1st donation to Emerson Hall 1461 8. the privilege of meeting some 9 throughout the years: Dean Beal of the Harvard Law School; Augustus Hand and his cousin, Learned Hand of New York; Williston of the Chicago Law School, among others came to know them when they would meet with Father at Northcast Harbor, Maine. Hating Philadel- phia's summer heat and wanting to be near his family, Father persuaded the Carnegie Foundation to put up two clapboard offices on his Soames Sound property where meetings could be held and various lawyers could stay. To me, the most interesting of all was Judge Learned Hand, Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court. He h. and others would gather at a long table in one of those offices and work throughout the day, then in the evening Has retire to the Asticou Inn for social festivities. I came to know not only the side of the law they represented but also Where is Henry? Grandmother Anna S. Cope, Grandfather their personalities and the things they did in life. They Francis R. Cope, Draper, Anna and Alfreda, circa 1907 were really quite human. Source: In Spite of all Temptation Henry hears. Augusta, ME: Gannett Graphics, 1983. FATHER AND THE AMERICAN LAW INSTITUTE My father was the first director of the American Law Institute, an association of lawyers formed to present to state legislatures what might be termed "the social laws," i.e. those dealing with subjects most affecting our lives- civil rights, health, welfare. Supported by the Carnegie Foundation, the Institute required a lot of groundwork, mostly done by Father. Various law school professors were asked to write papers dealing with these matters; the papers were then reviewed by a committee, presented to the director, and in final draft sent back to the legislature of each pertinent state for enactment. Grandfather Henry Lewis HOLLIS FULL CATALOG - Full View of Record Page 1 of 3 Your Account Start Over Help Comments TASI Full Catalog Journals Reserves E-Resources HOLLIS CATALOG Previous Searches I Results List Display Options Harvard University Search I Expanded Search I Command Search Harvard Libraries Full View of Record : FULL CATALOG Save/Mail Add to List I View List Last Browse Choose format: Full view I Short view MARC Record 57 out of 62 Previous Record Next Record Author : Hand, Learned, 1872-1961. Title : Papers, 1840-1961. Locations/Orders : Availability Location : Law School i Harvard Depository Modern Manuscript Collection [Consult Special Collections] Holdings Availability Description : 253 boxes in 258. History notes : Attorney and Federal judge. Practiced law, Albany, N.Y., and N.Y.C., 1897-1909; U.S. District judge, Southern District N.Y., 1909-1924; Judge, U.S. Ct. of Appeals, 2d Circuit, 1924-1961; Senior Circuit Judge, 1939-1951. Member and co-founder, American Law Institute. 15 LL.D.'s including Harvard U. 1939, Cambridge (England) 1952. Author of numerous legal and non-legal articles, memorials, etc.; Holmes lecturer, Harvard Law School, 1958. Summary : Correspondence, letter press books, diaries, drafts of speeches and writings, opinions, memoranda, reports, financial records, newspaper clippings, maps, photos, memorabilia, and other papers, relating to Hand's private and public life, his activities as an alumnus of Harvard University, his friendship with Felix Frankfurter, and to the Hand family. Includes material on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, New York City; information on the Progressive movement (1909-1914) and the beginnings of the New Republic and its early staff; and transcripts of oral-history interviews conducted by Gerald Gunther of Stanford Law School and others, of Judge Hand, his family and associates. Restrictions : Permission to quote needed from heirs. Notes : Dissertations on Learned Hand also on microfilm (2 reels, 35mm.). Cite as : Papers of Learned Hand, Harvard Law School Library. /2LINKLNX5S6137IGC6AE94RCQ6UK2G3EI8TV8V79N1FFDD8CJ4-01350?func=full-se7/30/200 Learned Hand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Page 2 of 21 4 Marriage and New York 5 Federal judge 6 Between the wars Note: Wikipedia extracts. 7 World War II See full article. 8 Postwar years 9 Semi-retirement and death 10 Philosophy 11 Jurisprudence 12 Influence 13 Selected works 14 Notes 15 References 16 External links Early life Billings Learned Hand was born on January 27, 1872, in Albany, New York, the second and latter child of Samuel Hand (1833-1886) and Lydia Hand (née Learned). His mother's family traditionally used surnames as given names, and Hand was named for an uncle and a grandfather, both named Billings Peck Learned [4] The Hands were a prominent family with a tradition of activism in the Democratic Party. Hand grew up in comfortable circumstances on Albany's main residential street. The family had an "almost hereditary" attachment to the legal profession, [5] and has been described as "the most distinguished legal family in northern New York" [6] Samuel Hand was an appellate lawyer, [7] who had risen rapidly through the ranks of an Albany-based law firm in the 1860s and by age 32 was the firm's leading lawyer. In 1878, he became the leader of the appellate bar and argued cases before the New York Court of Appeals in "greater number and importance than those argued by any other lawyer in New York during the same period". [8] Samuel Hand was also a distant, intimidating