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Posted by: Nathan Dorn
As part of its comprehensive collection development objectives, the Law Library of Congress collects the laws of nations of the world, including historic works that document the earliest layers of those nations’ legal heritage. A recent acquisition for the Law Library’s Rare Book Collection captures one such moment in the history of the laws of …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
The United States has often been called “a nation of joiners.” For nearly three centuries, Americans have created and joined voluntary associations to pursue their shared goals and to meet the needs of their communities. Even today, voluntary associations are ubiquitous in American society, occupying a central place in the social and communal lives of …
Posted in: Event
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
Erika Hope Spencer discusses avenues for research in Library of Congress collections on the subject of Witchcraft.
Posted in: Collections, Law Library, Women's History
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
As we approach the last day of the spooky season, I find myself rereading Robert Kirk’s 17th-century classic of fairy lore, The Secret Commonwealth. This book describes what people in Kirk’s time and community believed fairies were, where and how they lived, what they were able to do, and how they interacted with human beings. …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
Last September, I published a post on this blog about Chancellor James Kent in which I wrote about Chancellor Kent’s role in promoting the professionalization of court reporting in America. In this post, I thought I would expand on the subject of legal research in early America by highlighting the first American author to publish …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
Nathan discusses Joshua Montefiore, the first Jewish person to publish a law book in the United States.
Posted in: Collections, Jewish American History
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
In a post last month, I highlighted a document that the Law Library acquired for its rare book collection: a sea letter signed by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in 1794 for the schooner Two Friends. In that post, I mentioned the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States. In this post, I …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
In recent posts, I have pointed out that while the Law Library’s rare books collection is in principle a collection of printed books, we sometimes have the good fortune to acquire unique documents created by important Americans in the course of their public careers. One example of these was a document signed by two 17th-century …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
Since Abraham Lincoln‘s birthday is tomorrow we thought we might share some Lincoln-related resources, chief among them a document written in Lincoln’s hand that the Law Library recently acquired. The document is a complaint that Lincoln wrote when he was practicing law with Stephen Trigg Logan (1800-1880). Lincoln worked with Logan from 1841-1844, following his …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library