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Additional resources for this
issue of History Now
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General Resources on the Supreme
Court
Our September 2007 issue of History Now on
the Constitution contains essays (and suggested resources)
on the document that created the Supreme Court:
http://www.historynow.org/
09_2007/index.html
Luckily, there are good reference tools for studying
the Court:
Shultz, David. The Encyclopedia of the Supreme
Court. New York: Facts on File, 2005.
A Reference Guide to the United States Supreme
Court. New York: Facts on File Publications, 1986.
Here are some general histories of the Court that you
may want to consult:
Bickel, Alexander M. The Least Dangerous Branch:
The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics, 2d Edition.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986
Currie, David P. The Constitution in the Supreme
Court: The First Hundred Years, 1789-1888. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1985.
_____. The Constitution in the Supreme Court: The
Second Century, 1888- 1986. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1990.
Hoffer, Peter Charles, et al. The Supreme Court:
An Essential History. Lawrence, KS: University
Press of Kansas, 2007.
Irons, Peter H. A People's History of the Supreme
Court: The Men and Women Whose Cases and Decisions Have
Shaped Our Constitution. New York: Penguin Books,
2006.
McCloskey, Robert G. The American Supreme Court.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
Rehnquist, William H. The Supreme Court. New
York: Knopf, 2001.
Rosen, Jeffrey. The Most Democratic Branch: How
The Courts Serve America. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2006.
Rosen, Jeffrey. The Supreme Court: The Personalities
and Rivalries That Defined America. New York: Times
Books, 2007.
Schwartz, Bernard. A History of the Supreme Court.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Segal, Jeffrey Allan, et al. The Supreme Court
in the American Legal System. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2005.
These are examples of more specialized book length
studies:
Hitchcock, James. The Supreme Court and Religion
in American Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2004.
Stephenson, D. Grier. Campaigns and the Court:
The US Supreme Court in Presidential Elections.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
Hall, Kermit L. and Patrick, John J. The Pursuit
of Justice: Supreme Court Decisions That Shaped America.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
For specific eras, turn to a series inaugurated by
Macmillan & Co. more than thirty-five years ago.
The publisher’s renowned “History of the
Supreme Court” series hasn’t moved to the
mid-twentieth century, but you’ll find the existing
eight volumes invaluable. I’ll list them in their
order within the series:
Goebel, Julius. Antecedents and Beginnings to 1801.
New York: Macmillan & Co, 1971.
Haskins, George Lee, and Herbert A. Johnson. Foundations
of Power: John Marshall, 1801-15. New York: Macmillan
& Co, 1981.
White, G. Edward. The Marshall Court and Cultural
Change: 1815-35. New York: Macmillan & Co,
1988.
Swisher, Carl Brent. The Taney Period, 1836-64.
New York: Macmillan & Co, 1974.
Fairman, Charles. Reconstruction and Reunion, 1864-88.
New York: Macmillan & Co, 1987.
Fairman, Charles. Five Justices and the Electoral
Commission of 1877. New York: Macmillan & Co,
1988.
Fiss, Owen M. Troubled Beginnings of the Modern
State, 1888-1910. New York: Macmillan & Co,
1993.
Bickel, Alexander M., and Schmidt, Benno C. The
Judiciary and Responsible Government, 1910-21.
New York: Macmillan & Co, 1984.
Essays in this issue of History Now focus on the court’s
early years, the new Deal, and its most recent decades.
These books fill in other periods in the Court’s
twentieth century history:
Horwitz, Morton J. The Warren Court and the Pursuit
of Justice. New York: Hill and Wang, 1998.
Powe, L. A. Scot. The Warren Court and American
Politics. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 2000.
Pratt, Walter F. The Supreme Court under Edward
Douglass White, 1910-1921. Columbia: University
of South Carolina Press, 1999.
Urofsky, Melvin I. Division and Discord: The Supreme
Court under Stone and Vinson, 1941-1953. Columbia:
University of South Carolina Press, 1997.
