Description:

Supreme Court

Outstanding archive of nine Roosevelt-era Supreme Court justice signature clips, with hand-decorated album page photos and captions, collected by “Mrs. Emma Bracken” (1901-1969) of Bridgeport, Connecticut around February 1945. Includes signature clips, and some brief inscriptions, by the following Supreme Court justices: Hugo La Fayette Black as “Hugo L. Black, Feb. 2, 1945; William Orville Douglas as “Wm. O. Douglas, Feb. 2, 1945”; Felix Frankfurter inscribed and signed as “With the fond wishes of Felix Frankfurter”; Robert Houghwout Jackson as “Robert H. Jackson”; Frank Murphy as “Frank Murphy”; Stanley Reed signed as “Stanley Reed”; Owen Josephus Roberts as “Owen J. Roberts”; Wiley Blount Rutledge, Jr. as “With good wishes to Mrs. Emma Bracken, Wiley Rutledge, Washington, February 20, 1945”; and Harlan Fiske Stone as “Harlan F. Stone”. Signature clips are in near fine condition, as are most of the album pages. Expected wear includes paper folds, some wrinkled edges and corners (as well as isolated minor loss to Stone’s page), and minor paper residue verso probably from a scrapbook page. Nine pages measure approximately 5.5” x 8.5”, while Harlan F. Stone’s measures 8.5” x 11”.

Emma Bracken of Bridgeport, Connecticut was an inveterate autograph collector. She requested these Supreme Court autographs around February 1945; a couple months earlier, during the fall of 1944, she asked for and received the autographs of major American military commanders like George S. Patton, Omar Bradley, and Joseph Stilwell. She mounted each Supreme Court justice signature clip on a homemade album page featuring a black and white newspaper photo, biographical blurb, and autosignature, and then laboriously filled in the borders with black marker. Bracken’s obituary notice appeared in the November 27, 1969 issue of the Bridgeport Telegram twenty-four years after she assembled this autograph collection.

FDR’s Supreme Court appointees were a geographically diverse group, with justices from Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Michigan, Iowa, and Alabama. They were all highly educated middle aged white males. Frank Murphy represented the Catholic seat, and Felix Frankfurter represented the Jewish seat.

These nine justices sat on the Supreme Court bench between 1943 and 1945. Seven of the nine were appointed by 32nd U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945); Black in 1937, Reed in 1938, Douglas and Frankfurter in 1939, Murphy in 1940, Jackson in 1941, and Rutledge in 1943. FDR promoted Stone in 1941. (Interestingly, Bracken’s autograph collection includes that of Owen Josephus Roberts, who had been appointed by 31st U.S. President Herbert Hoover, and is missing that of the ninth FDR appointed justice, James F. Byrnes.) During his twelve-year presidency, FDR appointed eight Supreme Court justices. It had been his intention to appoint even more. In his disastrously received Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, disparagingly known as the “court-packing plan”, FDR proposed granting himself the authority to appoint additional Supreme Court justices for every sitting justice over the age of 70 years old and six months, up to a maximum of six. In this way, FDR hoped to ensure passage of his New Deal legislature.

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