Biographies researched and written by NPS Volunteer Eleanor Jones.
Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter
Felix Frankfurter served on the Supreme Court from 1939 to 1962. He was the sixth foreign-born justice, having spent the first twelve years of his life in Vienna, Austria before immigrating to New York in 1894. He was also a non-practicing Jew, albeit an active member of the Zionist movement. Although he spent much of his early career as a legal professor at his alma matter Harvard Law School, Frankfurter built up considerable influence and had an important hand in national politics. For example, he attended the post-World War I Paris Peace Conference as the representative of the American Zionists, he publicly defended those accused of being communists during Attorney General Mitchell Palmer’s red scare, he supported the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), he was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and President Franklin D. Roosevelt went with a number of Frankfurter’s political nominee recommendations.
President Roosevelt appointed Frankfurter to the Supreme Court in 1939, filling in the vacancy left by his friend Benjamin Cardozo. On the court, Justice Frankfurter was a bit of a loner and struggled to persuade his colleagues to his side at times. But, otherwise, he was a brilliant problem-solver. He was also known to support judicial restraint, and he strongly believed that rulings should be based on precedent and empirical evidence—not a judge’s personal feelings.
Associate Justice Hugo Black
Hugo Black served on the Supreme Court from 1939 to 1971. From an early age, he proved to be quite studious, choosing to spend much of his free time at the courthouse in his rural hometown in Clay County, Alabama. By the age of twenty-three, Black was a well-established private practice attorney in Birmingham. In 1914, he was elected the county solicitor—or public prosecutor—of Jefferson County. He briefly put his career on hold to serve in World War I, though he never left the United States.
When Black returned, he ran for the Senate, winning the election and joining Congress as one of Alabama’s senators in 1927. He was very influential in the Senate, even becoming the Democratic majority whip during his second term. Among other accomplishments, Black helped spearhead President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and minimum wage legislation. He also supported the president’s push to add new justices to the Supreme Court, not liking how the court seemed to invent constitutional doctrine to justify some of its rulings. All this earned Black an appointment to the Supreme Court courtesy of President Roosevelt. Though easily confirmed, his actual inauguration was met with picket protests after the new discovered Black had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan from 1923 to 1925. He claimed it was a mistake and denied allegations of racial prejudice, and then-Chief Justice Charles Evans ignored petitions to deny Black his seat.
On the Supreme Court, Justice Black was known early on for his frequent, yet well-reasoned dissents. He also opposed any legislation that clearly violated the rights guaranteed to individuals by the Constitution. His one condition was that these rights must be based in the language of the Constitution itself, so he did not support the right to privacy, the protection of symbolic speech, etc.
Chief Justice Earl Warren
Earl Warren served on the Supreme Court from 1953 to 1969, stepping in to succeed the late Fred Vinson as Chief Justice. Prior to his appointment by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Warren was an active and highly respected politician. Born to Scandinavian parents in California, he obtained his law degree from the University of California in 1924. After briefly serving in the military during World War I—though he did not fight overseas—Warren joined the staff of the Alameda County district attorney in 1920. From 1925 to 1938, he served as the district attorney, before he won the California attorney general seat in 1938 as a Republican. He contributed to the internment of Japanese-Americans following Pearl Harbor but had an otherwise clean record. Warren won the California governorship in 1942, holding that office until his appointment to the Supreme Court.
As Chief Justice, Warren was known for his leadership and his emphasis on fairness in civil rights cases. The Warren Court oversaw a massive expansion of civil liberties, unafraid to go against legal precedent. This court’s first major ruling came in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), in which the court unanimously overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) by finding racial segregation unconstitutional. When discussing the case with his fellow justices, Chief Justice Warren argued that when the executive and legislative branches fail to act—in this case, by failing to outlaw segregation—the judicial branch is justified in taking its own action.
Other notable cases during the Warren Court were Mapp v. Ohio (1961), ruling that illegally seized evidence could not be used in court; Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), ruling that the court must provide a lawyer to defendants unable to afford one; and Miranda v. Arizona (1966), ruling that police officers must read individuals their rights (now commonly referred to as the Miranda rights) before an interrogation while in custody.
Associate Justice Stanley Reed
Stanley Reed served on the Supreme Court from 1938 to 1957. He grew up in Minerva, Kentucky and started his law degree at the University of Virginia Law School in 1907, also spending a year studying law at the prestigious Sorbonne in Paris. Reed began his legal career in the private practice but quickly won his first public office in 1912 on the Kentucky General Assembly. He was a Democrat and supported Woodrow Wilson’s successful presidential bid in 1916. Reed served in World War I as a lieutenant in the army intelligence unit, joining a private law firm upon his return. In 1929, one of his connections at the Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative Association recommended him as general counsel for President Herbert Hoover’s new Federal Farm Board.
