Rare Books & Special Collections
By Adrienne Sonder, Archivist
Texas has been home to many outstanding lawyers, judges, legislators, and legal educators. The personal accounts of many of these men and women have been captured in oral history interviews collected by libraries, archives, and law-related organizations across Texas. Often these accounts include details and interpretations not found in other historical sources.
The following is a selective guide to law-related oral history resources for the State of Texas. The listing is preliminary; submissions are welcome.
Tarlton Law Library, The University of Texas at Austin: Over the years, the Tarlton Law Library has been building and promoting a strong oral history collection. The Library has commissioned a number of oral history interviews with faculty and alumni of The University of Texas at Austin School of Law. Interviewees have included Joe Jamail, Dean Page Keeton, Texas Supreme Court Justice Joe Greenhill, Sr., and many more. Interview transcripts are available in Tarlton's Rare Books Reading Room, and many have been published and are available for purchase. For detailed information on Tarlton's oral history resources, please see our Oral History page.
Lyndon Baines Johnson Library - Oral History Collection, The University of Texas at Austin: The large oral history collection at the LBJ Library includes interviews with a number of Texas federal judges, as well as an interview with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark. The interviews all center around the interviewee's experiences in the Johnson Administration. Transcripts for many of the interviews are online as PDF files.
Baylor University, Institute for Oral History: Many law-related oral history interviews are accessible by searching their Guide to the Collection under subjects such as "Law", "Judiciary", or "Civil Rights". Their Texas Judicial Project conducted interviews with nine judges.
University of North Texas Libraries, Oral History Program: The Judge Sarah T. Hughes Collection includes a series of interviews conducted in 1969 and 1979. Audio excerpts and transcripts are available. In addition, the Texas Political History Project conducted interviews with many former Texas legislators, and the Local Civil Rights Project documents desegregation at North Texas State College.
Texas Tech University, Oral History Program: Oral history interviews with practicing attorneys, court reporters, judges, legislators, law professors, law library administrators, and district clerks, many of them from Lubbock, Texas, are accessible by searching the collection for topics such as "Law", and "Judges".
The University of Texas at El Paso, Institute of Oral History: Their oral history collection includes interviews with two El Paso judges covering the topics of Mexican-Americans and the court and Mexican-Americans and the legal profession. Search the collection under the subject of "Judges".
Texas Bar Foundation: Each year, the Texas Bar Foundation awards the Outstanding 50 Year Lawyer Award to five or six attorneys. The recipients are recognized with oral histories that document their career. The Tarlton Law Library has many of the Texas Bar Foundation interviews in its collection. The Bar Foundation interview with Joe Jamail is available through his website. Follow the "Outstanding 50-year Lawyer" link.
The State Bar of Texas: Two State Bar journals publish oral history interviews:
*The Advocate and The Appellate Advocate are both available at the Tarlton Law Library.
Tom C. Clark was a 1922 graduate of The University of Texas at Austin School of Law. President Truman appointed him U.S. Attorney General in 1945 and to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1949, where he served until 1967.
Tom Clark Oral History Collection Tarlton Law Library. Copies of the oral history interviews with Clark at the Truman Library, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, and at the University of Kentucky Libraries.
Tom Clark Interview by Joe B. Franz. Lyndon Baines Johnson Library.
Earl Warren Oral History Project: Japanese-American Relocation Reviewed A two part project that includes an interview with Tom C. Clark regarding his role in the Japanese internment program.
Oral History Interview with Tom C. Clark Truman Presidential Museum & Library [2 interviews.]
Frederick Moore Vinson Oral History Project,
1900-1953, Oral History Program, University of Kentucky Libraries
The project conducted an interview with Tom C. Clark that covers the U.S. Supreme Court, Brown v. Board of Education, and Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson's tenure on the Court.
Federal Judicial Center. Federal Judicial History Office. A Directory of oral history interviews related to the federal courts (pdf). Compiled and edited by Anthony Champagne, Cynthia Harrison, and Adam Land.
Federal Judicial Center. Federal Judicial History Office. Initiating a Federal Court Historical Program (pdf). Includes a section on judicial oral histories.
Fundamentals of Oral History (pdf). Texas Historical Commission.
Texas Oral History Association. For information about oral history projects in Texas.
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