Rare Books

Rare Book Outreach in a Pandemic

Our new Rare Book Librarian, Kathryn James, formerly Curator for Early Modern Books and Manuscripts at the Beinecke Library took the reins in June 2021 following the retirement of Mike Widener. Kathryn undeterred by the challenges posed by the pandemic planned a host of successful outreach programs during the academic year. The Rare Book Collection was integrated into the fall 2021 “American Legal History” course taught by Professor John Witt. Materials from the rare and general collections were carefully selected to accompany the class. Over the course of the semester, items covered a broad range, as represented by the discussion “Of Masters & Servants,” in Seth Perkins Staples’ copy of the lectures by Tapping Reeve at the Litchfield Law School, the introduction to the United States Supreme Court offered by Peter W. Barnes, Marshall, the Courthouse Mouse: A Tail of the U.S. Supreme Court (1998), from the Morris Cohen Juvenile Jurisprudence collection. The Rare Book Collection was introduced to many other Law School and Yale College classes over the year, including “Research Methods in United States Law,”(Mignanelli) “Research Methods in Foreign & International Law,” (Olejnikova and Ma) “History of the Common Law,”(Langbein) “Roman Law”, and “Law and History.” (Lenski) and “Law and History” (De). Some highlights from the Rare Book Collection’s exhibition and outreach program include a fall 2021 exhibit, ‘Fresher, More Recent Tragedies’: Media and the Memory of the Attica Prison Uprising, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the September 1971 uprising at the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York. The exhibit drew in particular on the Rare Book Collection’s holdings for Jeremy Bentham, alongside those for Charles Dickens, Gary Trudeau, Michel Foucault, and others. In spring 2022, an exhibition on Constance Baker Motley was organized with Shana Jackson and Jordan Jefferson in the Law Library and with representatives of the Yale African American Affinity Group, the Working Women’s Network, the Office of Diversity & Inclusion, and the New Haven Club, Inc.-NANBWC. In a display of unique archival materials owned by Constance Royster, Motley’s niece, the Yale Law Library commemorated Judge Motley’s career from her time as an honors student at Hillhouse High School in New Haven through the Bill to posthumously award a congressional gold medal to Constance Baker Motley, introduced by Senator Blumenthal in January 2022.

Joel Motley and Connie Royster viewing the Constance Baker Motley: Lady of the Law exhibit with Rare Book Librarian, Kathryn James.