- Collection Overview
- Collection Description & Creator Information
- Access & Use
- Collection History
- Find Related Materials
Expanded View
Collection Overview
- Creator:
- Douglas, William O. (William Orville), 1898-1980.
- Collector:
- Princeton University. Library. Special Collections
- Title:
- William O. Douglas Oral History Interviews
- Repository:
- Public Policy Papers
- Permanent URL:
- http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/p2676v57d
- Dates:
- 1961-1963
- Size:
- 1 box
- Storage Note:
- Mudd Manuscript Library (mudd): Box 1
- Language:
- English
Abstract
William O. Douglas served as Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1939-1975, the longest term in the history of the Supreme Court. The collection includes audio and transcripts of interviews which cover Douglas's government career through the time of the interviews.
Collection Description & Creator Information
- Description:
Consists of tapes and transcriptions of conversations between Associate Justice of the Supreme Court William O. Douglas and Walter F. Murphy, professor of politics at Princeton University. Recorded on 18 separate occasions, the interviews took place from 1961 to 1963 and were transcribed in the Library, but were not edited by either participant.
The interviews cover most of Douglas's government career. Names which occur frequently in the conversations include Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, Charles E. Hughes, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harlan Stone, Harry Truman, Fred Vinson, and Earl Warren. There is also discussion concerning the issues of civil rights, habeas corpus, desegregation, and religious freedom, and various case histories including the Rosenberg case, the Minnesota Tea case, Brown vs. the Board of Education, United States vs. South Eastern Underwriters, and Kramer vs. United States.
- Arrangement:
The tape-recorded conversations were transcribed in one 384-page volume, in chronological order with an index of names. There are 19 actual cassettes, numbered 1-18 (with 7A & 7B).
- Collection Creator Biography:
Douglas, William O. (William Orville), 1898-1980.
William O. Douglas was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939. His nearly thirty-seven year tenure as a Supreme Court justice was the longest in the history of the court.
Murphy, Walter F., 1929-2010
Walter Murphy, a political scientist and constitutional scholar, served as the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University. Born on Nov. 21, 1929, and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, Murphy was an alumnus of the University of Notre Dame, George Washington University, and the University of Chicago. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps in Korea, receiving the Distinguished Service Cross, the Purple Heart, a Presidential Unit Citation and three battle stars. Murphy joined the Princeton faculty as an assistant professor of politics in 1958. He was named the McCormick Professor in 1968 and retained that chair until his retirement with emeritus status in 1995. He remained in the Marine Corps Reserve, retiring in 1974 as a colonel.
Collection History
- Acquisition:
William O. Douglas donated the recordings of his oral history to the Princeton University Library in 1965. Douglas's interviewer, Walter F. Murphy, gifted his copyright interest in the recordings to Princeton University in 1999.
- Archival Appraisal Information:
No materials were separated from this collection.
- Processing Information:
In 2000, the original paper transcripts of the recordings were converted into electronic form using optical character recognition software. The text of the transcripts were then coded in HTML, and the transcripts were made available via an old version of the Mudd Library's website.
In 2015, the Microsoft Word documents created by the optical character recognition software were converted to PDFs, and these PDF transcripts were made available via this finding aid.
During a 2020 survey the original 384-page volume of transcriptions was not located, researchers should use the transcriptions that are posted online with each individual interview.
Access & Use
- Access Restrictions:
The collection is open for research use.
- Conditions for Reproduction and Use:
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. For quotations that are fair use as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission to cite or publish is required. For those few instances beyond fair use, researchers are responsible for determining who may hold the copyright and obtaining approval from them. Researchers do not need anything further from the Mudd Library to move forward with their use.
- Special Requirements for Access:
Access to audio cassettes follows the Mudd Manuscript Library policy for preservation and access to audiovisual materials.
- Other Finding Aids:
An introduction to the collection was written by Walter Murphy in 2000 and is available here.
- Credit this material:
William O. Douglas Oral History Interviews; Public Policy Papers, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library
- Permanent URL:
- http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/p2676v57d
- Location:
-
Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library65 Olden StreetPrinceton, NJ 08540, USA(609) 258-6345
Find More
- Location of Originals:
The transcripts available online were created by converting the original paper transcripts into electronic form using optical character recognition software. The original paper transcripts are no longer available.
- Subject Terms:
- Civil rights -- United States -- 20th century.
Freedom of religion -- United States -- 20th century.
Habeas corpus -- United States -- 20th century.
Judges -- United States -- 20th century -- Interviews.
Judicial process -- United States -- 20th century.
Political scientists -- New Jersey -- Princeton -- 20th century -- Interviews. - Genre Terms:
- Audio cassettes.
Interviews. - Names:
- United States
Frankfurter, Felix, 1882-1965
Murphy, Walter F., 1929-2010
Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945.
Rosenberg, Julius, 1918-1953.
Vinson, Fred Moore, 1890-1953
Warren, Earl, 1891-1974.
