Anne Fleming Tributes

Several tributes to my Georgetown Law colleague Anne Fleming have been launched or otherwise transpired since her death on the eve of the present academic year.  I know of four.  The first is a joint effort of the American Society for Legal History (ASLH) and the Business History Conference (BHC), the Anne Fleming Article Prize.  As the BHC explains:

The sudden and unexpected death of Anne Fleming in August 2020 was a tragic loss to academia. Anne's work was at the interface of legal and business history. The central concerns in Anne’s work related to poverty, economic justice, finance and banking, debt, consumer protection, bankruptcy, and other questions of financial equity.  

The prize is awarded every other year to the author or authors of the best article published in the previous two years in either Law and History Review or Enterprise and Society on the relation of law and business/economy in any region or historical period. It is awarded on the recommendation of the editors of the Law and History Review (the official journal of ASLH) and Enterprise and Society (the official journal of Business History Conference). No submission is necessary. The prize will be awarded in 2022, for work published in 2020 and 2021. The prize is for the amount of $250.

Second, at this year's virtual annual meeting of the ASLH, Laura Kalman, a past president of the Society, noted Professor Fleming's passing at a session devoted to Kathryn T. Preyer Scholars.  Professor Fleming was herself a Preyer Scholar, and she was serving on the selection committee when she died.  “She became the anchor of our committee,” Professor Kalman said.  “She would circulate spread sheets to organize us at the beginning of our deliberations, she was incisive, and she modeled good humor. . . . She combined excellence with humanity, and we join everyone who mourns her premature loss.”

The last two tributes involve Georgetown Law.  The editors and staff of the Georgetown Law Journal have dedicated Volume 109 to Professor Fleming's memory.  I contributed a tribute.  Finally, Dean William M. Treanor has announced that a set of four-year research professorships for recently tenured scholars has been renamed the Anne Fleming Research Professorships.

--Dan Ernst

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December 14, 1911 = Amundsen Wins Race to the South Pole

On today's date, December 14 in 1911, Norwegian Roald Amundsen (below) became the first explorer to reach the South Pole, beating his British rival, Robert Falcon Scott by more than a month.

Amundsen, born in Borge, near Oslo, in 1872, was one of the greatest figures in the history of polar exploration. In 1897, he was first mate on a Belgian expedition that was the first ever to spend the entire winter in Antarctica. In 1903, he steered the 47-ton sloop Gjöa around the coast of Canada using the Northwest Passage and becoming the first navigator to accomplish that treacherous route. He was having some difficulty raising funds for a dash to the North Pole when he heard in 1909 that the Americans Frederick Cook and Robert Peary had already gotten there. Amundsen completed his preparations and in June 1910 sailed instead for Antarctica, secretly changing his plans. Without telling his financial backers or even his own crewmen at first, the Norwegian steered his ship Fram toward Antarctica and set his sights on reaching the South Pole. Before arriving, he sent a letter to Captain Robert Falcon Scott of the British Royal Navy(below)

