Legal History with Jessica Feature Image

Triflers Need Not Apply

A cautionary tale about personal ads.

Legal History with Jessica Feature Image

The Copyright and the Commodore

From naval service to the first federal copyright. Maybe?

Legal History with Jessica Feature Image

In Defense of Mobsters

Dillinger had the "Lady in Red." His associate, Henry Pierpont, had this lady in law.

Legal History with Jessica Feature Image

In Defense of a Monster

Sometimes criminal defense work means you have to defend a monster.

Legal History with Jessica Feature Image

Before Rosa

Rosa Parks set off a civil rights firestorm. Learn about the person who lit the match.

Legal History with Jessica Feature Image

The Printer’s Legal Woes

The tale of the legal woes of the man who printed one of the world's most famous bibles.

Legal History with Jessica Feature Image

How Bad Was It Really?

Every American law student knows Hawkins v. McGee...but is the "hairy hand case" much ado about nothing?

Legal History with Jessica Feature Image

The Seventh

The complicated story of "Tokyo Rose," the seventh person convicted and sentenced for treason in the United States.

Legal History with Jessica Feature Image

Webster’s World of Words

Noah Webster wove a web of words...and created the United States' first dictionary.

Legal History with Jessica Feature Image

The Bequest

Who is John Smithson? And what does he have to do with preserving history?

Legal History with Jessica Feature Image

She Did It Her Way

Suffragist and Temperance Movement leader Amanda Way predated many better-known figures of both movements...and did it her way.

Legal History with Jessica Feature Image

Double Jeopardy in the Wild West

A tale of Wild West murder...and legal proceedings.

Legal History with Jessica Feature Image

I Ain’t Afraid of No…

Who you gonna call when you're trying to sell a haunted house?

Legal History with Jessica Feature Image

Trout and Zona’s Ghost

Did a ghost solve her own murder?

Legal History with Jessica Feature Image

Monster Copyright

Dracula v. The Copyright

Legal History with Jessica Feature Image

Before Jackie

If Jackie Robinson was not the first African American MLB player...then who was?

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Manumission Before Emancipation

Robert Carter III did something the Founding Fathers never did - he manumitted his enslaved people almost 100 years before the Emancipation Proclamation.

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Legal Legerdemain

While Houdini was a magician by trade, he had several other interests such as film and aviation. He was also an innovator, seeking to improve existing items with an escapist twist. In 1921, Houdini invented a special diving suit which would allow wearers to get out of the suit faster if their air supplies failed by using a locking joint in the middle of the suit.

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Counsel on Trial

On April 18, 1857, Clarence Darrow was born in Kinsman, Ohio.  The name is likely familiar, as Darrow was one of the most famous lawyers of his day.  In his early years as a lawyer, Darrow was involved in the Labor Movement, defending Labor leaders including Eugene V. Debs.  Later in his career, he defended the infamous Leopold and Loeb, wealthy teenagers (18 and 17, respectively) who were accused of killing Bobby Franks, reportedly for “pure love of excitement. . . [and] the satisfaction and the ego of putting something over.” 

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A Reluctant First

In the early 1800s, as settlers from the newly-formed United States set forth into the lands west of the original colonies, their plans of manifest destiny were delayed by the people who had called those lands their home for many generations – the indigenous peoples of North America.