From there, Reed’s career took off. In 1932, President Hoover appointed him as general counsel to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, where his first major legal victory came in the Gold Clauses Cases (1935). In these cases, Reed defended President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s controversial New Deal policy that reduced the gold content of the U.S. dollar in order to raise the price of domestic goods. In March of that same year, Reed became the solicitor general, responsible for coordinating and arguing on behalf of the federal government in Supreme Court cases. Despite a handful of early defeats, he ended his tenure on a high note, securing the validity of the National Labor Relations Board and the Tennessee Valley Authority Act.
President Roosevelt appointed Reed to the Supreme Court in 1938. During his time on the court, Justice Reed supported big government, ruling in favor of various welfare programs and government efforts to regulate the economy. Unlike some of his peers, he preferred judicial restraint and often upheld actions taken by the other branches. For example, Justice Reed supported Congress’ efforts to prosecute suspected communists. He did not, however, support segregation, voting against southern states’ attempts at a whites-only primary election and voting multiple times in favor of opening schools up to black attendees—including during Brown v. Board of Education (1954). After he retired from the Supreme Court in 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Reed as the chairman of the Civil Rights Commission, which produced the Civil Rights Act of 1957. This act primarily served to protect the right of African Americans to vote, as guaranteed by the Fifteenth Amendment.
Associate Justice William Douglas
William Douglas served on the Supreme Court from 1939 to 1975, making him the longest serving justice to date. He had a hard childhood, dealing with financial insecurity and an infant illness that nearly left him paralyzed. Douglas persisted, however, and worked his way through getting a law degree from Columbia Law School in 1925. He held a teaching position at Yale Law School from 1928 to 1933, after which he joined the Securities and Exchange Commission. This job put him in contact with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and other major players in the New Deal. Finally, in 1939, President Roosevelt appointed a forty-year-old Douglas to the Supreme Court.
On the court, Justice Douglas’s judicial record reflected his gradual move towards a belief in the absolute supremacy of the Bill of Rights over any attempt at government regulation. This judicial philosophy presented itself in decisions such as his majority opinion on Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), in which the Supreme Court struck down a law banning the sale of birth control to married couples. This ruling also laid the groundwork for an inferred right to privacy within the Bill of Rights, which the Burger Court famously used in its decision on Roe v. Wade (1973).
Justice Douglas was a controversial judge, with many critics finding him to too biased and too much of an activist for his position. Despite several calls for impeachment, he remained a steady force on the liberal majority of the Warren Court, which oversaw numerous civil rights cases such as the aforementioned Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Justice Douglas’ time on the bench finally came to end after side effects from a stroke caused him to retire in 1975.
Associate Justice Tom Clark
Tom Clark served on the Supreme Court from 1949 to 1967. He was raised in Texas, where his father practice law and had many connections with state Democrat leaders. Clark initially pursued a career in the military, but a combination of financial struggles and being underweight pushed him from the army into the national guard. Once World War I ended, he went back to school, obtaining his law degree from the University of Texas in 1922. From 1922 to 1937, Clark bounced between private practice and working in the Dallas County district attorney’s office. In 1937, Texas’s U.S. Senator Tom Connally persuaded Clark to work at the Justice Department. He became the head of the Antitrust Division’s west coast office, and he later supervised the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
During his work in the Antitrust Division, Clark befriended then-Senator Harry S. Truman who occasionally helped him in his investigations. After Truman assumed the presidency in 1945 following Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death, he appointed Clark as his attorney general. Clark played a large role in the government’s Cold War-era crackdown on suspected communists. He began the practice of publishing the attorney general’s list of un-American political organizations, such as communist groups.
President Truman appointed Clark to the Supreme Court in 1949. Civil rights groups protested his appointment, but the Senate still confirmed his nomination by a wide margin. For the first decade or so of his time on the bench, Justice Clark tended to dissent in cases where the court upheld individual rights against government actions. He generally found that the interests of national security and loyalty outweighed civil freedoms, though he became more moderate in the 1960s once the court stopped seeing as many national security cases. For example, Justice Clark authored the majority opinion in Mapp v. Ohio (1961), ruling that illegally seized evidence could not be used in court.