who was preparing his own expedition in Australia. It read simply: “Beg leave to inform you Fram proceeding Antarctic. Amundsen.” Amundsen sailed his ship into Antarctica’s Bay of Whales and set up base camp 60 miles closer to the pole than Scott. Both explorers set up their means of trasportation Amundsen using sleigh dogs, and Scott employing Siberian motor sledges, Siberian ponies, and dogs. There was considerable press coverage to the two teams in what they called “race for the South Pole.” After spending the early part of 1911 laying down advance caches of food and supplies for their polar journeys, Amundsen and Scott’s expeditions took shelter and spent several months waiting out the dark and frigid Antarctic winter. Amundsen later tried to get a head start by beginning his journey early in September 1911, but was forced to turn back after temperatures fell as far as 68 degrees below zero. Finally, on October 20, 1911, conditions improved enough for his five-man team to begin their dash to the Pole. Scott got underway just a few days later on November 1. Amundsen and Scott relied on vastly different forms of transport during their journeys. Scott employed a combination of sled dogs, Manchurian ponies and even several motorized tractors. The machines fell victim to the arctic temperatures which quickly caused them to break down. Similarly, the cold caused his ponies to grow weak and they had had to be shot. After sending the dogs back to camp, he and his team were forced to spend much of their strength for their journey hauling their heavy supply sledges on foot. Amundsen, meanwhile, relied solely on skis and sled dogs to cross the tundra. The dogs helped his men save their strength, and the explorers later killed the weakest of the animals to supplement their food supply. Thanks to the speed of his dog teams, Amundsen’s party managed to race toward the Pole at a pace of over 20 miles per day. The Norwegians took a previouly untried route that forced them to navigate a dizzying icy trail of crevasses, mountains and glaciers, but by early December, they had penetrated farther into the interior of Antarctica than anyone in history. Amundsen would later summed up his feelings at this moment of triumph: “had the same feeling that I can remember as a little boy on the night before Christmas Eve—an intense

expectation of what was going to happen.” Finally, on December 14, 1911, he and his companions arrived at the South Pole. The men planted the Norwegian flag, (Pictured,above)smoked celebratory cigars and posed for snapshots, but they only remained for a few days before beginning the arduous trek back to their base camp. “The goal was reached,” Amundsen wrote, “our journey ended.” Scott's Team Arrives...Late Over a month later on January 17, 1912, Scott and his weary British team finally reached the Pole. And there they found that Scott had left him notes informing him that he had beaten them to their prize location by just over a month. Now Scott had to find their way back to their base camp. Having reached the South Pole late in the summer of the Antarctic. The Temperatures were dropping rapidly as Scott's weary company began its slow and laborious track to the north. But exhaustion from frostbite and not enough food began to spread throughout the weary group. Nevertheless Scott kept a diary of his travels almost the end. "Wednesday, 17 January Great God! this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have labor to it without the reward of priority "Thursday 29 March Since the 21'st we have had a continuous gale from West Southwest and Southwest. We had fuel to make 2 cups of tea a piece and bare food for two days on the 20th. Every day have been ready to start for depot 11 miles away, but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift. I do not think can hope for better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker of course and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more." "For God sake look for our people." The members of Scott's Scott’s group had a much tougher time on their return trek. Scott's dog teams were sent back while Scott and his four explorers continued on foot. On January 18, 1912, they reached the pole only to find that Amundsen had preceded them by over a month. Weather on the return journey was exceptionally bad–two members perished–and a storm later trapped Scott and the other two survivors in their tent only 11 miles from their base camp. Scott’s frozen body was found later that year. Sources = "The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness History" Edited by John B Lewis Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc. 1998. "The Treacherous Race to the South Pole" By Evan Andrews.... https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/amundsen-reaches-south-pole.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amundsen%27s_South_Pole_expedition.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Falcon_Scott

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The Life & Legacy of John Jay

[We have the following announcement.  DRE]

John Jay (NYPL)

The John Jay Papers Project, Columbia University Libraries, and Columbia University's Office of the Provost are proud to present In Service to the New Nation: The Life & Legacy of John Jay, a  two-day virtual conference (January 22-23, 2021) celebrating the near completion of the Project's seven-volume series The Selected Papers of John Jay.

The conference events are free and open to the public. To attend the events, attendees will need to register beforehand.  For registration information and the full conference program visit In Service to the New Nation: The Life & Legacy of John Jay

Joanne Freeman, Class of 1954 Professor of American History and American Studies at Yale University, will deliver the keynote address "Life in an Age of Conflicts and Extremes." The keynote address will be held via Zoom Webinar on Friday, January 22, 6:00-7:30 PM EST.

There will then be four panel sessions to be held via Zoom Webinar on Saturday, January 23, 10:30 am-5:30 PM EST.

