Work will take place in the main Reading Room on Thursday, January 7, 2016, between 8am and 5pm. We will try to keep disturbances to a minimum. However, there may be occasional noise disruption and staff will need access to many of the study carrels on the south side of the room. Signs will be posted on the corresponding carrels. We …
Over winter break portions of the main Reading Room will be painted. Preparations for this project will take place Monday, December 21, 2015, from 8am to 5pm. We will work to keep disturbances to a minimum. However, there may be occasional noise disruption and staff will need access to several of the study carrels. Signs will be posted on the …
Work in the Main Reading Room, December 21, 2015 Read More »
Over the years, a few of our 852 RARE posts have focused on parts of the collection that present unanswered questions such as the identity of an individual or date and creator of an image. In 2008, we wrote about a carte de visite of an unidentified African American man in the Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. visual materials …
852 RARE: Collection Mysteries – History Sleuths Wanted Read More »
When we talk about the art and visual materials collection at the Harvard Law School considerable credit goes to Dean Roscoe Pound (dean 1916-1936) and librarians John Himes Arnold (librarian 1872-1913) and Eldon Revare James (librarian 1923-1943) for their work building the collection. However, the story of the collection dates back long before their time. In addition to …
The Harvard Law School Library is pleased to announce this recent acquisition, a chair with a unique provenance story and strong ties to the Harvard Law School. This adjustable back armchair, commonly referred to as a Morris chair, was first owned by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and used in his summer home in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts. The chair …
852 RARE: New Acquisition with Strong Ties to Harvard Law Read More »
Historical & Special Collections is pleased to hold six pencil drawings by the British cartoonist and illustrator Edward Tennyson Reed (1860-1933). In the introduction to Reed’s memoirs, compiler Shane Leslie writes, “He excelled in the painless —gentlemanly caricature – never brutal or bestial….Whomsoever he caricatured…he made loveable.” A number of Reed’s drawings in our collection deal with legal cases dating from …
852 RARE: Edward Tennyson Reed — A Gentlemanly Caricature Artist Read More »
You may have seen some of our larger than life portraits of legal figures such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. or John Marshall, but did you know that we also have a wonderful collection of pocket-sized portraits in the form of cabinet cards and cartes de visite? The collection features more than 700 formal portraits of lawyers, judges, …
Intent on finding something love- or Valentine’s-themed to feature in this month’s 852 RARE, I stumbled upon the wonderful picture featured below. So what do men, baking, and women’s rights have to do with each other? In the 1970s, at the Harvard Law School, it seems quite a bit. Published in the summer 1977 edition of the Harvard …
Historical & Special Collections is pleased to announce the opening of a new exhibit, Extra! Extra! Read All About It: A Tale of True Crime on view through April 26, 2013. Illustration detail “The Diary Murderer of Lynn,” Boston Evening American and Boston Sunday Advertiser, [1936?] Crime fascinates us and the public consumption of crime narratives has existed …
852 RARE: Extra! Extra! Read All About It – A New Exhibit Read More »
In 2004, Historical & Special Collections began a project to catalog its collection of Harvard Law School class pictures, which culminated in the conservation and digitization of the collection in 2008. The collection includes over 130 posed, professionally shot group photographs of LL.B./J.D. students, graduate students, and students from abroad, often with members of the Harvard Law School …
852 RARE: The Monthly Special – The Littlest Graduate Read More »