property and seizure of illegal goods by authorities. This case arose during the Prohibition era and provided significant power to authorities in the enforcement of anti-liquor laws.

In 1948, the Seventh Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals heard the case of the National Labor Relations Board v. Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company (167 F.2d 983), handing down a decision that would extend the power of the National Labor Relations Board to protect non-union employees from unfair labor practices.

Additional Details

subjects covered

American History
Law & Legal Studies

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