Panel 1: Diplomacy and Politics (10:40 am – 12:00 pm)
Chair, Mary A. Y. Gallagher (John Jay Papers)

Kings College and the Foundations of John Jay’s Diplomacy
Benjamin C. Lyons (Columbia University)

John Jay’s 1788 “Address to the People of the State of New York” and the Dynamics of the Ratification Debate: A New Look
Todd Estes (Oakland University)

Two Treaties, Two Diplomats, and Two Scholarly Editions: John Jay, Thomas Pinckney, and the Art and Practice of Scholarly Editorial Collaboration
Constance B. Schulz (Pinckney Papers, University of South Carolina)

Panel 2: Family, Slavery, and Abolition (1:00 – 2:20 pm)
Chair, Elizabeth M. Nuxoll, (John Jay Papers)

Mastering Paradox: John Jay, Slavery, and Nation Building
David N. Gellman (DePauw University)

John Jay and the Intimate Politics of Slavery and Antislavery
Sarah Gronningsater (University of Pennsylvania)

“One of them married Colonel Stuyvesandt, another of them married my grandfather”: John Jay, Genealogy, and the Shape of a New Nation
Karin Wulf (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, College of William & Mary)

Panel 3: Navigating Networks and Publics (2:30 – 4:05 pm)
Chair, Herbert Sloan (Barnard College)

John Jay and the Press
Sara Georgini (Adams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society)

Investing in Social Networking in Sarah Livingston Jay’s New York
Alisa Wade (California State University, Chico)

John Jay in Voluntary America
Jonathan Den Hartog (Samford University)

Did the Man Make the Robe? John Jay Dressed for the Court
Claire Jerry (Smithsonian National Museum of American History)
Bethanee Bemis (Smithsonian National Museum of American History)

Panel 4: Roundtable on The Future of Documentary Editing & the Founding Era (4:15 – 5:20 pm)
Chair, R. Darrell Meadows (National Historical Publications and Records Commission)

Sara Martin (Adams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society)

Holly C. Shulman (Dolley Madison Digital Edition)

Jennifer E. Steenshorne (John Jay Papers)

Jennifer Stertzer (Washington Papers, Center for Digital Editing)

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Weekend Roundup

• Martha S. Jones published an op-ed in WaPo and was prominently quoted in an NYT story this week about the discovery that Johns Hopkins owned enslaved persons. They are the fruit of the project she directs, Hard Histories at Hopkins.
  

• The African American History Collection of the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan relating to slavery, abolition movements, and various aspects of African American life, largely dating between 1781 and 1865, is now online. 
  

• 

  William O. Douglas (LC)
  

  We are grateful to John Q. Barrett for bringing to our attention this quite arresting interview of William O. Douglas from 1966, which we understand he found here.
  

• The Evolution of Judicial Retirement, by Jake Kobrick, another in a series of posts by the Federal Judicial Center, went up this week.
  

• The Harvard Law School Library’s Nuremberg Trials Project supplies documents for “The World’s Biggest Murder Trial: Nuremberg" (Harvard Law Today).

• LHB October guest blogger Stefan B. Kirmse will have a virtual book event on The Lawful Empire: Legal Change and Cultural Diversity in Late Tsarist Russia on Monday, Dec.15 at 6-7.30pm Central European Standard Time. You can register here. 

• The latest from Lawbook Exchange: Scholarly Law and Legal History.
  

• LHB congratulates Risa Goluboff on her reappointment as dean of UVA Law.
  

• Local Legal History from Washington County, PA and Madison County, TX.
  

  Weekend Roundup is a weekly feature compiled by all the Legal History bloggers.

