Garrison, Lloyd K. (Lloyd Kirkham). Papers, 1893-1990: Finding Aid. (original) (raw)

HOLLIS 3093953
Harvard Law School Library, Cambridge, MA 02138

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Harvard Law School
March, 1993

© 2003 The President and Fellows of Harvard College

Summary Information

Repository: Harvard Law School Library, Harvard University
Location: Harvard Depository
Call No.: HOLLIS 3093953
Creator: Garrison, Lloyd K. (Lloyd Kirkham), b. 1897
Title: Papers, 1893-1990
Quantity: 18 boxes
Abstract: Contains a variety of materials relating chiefly to his personal, political, and civil rights activities. The collection contains family papers pre-dating Garrison's birth and other personal correspondence with his friends and colleagues. Much of this correspondence provides a unique look into the social and political milieu of New York City in the mid-Twentieth Century. A subseries titled, Major Correspondence, consists of correspondence with noted legal figures. The papers also include materials related to Garrison's work on the issues of global disarmament and non-violence.

Processing Information:

Processed by Geraldine Azzata, March, 1993.

Acquisition Information:

The Papers of Lloyd K. Garrison were donated to the Harvard Law School Library by Mrs. Garrison, April 1991.

Access Restrictions:

Access to these papers is governed by the rules and regulations of the Harvard Law School Library. This collection is open to the public, but is housed off-site at Harvard Depository and requires 2 business-day advance notice for retrieval. Consult the Special Collections staff for further information.

Use Restrictions:

The Harvard Law School Library holds copyright on some, but not all, of the material in our collections. Requests for permission to publish material from this collection should be directed to the Special Collections staff. Researchers who obtain permission to publish from the Harvard Law School Library are also responsible for identifying and contacting the persons or organizations who hold copyright.

Scope and Content

The Papers of Lloyd Kirkham Garrison contain twenty-five boxes of correspondence, diaries, legal documents, and unpublished manuscripts on global disarmament and nonviolence.

Included are a variety of materials relating chiefly to his personal, political, and civil rights activities. The collection contains family papers pre-dating Garrison's birth and other personal correspondence with his friends and colleagues. Much of this correspondence provides a unique look into the social and political milieu of New York City in the mid-Twentieth Century. A subseries titled, Major Correspondence, consists of correspondence with noted legal figures such as Adlai Stevenson, Felix Frankfurter, C. C. Burlingham, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Pauli Murray, and Martin Luther King. The papers also include materials related to Garrison's work on the issues of global disarmament and non-violence.

Series List

Biographical note

Lloyd K. Garrison was born on November 19, 1897 in New York City. Garrison was a great-grandson of the famous abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison, and the grandson of Wendell Phillips Garrison, the literary editor of The Nation. After service in the Navy in World War I, rising to the rank of chief petty officer, he graduated from Harvard College in 1919 and from Harvard Law School in 1922. He commenced practice in New York City with the firm of Root, Clark, Buckner & Howland, now known as Dewey, Ballantine.

In 1930, his long career of government service started as Special Assistant to the Attorney General of the United States conducting an investigation of the bankruptcy laws. He served as the first chairman of the National Labor Relations Board in 1935, thereafter general counsel. Garrison was appointed a member of the National War Labor Board in 1944 and became Vice-Chairman in March of 1945. He was active as a mediator and referee in many labor disputes, including a threatened General Motors strike in 1945, which established the pattern for wage increases in post-war labor relations. In 1947, he was appointed by the United States Supreme Court as a Special Master in a dispute between the State of Georgia and twenty railroads.

He was Dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School from 1932 to 1945, making that institution rise to greater academic prominence as one of the top American law schools. After W.W.II, he became a member of the New York City law firm of Paul, Weiss, Wharton & Garrison and remained as a partner and counsel until his death. He was a member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University from 1938 to 1944, a member of the Board of Directors of the Field Foundation (1950-1973), a Trustee of the Taconic and Potomac Foundations (1953-1991), and a Trustee of Sarah Lawrence University and Howard University.

Long active in the civil rights movement, he was Director and then President (1947-1952) of the National Urban League. He remained active in the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the American Civil Liberties Union. Between 1962 and 1968, a turbulent period of educational crisis in New York City involving teachers strikes, deterioration of schools and issues of racial integration, decentralization and minority participation in the educational system, he was a member of the New York City Board of Education, serving as Vice President in 1963 and President from 1965 to 1967.

He was a leader in the Democratic Reform Movement in New York City and in 1952 was elected to the Democratic State Committee. He later was a key member in the effort led by him, Eleanor Roosevelt, Thomas Finletter, and Herbert Lehman to oust Carmine DeSapio as New York County Democratic Leader in the years 1958 through 1961. A long-time friend of Adlai Stevenson, he was Chairman of the 1952 Stevenson Citizens Committee in New York and an active supporter in 1956. It was largely through his efforts that Stevenson became a partner in the Paul, Weiss firm from 1957 to 1961.

As a lawyer, he handled many significant cases including: the litigation which blocked the construction of a power plant at Storm King Mountain; the representation of the poet Langston Hughes (1953) and the playwright Arthur Miller before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (1956); and the defense of J. Robert Oppenheimer when the Atomic Energy Commission sought to remove his security clearance.

Additional Index Terms

The following catalog entries represent persons, organizations, and topics documented in this collection. An entry for each appears in the Harvard On Line Library Information System (HOLLIS) and other automated bibliographic databases. THIS IS NOT AN INDEX.

Ballantine, Arthur.

Benjamin, Robert M.

Binger, Carl Alfred Lanning, 1889-

Brandeis, Louis Dembitz, 1856-1941.

Burlingham, Charles Culp, 1858-1959.

Cardozo, Benjamin N. (Benjamin Nathan), 1870-1938.

Chandler, William C.

Curtis, Charles P. (Charles Pelham), 1891-1959.

Feinsinger, Nathan. Frankfurter, Felix, 1882-1965.

Fuller, Charles F.

Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948.

Garrison, Wendell Phillips, 1840-1907.

Hand, Learned, 1872-1961.

Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967.

Humphrey, Hubert H. (Hubert Horatio), 1911-1978.

Jay, Ellen.

Jay, Pierre, 1870-

Kadilis, John J.

Kennedy, Edward Moore, 1932-

King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968.

Kirkham, Alice.

Laski, Harold Joseph, 1893-1950.

Lawrence, Blake.

Lerner, Max, 1902-

Leydet, Francois G.

Lindbergh, Anne Morrow, 1906-

Lindsay, John V. (John Vliet)

Morley, Frank Vigor, 1899-

Murray, Pauli, 1910-

Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 1904-1967.

Paul, Randolph Evernghim, 1890-

Perkins, Frances, 1882-1965.

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962.

Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945.

Stevenson, Adlai E. (Adlai Ewing), 1900-1965.

Taylor, Harold.

Thacher, Thomas D. (Thomas Day), 1881-1950.

Truman, Harry S., 1884-1972.

Weiss, Louis.

Wharton, John.

Worcester, Dean K.

Africa -Description and travel.

African Americans -Civil rights -United States.

African Americans -Legal status, laws, etc. -United States.

American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

American Jewish Congress.

Cambodia -Description and travel.

Center for Public Representation.

Century Association (New York, N.Y.)

Civil rights -United States.

Committee on International Arms Control.

Communism -Government policy -United States.

Democratic National Committee (U.S.)

Disarmament -Moral and ethical aspects.

Disarmament -Study and teaching -United States.

Field Foundation (New York, N.Y.)

Garrison, William Lloyd, 1805-1879.

General Motors Corporation.

Harvard University. Porcellian Club.

Labor unions -United States -Political activity.

Law schools -Wisconsin.

Law -Study and teaching -Wisconsin.

Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing.

National Urban League.

New York (N.Y.). Board of Education.

Nuclear disarmament.

United States. Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities.

United States. National Labor Relations Board.

United States. National War Labor Board (1942-1945)

University of Wisconsin. Law School.

Urban Coalition.

CONTAINER LIST

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