The process of choosing members of the Supreme Court
bench has become one of the most pressing issues in
American politics. These books trace the history of
such appointments:
Abraham, Henry Julian. Justices and Presidents:
A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Maltese, John Anthony. The Selling of Supreme Court
Nominees. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1995.
Tribe, Laurence H. God Save This Honorable Court:
How the Choice of Supreme Court Justices Shapes Our
History. New York: Random House, 1985.
Vieira, Norman, and Gross, Leonard. Supreme Court
Appointments: Judge Bork and the Politicization of Senate
Confirmations. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1998.
If you and your students have a taste for original
documents, you can’t beat this wonderful edition
of letters, court records, and other sources:
Marcus, Maeva, et al., Eds. The Documentary History
of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800.
8 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985-2007.
There was considerable controversy in 1997 when Peter
Irons published this:
May It Please the Court: The First Amendment: [Live
Recordings and] Transcripts of the Oral Arguments Made
Before the Supreme Court in Sixteen Key First Amendment
Cases. New York: New Press, 1997.
Today, the Court itself makes available the recordings
of its proceedings. I, at least, find these recordings
a remarkable testimony to the Justices skill and doggedness
in eliciting key information from attorneys arguing
before them. I think that you and your students will
find it interesting to compare the impact of the spoken
words and their transcriptions. It’s a useful
lesson in weighing historical evidence.
Online resources:
In addition to our September 2007 issue on the Constitution,
take a look at the June 2006 issue’s essay by
James Patterson on “The Civil Rights Movement:
Major Events and Legacies.” My suggested sources
may be helpful as well for cases like Brown v. Board
of Education:
http://www.historynow.org/06_2006/historian5.html
The easiest source for the full texts of the opinions
for all of the Supreme Court decisions mentioned this
issue (and, indeed for thousands of others) is Northwestern
University’s Oyez Website. Go to their search
page:
http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2006/
Just type in the name of one party to the case (or
both if wish), and you’ll get a list of results.
The home page for each case gives you a clearly understandable
summary of the issues in the cases, the names of the
attorneys (if known). Then there are links to the original
documents—always the written opinions and, for
cases heard in the modern era, links to media files
containing recordings of the actual arguments.
You’ll find there are other Websites that give
you more limited coverage. Findlaw.com, for instance,
has mounted all of the Court opinions since 1893 with
a database that allows you to search these texts:
http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/supreme.html
Findlaw does include cases decided before 1893. But
they don’t seem to have worked these into their
searchable database yet. To find out if a pre-1893 case
appears in Findlaw, I discovered that it’s more
effective to do a Google search — “Findlaw
Marbury” or “Findlaw Gibbons v. Ogden”
rather than using the Findlaw search screen.
Be warned that if you use Findlaw for extended work,
you may be asked to establish an account. This is free,
but you’ll find yourself in a welter of ads and
offers.
Don’t ignore the Court’s own Website. Although
not designed with the classroom in mind, this stop on
the Internet has an amazing amount of material you’ll
find useful:
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/
Here’s my favorite. No bones about it. The site
of the Supreme Court Historical Society (which I’ll
refer to as the “SCHS” throughout my Resources
pages) was founded by Justice Warren Burger. I’ve
recommended it before, and I’ll recommend it again
and again:
http://www.supremecourthistory.org/
You may find it hard to leave the “Learning Center”:
http://www.supremecourthistory.org/05_learning/05.html
When a case is highlighted in their Landmark Cases
section, you won’t have to look elsewhere for
opinions, bibliography, cartoons, supplemental essays,
lesson plans—anything you or your students would
want:
http://www.landmarkcases.org/
PBS’s excellent 2007 series on the Court is the
basis for a website with an exceptionally strong “education”
component:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/educators/index.html
Scour every corner of their “resources”
section – books, audios, games, special lists
for children and young adults:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/resources/index.html
Bookmark their list of links to online sources for
further studies – short and to the point:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/educators/resources.html
Games and interactive features that are useful for
all levels. Lesson Plans for 9-12:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/educators/adayinthelife.html
Less comprehensive is Court TV segment on Supreme Court.
They use materials supplied by Findlaw.com:
http://supreme.courttv.findlaw.com/supreme_court/index.html
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