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A Poet Among the Romanovs: Prince Vladimir Paley 1897-1918

Prince Vladimir Paley, first cousin of the last tsar, was a poet among the Romanovs. The rules of the Imperial Family prevented him from being considered a member of the dynasty due to the unequal Prince Vladimir Paley, first cousin of the last tsar, was a poet among the Romanovs. The rules of the Imperial Family prevented him from being considered a member of the dynasty due to the unequal marriage of his parents. This circumstance could have saved his life. Instead, when he was requested by the Bolsheviks to denounce his father, Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia, young Prince Vladimir chose love, loyalty, honor, and affection. His only crime was being related to a dynasty of which he had not even been an official member. This is the compelling story of a young man, and a talented poet, who in different circumstances would have attained great heights. Destiny, however, played a sad role in bringing a brutal and early death to a promising life ... 

Jorge F. Sáenz brings to life the previously unknown figure of Prince Vladimir Paley. In doing so, Mr. Sáenz adds to a long and distinguished list of historical studies he has written over the last thirty years. His books number well over a dozen, most of them focusing on various aspects of Costa Rica’s history and unique democratic traditions, that make the country a bastion of democracy in Latin America. His study of the life of Prince Vladimir Paley was first published as a biographical essay in Eurohistory — The European Royal History Journal. The success of this essay led to the story of Vladimir Paley becoming a full-on book. Mr. Sáenz is a career diplomat for Costa Rica, as well as a distinguished law professor at the University of Costa Rica. 

This unique book, also containing many samples of the young poet's work, has a 24-page photo section depicting Vladimir Paley and those closest to him. We are exceedingly happy to be able to bring this excellent historical work to you in hardbound form.

A Poet Among the Romanovs will undoubtedly enrich your Romanov Collections!

The book is printing and will be available at the end of January 2021, the first Eurohistory book of the New Year!

EUROHISTORY

6300 Kensington Avenue

East Richmond Heights, CA 94805

USA

Phone: 510.236.1730

Email: books@eurohistory.com / eurohistory@comcast.net / aebeeche@mac.com

http://www.eurohistory.com

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Two Jobs at Nova Southeastern

[We have the following announcement.  DRE] 

The Department of Humanities and Politics at Nova Southeastern University has two job searches that might be of interest to the readers of the Legal History Blog (or their soon to finish/job searching graduate students).  We are currently conducting searches for:

HISTORY [Faculty (Rank TBD) - History - 994606]:  Ability to teach undergraduate and graduate courses History and related disciplines such as National Security Affairs and International Studies.  Record of teaching and research in U.S. history with an emphasis on one or more of the following: a) intelligence and espionage; b) domestic security; c) civil liberties and the law.  Secondary focus on the Atlantic World or the Middle East or Africa a plus.  Prior college-level teaching experience required.  Doctoral Degree in History or Security Studies or related discipline required.  The teaching load will be a combination of eight undergraduate/graduate course sections per year (4x4) in various formats as necessary (on campus days, on-campus evenings, off-campus, online, etc.).

LEGAL STUDIES [Legal Studies Faculty (Rank TBD) --998184]: Ability to teach undergraduate and graduate courses in Legal Studies and related disciplines.  Record of teaching and research in legal studies with an emphasis on one or more of the following: civil liberties; constitutional history; environmental law.  Ability to teach courses in other disciplines housed in the Department of Humanities and Politics a plus.  Prior college-level teaching experience required.  Doctoral Degree in History, Political Science, or Philosophy -- or Juris Doctor (JD) with a master’s degree in history, political science or philosophy -- required.  The teaching load will be a combination of eight undergraduate/graduate course sections per year (4x4) in various formats as necessary (on campus days, on-campus evenings, off-campus, online, etc.).

Both searches are ongoing and will continue until filled.  Initial review of applications will begin immediately.

