From the Archives This summer, the class notes of George A. Robinson 1878L’s senior year made their way back to the Powell Archives, a gift from the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville.
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Peter Scott Campbell, technical services librarian at Brandeis, found these notes while examining his “someday-I’ll-get-to-them pile of odds and ends.” When he realized the notebooks would be of significance to the Law School, he contacted John Jacob, W&L’s Law School archivist. “As far as I know,” said Jacob, “this is an unprecedented record in the realm of 19th-century teaching and learning at our School. In addition to the intrinsic artifactual value to W&L, the notes will be a treasure for scholars in legal education from this period.” The two bound notebooks cover Professor Charles A. Graves’ classes in Practice and Pleadings, Equity, Real Property, Partnership and Agency. And it appears that both John Randolph Tucker and Judge William McLaughlin were guest lecturers. Tucker and Graves served as the first two deans of the Law School, and McLaughlin was a University trustee. After graduation, Robinson, whose elder brother, Richard Jr., was a member of the Law Class of 1877, returned to his hometown of Louisville, Ky., and worked in two of the family’s businesses, as general manager of the Louisville Cotton Mills and as vice president of R.A. Robinson’s Sons Inc. He also served as president of W&L’s Louisville Alumni Chapter. In 1880, Robinson married Rosa Johnson, the daughter of Col. William Preston Johnson, a professor of history and literature at W&L who later served as a lecturer of law, covering topics in history and the science of law. George A. Robinson graduated f r o m t h e L aw S c h o o l in 1878.