figure, and Learned Hand later described his relations with his father as "not really intimate" [9] Samuel Hand died from cancer when Hand was 14. [10] Learned Hand's mother thereafter promoted an idealized memory of her husband's professional success, intellectual abilities, and parental perfection, placing considerable pressure on her son. [11] Lydia Hand was an involved and protective mother, who had been influenced by a Calvinist aunt as a child; and she passed on a strong sense of duty and guilt to her only son. [12] Samuel Hand, Learned Hand eventually came to understand the influences of his parents as formative. [13] Learned's father, was a After his father's death, he looked to religion to help him cope, writing to his cousin successful lawyer who Augustus Noble Hand: "If you could imagine one half the comfort my religion has given to died at age 52. me in this terrible loss, you would see that Christ never forsakes those who cling to him." The depth of Hand's early religious convictions was in sharp contrast to his later agnosticism. [14] Hand was beset by anxieties and self-doubt throughout his life, including night terrors as a child. He later admitted he was "very undecided, always have been-a very insecure person, very fearful; morbidly fearful". [15] Especially after his father's death, he grew up surrounded by doting women-his mother, his aunt, and his sister Lydia (Lily), eight years his elder. [16] Hand struggled with his name during his childhood and adulthood, worried that "Billings" and "Learned" were not sufficiently masculine. While working as a lawyer in 1899, he ceased using the name "Billings"-calling it "pompous"-and ultimately took on the nickname "B". [7][17] Hand spent two years at a small primary school before transferring at the age of seven to The Albany Academy, which he attended for the next 10 years. He never enjoyed the Academy's uninspired teaching or its narrow curriculum, which focused on Ancient Greek http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_Hand 10/31/2013 LEARNED HAND, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW, 25 NORTH PEARL STREET. Albany, Hera york, June 19, 1901 93. Don Esq Dear Sir I am very glad that Haffrend to better first subscriber to the proposed building for sorry that my cantibution could nother Philosophy in Cambridge and Jam only more substantial. His a project which much, as take it, to Haward and the is very in part ant to me and would tot man whole community which Haward influrners. Veen only wish that the committee may be success ful in getting Enough money to build a suitable building, is Profissor withing writes our that he whole confident of bring able to grt the even 4150000; suffose he has sour means of knowing his prospects. With many thanks for your wind letter of Very sincerely yours, have Hand HUA. Harvard University. Subscription Records for Emerson Hall. 1901-1905. Learned Hand The Man and the Judge GERALD GUNTHER with a Foreword by Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Alfred A. Knopf New York 1994 Learned Hand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Page 3 of 21 and Latin, with few courses in English, history, science, or modern languages. Socially, he considered himself an outsider, rarely enjoying recesses or the school's military drills. [18] Vacations, spent in Elizabethtown, New York, were happier times. There, Hand developed a life-long friendship with his cousin and future colleague Augustus Noble Hand, two years his senior. [19] The two were self-confessed "wild boys", camping and hiking in the woods and hills, where Hand developed a love of nature and the countryside. [20] Many years later, when he was in his 70s, Hand recorded several songs for the Library of Congress that he had learned as a boy from Civil War veterans in Elizabethtown. [21] After his father's death, he felt an increased pressure from his mother to excel The Albany Academy, Albany, New York academically. He finished near the top of his class and was accepted into Harvard College, which his classmates-who opted for places such as Williams and Yale-thought a "stuckup, snobbish school". [22] Harvard Hand started at Harvard College in 1889, initially focusing on classical studies and mathematics as advised by his late father. At the end of his sophomore year, however, he changed direction. He embarked on courses in philosophy and economics, studying under the eminent and inspirational philosophers William James, Josiah Royce and George Santayana. [23] At first, Hand found Harvard a difficult social environment. He was not selected for any of the social clubs that dominated campus life, and he felt this exclusion keenly. He was equally unsuccessful with the Glee Club and the football team, although he rowed for a time as a substitute for the rowing club. He later described himself as a "serious boy", a hard worker who did not smoke, drink, or consort with prostitutes. [24] He mixed more in his sophomore and senior years. He became a member of the Hasty Pudding Club and appeared as a blond-wigged chorus girl in the 1892 student musical. He was also elected president of The Harvard Advocate, a student literary magazine. [25] Hand's studious ways resulted in his election to Phi Beta Learned Hand in 1893, the year he Kappa, an elite society of graduated from Harvard College scholarly students. [26] He graduated with highest