Despite his generally pro-government stance on national security, Justice Clark consistently supported the legal rights of Black Americans. For example, he upheld the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed segregation in public spaces, in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964) and Katzenbach v. McClung (1964). He was also part of the unanimous Supreme Court that outlawed racial segregation in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
Associate Justice Robert Jackson
Robert Jackson served on the Supreme Court from 1941 to 1954. He came from a farming background but was well-read, obtaining a law degree from Albany Law School and entering the New York State Bar Association in 1913. He began his career in private practice, though he often served as counsel for corporations and trade unions. Jackson’s work and stellar reputation among Democrats and Republicans alike made it easy for him to make connections with the political elite. In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Jackson as general counsel to the Bureau of International Revenue. In 1938, the president made him the solicitor general, where he argued the government’s cases before the Supreme Court, and in 1940 Jackson received a promotion to U.S. attorney general.
President Roosevelt appointed Jackson to the Supreme Court in 1941 as an associate justice, though with plans to later promote him to chief justice. Although Justice Jackson never became chief justice, he was still notable for his time on the bench. Right from the start, he authored the majority opinion in Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), ruling that schools could not compel students to salute the American flag or say the pledge of allegiance. In April 1945, President Harry S. Truman appointed Justice Jackson as the U.S.’s chief prosecutor for the Nuremberg Trials, which saw Nazi leaders face justice for their human rights violations during World War II.
Although Justice Jackson suffered a heart attack on March 30, 1954, that hospitalized him, he went against his doctor’s advice and appeared in-person when the Court issued its unanimous ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) on May 17. He passed away just five months later.
Associate Justice Harold Burton
Harold Burton served on the Supreme Court from 1945 to 1958. He spent the first seven years of his life in Switzerland with his ailing mother, returning to the United States to live with his father after her passing. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1912, moving his family west because he believed there were more opportunities to practice law there than on the east coast. After serving in the army during World War I, Burton settled in Cleveland, Ohio, where he soon became involved in politics. Though a Republican, his views were more bipartisan and he saw no problem with endorsing Democrat policies if he found them helpful. For example, as mayor of Cleveland, Burton supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. He won a U.S. Senate seat in 1940. During his time in the Senate, one of the friends he made was then-Missouri senator Harry S. Truman.
After Harry S. Truman assumed the presidency in 1945 following President Roosevelt’s passing, he appointed Burton to the Supreme Court that same year. On the court, Justice Burton maintained his reputation for political cooperation. Though his voting record leaned conservative, he worked behind the scenes to minimize tension among the justices. One of his notable opinions included a dissent in Toolson v. New York Yankees (1953), in which he believed that Major League Baseball ought to be regulated just as any other big business was. He joined the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) to overturn the “separate but equal” doctrine.
Associate Justice Sherman Minton
Sherman Minton served on the Supreme Court from 1949 to 1956. He grew up on a farm in Indiana and worked to save money for college. Minton obtained his law degree from the Indiana School of Law in 1915, followed by a Master of Law from Yale Law School in 1916. He also studied one year of law at the Sorbonne while stationed in Paris during World War I. Upon his return to the U.S., he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1920 and 1930. His former Indian School of Law classmate Paul McNutt won the election for Indiana governor in 1932. McNutt subsequently made Minton the public counselor for the Public Service Commission in 1933.
Minton used this appointment to help him win election to Congress in 1934 as a senator. He strongly supported the New Deal and became the assistant Democratic whip, helping to ensure that Democrat congressmen voted according to the party’s platform and leaders. He also supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s failed plan to increase the number of Supreme Court justices in 1937. During his time in the Senate, Minton befriended the Missouri Democrat Harry S. Truman. Although Minton lost re-election in 1940, President Roosevelt invited him to work in the White House as coordinator of military agencies. A year later, President Roosevelt appointed him to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
In 1949, now-President Harry S. Truman appointed Minton to the Supreme Court. His nomination was a little controversial, as his days on the Senate made clear his liberal biases. Still, the Senate confirmed his nomination. On the bench, Justice Minton tended to avoid judicial activism, instead deferring to the executive and legislative branches more often than not. This preference for government power was clear in the Steel Seizure Case (1952). In this case, he joined Chief Justice Vinson’s dissent, arguing that President Truman’s seizure of private steel mills to serve the Korean War effort was constitutional. Justice Minton also placed strong value on precedent, so he was hesitant to overturn previous Supreme Court decisions.
Despite his record of siding against individual freedoms, Justice Minton drew the line at racial discrimination. He believed that the Constitution did not allow the government to discriminate people on the basis of race. For example, he voted in favor of bringing Brown v. Board of Education (1954) before the Supreme Court. He also joined the unanimous decision by the court to rule in favor of Brown and overturning the “separate but equal” doctrine.
