Law Commons^™

Gertrude Jenkins, Unplugged, Todd C. Peppers

Scholarly Articles

Gertrude Jenkins worked for U.S. Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone until his death in 1946. Adept at multi-tasking, she also ran a boarding house to make more money. A position as a floating secretary was created for Jenkins at the Court, and she worked in other chambers as well as the Court library until October 1949, when she accepted a position in Justice Frankfurter’s chambers. Jenkins retired in August 1953.

Gertrude Jenkins’s letters neither shed light on the grand constitutional issues of her day nor provide insights into the justices’ jurisprudential views. They will not cause historians to radically reevaluate …

A Secretary's Absence For A Law School Examination, Todd C. Peppers

Scholarly Articles

The May 5, 1893 letter from Justice Horace Gray to Chief Justice Melville Weston Fuller touches upon several different strands of Supreme Court history. To place the letter in context, we need to briefly discuss the creation of the law clerk position as well as the different functions of this first generation of law clerks. And we need to talk about the untimely death of a young Harvard Law School graduate named Moses Day Kimball.

Birth Of An Institution: Horace Gray And The Lost Law Clerks, Todd C. Peppers

Scholarly Articles

In a vault hidden away in a downtown Boston bank rests a large silver loving cup. The cup was presented to Associate Justice Horace Gray on March 22, 1902 by his law clerks, and engraved on its tarnished surface are the names of the nineteen Harvard Law School graduates who served as Justice Gray’s law clerks. While the details surrounding the presentation of the cup have been lost to history, the gift was likely prompted by the failing health of Justice Gray and his future departure from the Supreme Court. The loving cup is still held by the Gray family, …