honors, was awarded a master's as well as a bachelor's degree, [27] and was chosen by his classmates to deliver the Class Day oration at the 1893 commencement. [26] Family tradition and expectation suggested that he would study law after graduation. For a while, however, he seriously considered post-graduate work in philosophy, but he received no encouragement from his family or philosophy professors. Doubting himself, Learned Hand (front row, second from he then, as he put it, "drifted" towards law. [28] right) with fellow students outside Austin Hand's three years at Harvard Law School were intellectually and socially Hall at Harvard Law School, between 1894 stimulating. In his second year, he moved into a boarding house with a and 1896 group of fellow law students who were to become close friends. They studied hard and enjoyed discussing philosophy and literature and telling bawdy tales. Hand's intellectual reputation proved less of a hindrance at law school than it had as an undergraduate. He was elected to the Pow-Wow Club, in which law students practiced their skills in moot courts. He was also chosen as an editor of the Harvard Law Review, although he resigned in 1894 because it took too much time from his studies. [29] During the 1890s, Harvard Law School was pioneering the casebook method of teaching introduced by Dean Christopher Langdell. [30][31] Apart from Langdell, Hand's professors included Samuel Williston, John Chipman Gray, and James Barr Ames. Hand preferred those teachers who valued common sense and fairness and ventured beyond http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_Hand 10/31/2013 Learned Hand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Page 4 of 21 casebook study into the philosophy of law. [32] His favorite professor was James Bradley Thayer, who taught him evidence in his second year and constitutional law in his third. A man of broad interests, Thayer became a major influence on Hand's jurisprudence. He emphasized the law's historical and human dimensions rather than its certainties and extremes. He stressed the need for courts to exercise judicial restraint in deciding social issues. [33] Albany legal practice Hand graduated from Harvard Law School in 1896 at the age of 24. He then returned to Albany to live with his mother and aunt, and started work for the law firm in which an uncle, Matthew Hale, was a partner. Hale's unexpected death a few months later obliged Hand to move to a new firm, where by 1899 he had become a partner. [34] He had difficulty attracting his own clients, however, and found the work trivial and dull. [35] Much of his time was spent researching and writing briefs, with few opportunities for the appellate work he preferred. His early courtroom appearances, when they came, were frequently difficult, sapping his fragile self-confidence. He began to fear that he lacked the ability to think on his feet in court. [36] For two years, Hand tried to succeed as a lawyer by force of will, giving all his time to the practice. By 1900, he was deeply dissatisfied with his progress. For intellectual stimulation, he increasingly looked outside his daily work. He wrote scholarly articles, taught part-time at Albany Law School, and joined a lawyers' discussion group in New York City. He also developed an interest in politics. [37] Hand came from a line of loyal Democrats, but in 1898 he voted for Republican Theodore Roosevelt as governor of New York. Though he deplored Roosevelt's role in the "militant imperialism" of the Spanish-American War, he approved of the "amorphous mixture of socialism and laisser faire [sic]" in Roosevelt's campaign speeches. [38] Hand caused further family controversy by registering as a Republican for the presidential election of 1900. [39] Life and work in Albany no longer fulfilled him; he began applying for jobs in New York City, despite family pressure not to move. [40] Marriage and New York After reaching the age of 30 without developing a serious interest in a woman, Hand considered himself destined for bachelorhood. However, during a 1901 summer holiday in the Québec resort of La Malbaie, he met 25-year-old Frances Fincke, a graduate of Bryn Mawr College. [41] Though indecisive in most matters, he waited only a few weeks before proposing. The more cautious Fincke postponed her answer for almost a year, while Hand wrote to and occasionally saw her. He also began to look more seriously for work in New York City. [42] The next summer, both Hand and Fincke returned to La Malbaie, and at the end of August 1902, they became engaged and kissed for the first time. [43] They married on December 6, 1902, shortly after Hand had accepted a post with the Manhattan law firm of Zabriskie, Burrill & Murray.l4 The couple had three daughters, Mary Deshon (born 1905), Frances (born 1907), and Constance (born 1909). Hand proved an anxious husband and father. He corresponded regularly with his doctor brother-in-law about initial difficulties in conceiving and about his children's illnesses. He himself survived pneumonia in February 1905, taking months to recover. [45] The family at first spent summers in Mount Kisco, with Hand commuting on the weekends. After 1910, they rented summer homes in Cornish, New Hampshire, a writers' and artists' colony with a stimulating social scene. The Hands bought a house there in 1919, which they called "Low Court". [46] Cornish