Book of the Week: Law in America
by Cheryl Nyberg
Law in America: An Illustrated Celebration, by Blair Kauffman &
Bonnie Collier (Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, 2001). KF352.K38 2001 at
Reference Office
This beautiful, large (14x11”) book surveys 200 years of law in America,
highlighting the law’s influence on the nation’s cultural, intellectual,
business, and popular life. The volume is copiously illustrated with color
and black-and-white cartoons, images, paintings, photographs, and posters.
Chapters cover:
- symbols of justice (Themis, courtrooms, jail cells)
- legal education (Harvard Law School, Christopher Columbus Langdell, a
moot courtroom)
- the practice of law
- famous trials (Salem Witch Trials, the Scottsboro Nine, Sacco and
Vanzetti)
- the courts (jurisdiction, appointment of judges)
- landmark cases (Marbury v. Madison, Brown v. Board of Education,
Miranda v. Arizona)
- media sensations (Lizzie Borden, Clarence Darrow and the Scopes Monkey
Trial, Charles Manson, the Menendez Brothers), and
- the lawyer in popular culture (writings by Mark Twain, Gregory Peck as
Atticus Finch, Perry Mason, Tom Hanks in “Philadelphia)
Remember the Seinfeld episode about Kramer's coffee-table book about
coffee-tables? Law in America would have made a great selection. It
even comes equipped with a beverage coaster featuring the scales of justice
right on the cover. Stop by the Reference Office and see it for yourself!
For additional descriptions of selected books see the
Book of the Week Archive.
Online Index to Early Legal Periodical Literature
Everything is online, right? Well no, many early works are only available
in print format but select resources are migrating to the online environment
as well. Four volumes of the Index to Legal Periodical Literature
(covering the years 1786-1922) are now available in a searchable format
online through the "19th Century Masterfile" database. This index (often
called the Jones and Chipman Index, referring to the editors) was the first
to provide a comprehensive index to English language legal periodicals and
it contains 98,254 citations from 590 general periodical titles, 236 legal
periodical titles and 67 Law Report Titles, covering 11,000 volumes.
There are many other indexes for pre-1920 materials available through the
"19th Century Masterfile" including: Poole's Index to Periodical
Literature (1802-1907); New York Times Index (1863-1905); A
Compilation of the Message and Papers of the Presidents (1789-1897);
Subject Matter Index of Patents Issued by the U.S (1790-1873); and
Cobett's Parliamentary History of England (1066-1803).
The "19th Century Masterfile" database is available through the
University
Libraries Information Gateway. It is restricted to UW users, which means
you can access it through any campus library computer or at home by using
either a proxy server or the UWICK kit. For more information on connecting
to online resources off campus, see our guide on
Connecting to Online Library Resources.
A New Index to Washington Practice
Actually this is the first General Index to the Washington Practice
series!
This softbound volume (found at the end of the multi-volume set) indexes
all volumes of Washington Practice as of October 2001. Supplements or
replacement index volumes will be issued in the future.
Washington Practice is a twenty-eight volume set that functions as
a legal encyclopedia for our state (think of AmJur or CJS but focused only
on the law of Washington). But unlike the larger legal encyclopedias,
Washington Practice has separate titles and authors within the set, and
each title has a separate index. So for example, volume 18 of the series
contains the index to the topic Real Estate: Property Law and Transactions
(written by William Stoebuck), which is contained in volumes 17 and 18. But
now the topic is also indexed in the general index to the whole set - much
easier!
We have three copies of the General Index to Washington Practice:
KFW30.W3 Index at Reserve, Reference Office & the Washington Alcove.
President's Day Celebration - Which One?
We are celebrating Presidents' Day on Feb. 18, 2002 - but did you know
that this federal holiday--celebrated on the third Monday of each
February--is actually called "Washington's Birthday" according to the United
States Code (see
5 U.S.C. § 6103(a)).
There are two presidential birthdays to celebrate in the month of
February:
- Abraham Lincoln: Feb. 12
- George Washington: Feb. 22
On Feb.11, 1971, President Richard Nixon issued an Executive Order
designating the holiday as "Washington's Birthday," and in a statement
that day he spoke of the many contributions of Abraham Lincoln and the
importance of honoring that great President (Exec. Order No. 11582, 3
C.F.R.539 (1971-1975), reprinted in
5 U.S.C. § 6103(a) (2001)). Either way, it's a holiday celebrating
Presidents and cause for celebration.
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