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CFP: Congress & History

[Word has reached us of a call for the 2021 Congress & History Conference in the guise of the following open letter, dated December 8, from Burdett Loomis, University of Kansas.  The organizers tell us that the legal historian Maggie Blackhawk is among the organizers.  DRE.  H/t: JC]

West Front of Capitol, July 1861 (LC)

I'm delighted to say that Steven Smith (Washington University at St. Louis) and I will be host, via Zoom, 2021 Congress & History Conference. The conference will be held June 10-11. We welcome submissions – either individual papers or full panels -- on both contemporary and historical topics from all methodological perspectives. These topics could include legislative representation (including those focused on race or gender), legislative procedure, impeachment, congressional committees, parties, etc. Moreover, we enthusiastically encourage scholars whose work touches on Congress, legislatures, and legislation to consider applying, even if you do not consider yourself a “congressional scholar.” Likewise, we hope that historians and constitutional law scholars whose work relates to Congress and legislation will apply. We especially want to encourage junior scholars (faculty and graduate students) and first-time attendees. This small (~50 person) conference is a wonderful way to receive constructive feedback on your work and get to know the broad community of scholars working on legislative politics. We particularly seek scholars from and working on historically under-represented groups to make paper or panel proposals. In addition, the conference will have a poster session for graduate students to present their work, with an award for the best poster. The application deadline for all proposals and offers to serve as a discussant is January 20, 2021.

Here's a link to the application form.  Please submit the form and send a backup copy to me (bloomis@ku.edu), to be shared with Steve. Getting the word out about this excellent, small conference is important, especially beyond the traditional group of legislative scholars. Please circulate this to colleagues and graduate students who may not have received it and post this on list-serves that you may be a part of. Please don't hesitate to contact me (bloomis@ku.edu) or Steven (smith@wustl) if you have any questions. 

Although I’d love to host you all at KU’s Dole Institute of Politics in June, I’m afraid, for this year, we’ll have to keep our distance. Still, last year’s conference was a success via Zoom, and I’m sure this one will be as well. If you’d like to see the kinds of papers that have been presented at recent conferences, you can go to https://congressandhistory.mit.edu/past-conferences These programs are illustrative, and we certainly hope to broaden the scope of work in 2021.

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The Creation of the Princess Delphine of Saxe-Coburg Fund

 

On Thursday, 10 December, the establishment of the Fonds Prinses Delphine van Saksen-Coburg was unveiled at University Hospital Ghent. The fund will seek to promote the integration of the arts into healthcare. Princess Delphine of Belgium is the honorary chairman of the charity. The princess will endeavour to help raise awareness of the fund's missions as well as to assist with fundraising.

Princess Delphine of Belgium and Dr. Tessa Kerre.

At the announcement of the fund's inception, Dr. Tessa Kerre stated: "We are very pleased, proud, and happy that the princess was willing to give her name to the fund. She fits perfectly within the theme. Princess Delphine is an artist for whom communication and love are very important. She stands for warmth and human contact. She also says that art has a therapeutic effect. So, she is the right person in the right place. She depicts the message we want to convey in her art." Dr. Kerre is a hematologist and the head of the clinic at Ghent University Hospital. Dr. Kerre further elaborated that, "We set up the fund because we are convinced that art can have a healing effect. In a hospital, we try to make people better. And in general, we do that by treating the disease, but we must not forget that there is a human being behind the disease. Art can play a role in the healing process. The bond between the patient and the care provider can be strengthened through art and culture. When you, as a doctor, visit a patient who is reading a book, it can be nice to talk about it. Some people also make drawings or paintings during their stay. Everyone is looking for a way to fill up their time in the hospital. By talking about art together you can make a connection through a passion and talk about something other than the disease."

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A Swedish Royal Baby in 2021

 

Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia of Sweden are expecting their third child in the Spring of 2021. The royal household said the princess is doing well and the birth is expected between March-April.

A statement from the couple says they are "happy and excited and look forward to welcoming our third child.” Carl Philip and Sofía have two sons: Prince Alexander (b.2016) and Prince Gabriel (b. 2017).

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Danial Bawany

Danial Bawany

Photo Shoot Summer 2020 

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