was a nine-hour train journey from New York and the couple were separated for long periods, with Hand able to join the family only for vacations. [47] The Hands became friends with the noted artist Maxfield Parrish, who lived in nearby Plainfield, and the Misses Hand posed for some of his famous paintings. [48] The Hands also became close friends with Cornish resident Louis Dow, a Dartmouth College professor. Frances Hand spent increasing amounts of time with Dow while her husband was in New York, and tension crept into the marriage. Despite speculation, however, there is no evidence that she and Dow were lovers. Hand regretted Frances' long absences and urged her to spend more time with him, but he maintained an enduring friendship with Dow. [49] He blamed himself for a lack of insight into his wife's needs in the early years of the marriage, confessing his "blindness and insensibility to what you wanted and to your right to your own ways when they differed from mine". Fearing he might otherwise lose her altogether, Hand came to accept Frances' desire to spend time in the country with another man. [50] While staying in Cornish in 1908, Hand began a close friendship with the political commentator and philosopher Herbert Croly. [51] At the time, Croly was writing his influential book The Promise of American Life, in which he advocated a program of democratic and egalitarian reform under a national government with increased powers. When the book was published in November 1909, Hand sent copies to friends and acquaintances, including former http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_Hand 10/31/2013 Learned Hand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Page 11 of 21 heart attack at Cornish. He was taken to St Luke's Hospital in New York City, where he died peacefully on August 18, 1961. The New York Times ran a front-page obituary. The Times of London wrote: "There are many who will feel that with the death of Learned Hand the golden age of the American judiciary has come to an end. "[150] Philosophy Hand's study of philosophy at Harvard left a lasting imprint on his thought. As a student, he lost his faith in God, and from that point on he became a skeptic. [151] Hand's view of the world has been identified as relativistic; in the words of scholar Kathryn Griffith, "[i]t was his devotion to a concept of relative values that prompted him to question opinions of the Supreme Court which appeared to place one value absolutely above the others, whether the value was that of individual freedom or equality or the protection of young people from obscene literature. "[152] Hand instead sought objective standards in constitutional law, most famously in obscenity and civil liberties cases. [153] He saw the Constitution and the law as compromises to resolve conflicting interests, possessing no moral force of their own. [154] This denial that any divine or natural rights are embodied in the Constitution led Hand to a positivistic view of the Bill of Rights. [155] In this approach, provisions of the Constitution, such as freedom of press, freedom of speech, and equal protection, should be interpreted through their wording and in the light of historical analysis rather than as "guides on concrete occasions". [156] For Hand, moral values were a product of their times and a matter of taste. [152] Pragmatic philosopher William James was one of Hand's civil instincts were at odds with the duty of a judge to stay aloof from politics. Hand's teachers at Harvard [157] As a judge he respected even bad laws; as a member of society he felt free to question the decisions behind legislation. In his opinion, members of a democratic College. society should be involved in legislative decision-making. [158] He therefore regarded toleration as a prerequisite of civil liberty. In practice, this even meant that those who wish to promote ideas repugnant to the majority should be free to do so, within broad limits. [159] Hand's skepticism extended to his political philosophy: he once described himself as "a conservative among liberals, and a liberal among conservatives" [160] As early as 1898, he rejected his family's Jeffersonian Democratic tradition. [161] His thoughts on liberty, collected in The Spirit of Liberty (1952), began by recalling the political philosophies of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. [162] Jefferson believed that each individual has a right to freedom, and that government, though necessary, threatens that freedom. In contrast, Hamilton argued that freedom depends on government: too much freedom leads to anarchy and the tyranny of the mob. [163] Hand, who believed, following Thomas Hobbes, that the rule of law is the only alternative to the rule of brutality [164] leaned towards Hamilton. [165] Since the freedom granted to the American pioneers was no longer feasible, [166] he accepted that individual liberty should be moderated by society's norms. [167] He nevertheless saw the liberty to create and to choose as vital to peoples' humanity and entitled to legal protection. He assumed the goal of human beings to be the "good life", defined as each individual chooses. [168] Between 1910 and 1916, Hand tried to translate his political philosophy into political action. Having read Croly's The Promise of American Life and its anti-Jeffersonian plea for government intervention in economic and social