Lives of the Justices: Supreme Court Autobiographies
88 Pages Posted: 7 Dec 2011
Date Written: 2004
Abstract
Over the past two centuries the Supreme Court autobiography has evolved from the brief narratives of the early Justices to the full-length memoirs of their twentieth century counterparts. The substance of the Supreme Court autobiography has also evolved from recollections of family and pre-Court careers to elaborate childhood narratives and insider accounts of the Court at work. Its audience has changed as well, from the narrow readership of family and legal circles to the expansive territory of the bestseller list. As the scope of the Court autobiography has grown, so have the motivations of its authors. Where the nineteenth century Justices wrote primarily to preserve accurate information for domestic and historical records, their twentieth century successors have found new uses for the autobiographical form as a means of defending their judicial performance and shaping their public image. This shift reflects a similar development in the public perception of the Court and its Justices. In the twentieth century the public came to appreciate the powerful impact of the Court’s decisions on numerous aspects of everyday life, a perspective often accompanied by the sense that the Justices’ decisions were influenced by the nature of the men and women who made them. Those twin perceptions have transformed the Supreme Court autobiography from a specialized form to a genre of broad popular interest.
Keywords: Supreme Court, justices, judges, autobiography
JEL Classification: K1
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation