Fun Stuff
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Who's This Lady?
Jeannette Rankin became the first female member of Congress in 1916, four years BEFORE the 19th Amendment, which granted woman the right to vote, was ratified.
Rankin began her political career as a student volunteer fighting for women's suffrage. When she learned that Montana was considering legislation supporting women's suffrage, she headed there to volunteer. Upon arrival, she learned the legislation was a hoax but managed to convince them to follow through with the measure. She visited 15 other states to fight for the right of women to be able to vote. |
More Fun Stuff!
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Here's a little (slightly edited) historical article by our friend and Supreme Court historian, John Q. Barrett
(Benjamin N. Cardozo Professor of Law, St. John’s University, New York City, and Elizabeth S. Lenna Fellow, Robert H. Jackson Center, Jamestown, NY): In the history of the Supreme Court of the United States, three people have held the title “Justice Jackson.” The first Justice Jackson—19th century Jackson—was Howell Edmunds Jackson, of Tennessee. He was commissioned an associate justice in 1893, when he was sixty years old. He soon became ill with tuberculosis and died in 1895. 
Howell Edmunds Jackson
The second Justice Jackson—20th century Jackson—was, of course, Robert Houghwout Jackson. Born in 1892 in Pennsylvania, Robert was a small boy during Justice Howell Jackson’s brief service on the Court, but they were not related. Robert moved to western New York State shortly thereafter. It was his home from the late 1890s until the U.S. Senate in 1934 began confirming President Roosevelt’s nominations of Robert Jackson—ultimately there were six—to high federal offices. He was commissioned an associate justice in 1941, when he was forty-nine years old. He served on the Court, except for one year away prosecuting Nazis at Nuremberg following World War II, until his death in 1954.
Robert Houghwout Jackson
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The third Justice Jackson—21st century Jackson — is Ketanji Brown Jackson. She was a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Nominated by President Biden and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, she became an associate justice when she was commissioned by the president.
I always am reluctant to speculate when someone asks me, “What would Robert H. Jackson think?” about a contemporary event. But for many reasons, I can say that he would be delighted about the appointment of the third Justice Jackson. First, she is accomplished and excellent. In her academic studies and achievements, in her clerkship training, in her years of private law practice, in her years of government service, in her writing and speaking, and in her personal temperament, she is superb. Robert Jackson also was every one of those things, so of course he would like and admire that Ketanji Jackson is, well, so Jacksonian. Second, Robert Jackson would admire what Ketanji Jackson has accomplished and represents as a path-marking woman. He lived in much more sexist, male-dominated times than our own. But he was somewhat better than other men in those times—he included strong, trusted colleagues who were women, including his own daughter, his excellent legal secretaries (who were senior advisers and de facto lawyers; one later became a judge), a senior military officer, and government lawyers in his range of high pursuits. He would regard Ketanji Jackson as equal to any man and be glad to work alongside her on any team. Third, Robert Jackson would be so delighted to see, in Ketanji Jackson, a Black woman becoming a Supreme Court justice. He lived in very racist—segregationist; otherwise discriminatory; racially oblivious; white superiority-presumptuous—times. Across his life, he grew to understand that and to push against it, piece by piece. Robert Jackson would detest any race-based thought that Ketanji Jackson does not belong on the Court or anywhere. |