issues, he joined the Progressive Party. [169] However, he discovered that party politicking was incompatible not only with his role as a judge but with his philosophical objectivity. The pragmatic philosophy Hand had imbibed from William James at Harvard required each issue to be individually judged on its merits, without partiality. In contrast, political action required partisanship and a choice between values. [169] After 1916, Hand preferred to retreat from party politics into a detached skepticism. His belief in central planning resurfaced during the 1930s in his growing approval of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, as he once again-though this time as an observer-endorsed a program of government intervention. [170] Hand was also an interventionist on foreign policy, supporting U.S. involvement in both world wars, and disdained isolationism. [171] Jurisprudence Hand has been called one of the United States' most significant judicial philosophers. [172] A leading advocate of judicial restraint, he took seriously Alexander Hamilton's formulation that "the judiciary may truly be said to have neither force nor will, but merely judgement. "[173] Any judicial ruling that had the effect of legislating from the bench http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_Hand 10/31/2013 Learned Hand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Page 5 of 21 president Theodore Roosevelt. [53] Croly's ideas had a powerful effect on Roosevelt's politics, influencing his advocacy of New Nationalism and the development of Progressivism. [54] Hand remained disappointed in his progress at work. A move to the firm of Gould & Wilkie in January 1904 brought neither the challenges nor the financial rewards for which he had hoped. [55] "I was never any good as a lawyer," he later admitted. "I didn't have any success, any at all. "[56] In 1907, deciding that at the age of 35 success as a Wall Street lawyer was out of reach, he lobbied for a potential new federal judgeship in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, the federal court headquartered in Manhattan, and involved himself briefly in local Republican politics to strengthen his political base. In the event, Congress did not create the new judgeship in 1907, but when the post was finally created in 1909, Hand renewed his candidacy. With the help of the influential Charles C. Burlingham, a senior New York lawyer and close friend, he gained the backing of Attorney General George W. Wickersham, who urged President William Howard Taft to appoint Hand. One of the youngest federal judges ever appointed, Hand took his judicial oath in April 1909. [57] In 1914, Hand moved his chambers across Federal judge Broadway from the dilapidated Post- Office-Court Building (left) into the recently Hand served as a federal judge in the Southern District of New York from completed Woolworth Building (center), then the tallest in the world. 1909 to 1924. He dealt with fields of common law, including torts, contracts, and copyright, and admiralty law. His initial unfamiliarity with some of these specialties, along with his limited courtroom experience, caused him anxiety at first. [58] Most of Hand's early cases concerned bankruptcy issues, which he found tiresome, and patent law, which fascinated him. [59] Hand also made some important decisions in the area of free speech. A frequently cited 1913 decision was United States V. Kennerley, [60] an obscenity case concerning Daniel Carson Goodman's Hagar Revelly, a social-hygiene novel about the "wiles of vice" that had caught the attention of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. [61] Hand allowed the case to go forward on the basis of the Hicklin test, which stemmed back to a seminal English decision of 1868, Regina V. Hicklin. [62] In his opinion, Hand recommended updating the law, arguing that the obscenity rule should not simply protect the most susceptible readers but should reflect community standards: It seems hardly likely that we are even to-day so lukewarm in our interest in letters or serious discussion as to be content to reduce our treatment of sex to the standard of a child's library in the supposed interest of a salacious few, or that shame will for long prevent us from adequate portrayal of some of the most serious and beautiful sides of human nature. [63] Following his appointment as a judge, Hand became politically active in the cause of New Nationalism. [64] With reservations, he supported Learned Hand sat on the federal trial court Theodore Roosevelt's return to national politics in 1911. He approved of the former president's plans to legislate on behalf of the underprivileged in Manhattan for fifteen years. and to control corporations, as well as of his campaign against the abuse of judicial power. [65] Hand sought to influence Roosevelt's views on these subjects, both in person and in print, and wrote articles for Roosevelt's magazine The Outlook. [66] His hopes of swaying Roosevelt were nonetheless often dashed. Roosevelt's poor grasp of legal issues particularly exasperated Hand. [67] Despite overwhelming support for Roosevelt in the primaries and polls, the Republicans renominated the incumbent President Taft. A furious Roosevelt bolted from the party to form the Progressive Party, nicknamed the "Bull Moose" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_Han 10/31/2013