Related Sites
Other Sources for Washington & Lee School of Law History
This law school became associated with Washington & Lee University (then Washington College) soon after the Civil War. The administration of the law school was virtually indistinguishable from that of the university as a whole well into the twentieth century. Most early records of the law school, therefore, are held in theSpecial Collections area of W&L's Leyburn Library, which houses the university archives. Among the holdings here is the typescript draft of Ollinger Crenshaw's 1968 history of W&L, General Lee's College. The draft of the chapter on the law school is more extensive than the published version and contains notes to sources.
The law school web site contains sketches of the history of W&L law school, of its faculty, or of selected alumni.
Other Sources of Information About Powell Family History and Genealogy
Papers of assorted Powells, Gwathmeys, and Ruckers can be found at the Virginia Historical Society. Genealogists will want to consult the vital records held at the Library of Virginia. An ever increasing amount of the library's holdings is available on-line.
Other Sources of Powell Photos
The Powell Archives holds many photographs of Justice Powell and his family. Many more remain with family members. Almost certainly, however, the best selection of photos of Justice Powell is held by the Office of the Curator of the U.S. Supreme Court. Indeed, the office has endeavored to collect the widest possible range of photos for all of the Supreme Court Justices. There is no publicly accessible web site for the office at this time. It is located in the Supreme Court Building. The telephone number is (202)479-3298.
Other Supreme Court and lower Federal Court primary sources
Library of Congress Manuscripts Division
LC has by far the largest holdings of Justices' papers. Several of Powell's contemporaries, including Justices Brennan, Douglas, Marshall, and White, have donated their papers here.
National Archives and Records Administration
Federal Court administrative records are here as are the audio recordings of Supreme Court oral arguments. Selected arguments can be heard on the Supreme Court Oral Argument web site. Full text Supreme Court decisions can be found at several web locations including Cornell Law School's excellent site.
The Federal Judicial Center's Federal Judicial History Office
This is "the" source for locating federal court records and the papers of federal judges. No link to the History Office is apparent from this page. There are, however, several publications of the Federal Judicial History Office available in PDF format (you must have reader software such as Adobe Acrobat), including A Directory of Oral History Interviews Related to the Federal Courts, A Guide to the Preservation of Federal Judges' Papers, and its newsletter The Court Historian.
Yale University Library Department of Archives and Manuscripts
Yale University holds the papers of Powell Supreme Court contemporary Potter Stewart. So extensive are Yale's holdings of legal resources that a 1983 listing of relevant collections ran 83 pages.
The College of William and Mary
In 1996, the estate of former Chief Justice Warren E. Burger chose William & Mary's Swem Library as the repository for the Burger papers. They are closed to researchers until 2026.
A List of Legal History Websites
The Legal History and Rare Books Special Interest Section of the American Association of Law Libraries maintains this list. It is a good starting point for research in the history of American law.
The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) homepage includes Prof. Harold Spaeth's "United States Supreme Court Judicial Database, 1953-1995 Terms" (Study # 9422) in its "Criminal Justice Data" (NACJD) section. This database "emcompasses all aspects of United States Supreme Court decision-making from the beginning of the Warren Court in 1953 up to the completion of the 1995 term of the Rehnquist Court on July 1, 1996."
Selected printed sources
Jeffries, John C. Jr., Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr.: A Biography. New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons: 1994.
An erudite yet highly accessible biography of Powell by one of his Supreme Court clerks, now an Associate Dean at the University of Virginia Law School.
Wigdor, Alexandra K., The Personal Papers of Supreme Court Justices. New York, NY: Garland Publishing, Inc.; 1986.
Though somewhat dated, this remains the authoritative source concerning the existence and location of the papers of the Justices up to 1985.