The Pritzker Legal Research Center presents two exhibits each year, one in the fall and one in the spring. Occasionally, these exhibits are also made available online, and they are shared here.
“The Law School of Northwestern University, though founded in 1859, is now for the first time housed in premises exclusively devoted to its own work. Hence, much rejoicing; a sense of destiny achieved…”1
This quote appeared in a 1926 publication marking the construction of Levy Mayer Hall and the Gary Library on Northwestern’s Chicago campus. After moving from building to building for more than half a century, the Law School finally had a permanent address. For those who had invested in its success since its inception, these new buildings were more than buildings: they were physical proof that Northwestern Law would endure.
The Law School not only endured, but it expanded with time. In 1959, McCormick Hall and the Coon Library were added to the campus, followed by the Rubloff Building in 1984. Each of these buildings, outlined in the above icon from a birds’-eye view, presents a unique perspective on the history of the Law School and the contemporary vision for its future. A Vision for the Law School explores Northwestern Law’s architectural history from its formation in 1859 to the present day, offering a glimpse into the challenges and celebrations that have brought it thus far.
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Tragedy strikes time and again throughout John Reynolds’ book The Triumphs of God’s Revenge. In each of its thirty vignettes, the dangerous passions of lust, jealousy, revenge, and greed turn good Christians into murderers; Reynolds writes that their malicious crimes against spouses and kin were almost too terrible to tell. Regardless of the devastation of these tragedies, justice always prevails. As the public learns the truth about each murder (or “murther”), every killer pays for their crimes with his or her own life.
First published in 1621, The Triumphs of God’s Revenge captivated generations of readers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Pritzker Legal Research Center’s 1726 copy of The Triumphs is a testament to the English public’s longstanding fascination with crime stories. The book’s printed illustrations bring each sordid history to life, conveying the horrific events and bitter consequences of each murder in sequential form. Examining these illustrations and the thirty written histories, we identify themes and conventions in Reynolds’ accounts of the killers and the crimes, the revelation of the truth, and the punishment. These tales may not always represent the actual incidents of crime or the judicial process in early modern England. However, The Triumphs reveals cultural truths about justice and morality that resonated with its original readers; it also presents a model for crime literature that is echoed in today’s true crime stories.
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The year 2020 is remarkable in many ways: it’s an election year, in the midst of a global pandemic, with a likewise global revitalization in the cause of Civil Rights. For women, it marks a century of suffrage, with August 18 the 100th anniversary of the hard-won ratification of the 19th Amendment.
However, a full fifty years before this milestone event, Northwestern Law graduated its—and America’s—first female law student. From that point on, it has continued to educate and employ remarkable women who have made a difference both at the Law School and in the legal world at-large.
A century after Northwestern Law first opened its doors to women, amidst criticism that a woman’s proper place in society remained in the home, feminist politician Bella Abzug’s campaign declared “This woman’s place is in the House … the House of Representatives!” This exhibit, whose name is derived from that slogan, tells the story of several Northwestern Law women who fought for their place in the legal world, and helped make a place for those who would follow.
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In 1906, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law played its first faculty-student softball game. For many years, the game consisted of professors playing against the staff of the Law Review. As time went on, however, participating students included those taking the Communication and Legal Reasoning course and members of the 3L class. The professors mixed things up as well, occasionally recruiting retired professional baseball players to join their team as honorary faculty members. (Rumor has it, the professors usually won.) This exhibit features the many photographs of this annual tradition from the Pritzker Legal Research Center's archives.
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On April 6, 1917, the United States of America officially entered into World War I, and Americans from coast to coast joined the troops abroad and the effort at home. Among these were the men and women of the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. From Colonel John Henry Wigmore, who served in the Judge Advocate General's Corps, to the brothers of the Pi Epsilon Delta, who created and dispatched a wartime newsletter, this exhibit offers a glimpse into the impact of the War on the School of Law—and the impact its men and women had on their country.
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