Supreme Court of the United States
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Historical Newspapers & Periodicals
Newspaper and magazine articles often provide details about Supreme Court justices, cases, and the parties involved. Most of the following historical and retrospective news databases are available via the Gelman Library.
- 19th Century U.S. Newspapers
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Provides access to approximately 1.7 million pages of primary source newspaper content from the 19th century, featuring full-text content and images from numerous newspapers from a range of urban and rural regions throughout the U.S. The collection encompasses the entire 19th century, with an emphasis on such topics as the American Civil War, African-American culture and history, Western migration and Antebellum-era life among other subjects. - American Periodicals Series (1741-1940)
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Page-images from more than 1,100 historic American magazines, journals, and newspapers illuminating the development of American culture, politics, and society across 150 years. Articles can be searched by author, source, or words in the complete text. - Chicago Tribune (Historical)
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The Chicago Tribune Historical (1849-1996) offers full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue. The Collection includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every issue through 1986. - Crime, Punishment, and Popular Culture, 1790-1920
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An archive of 2 million+ pages. Contains manuscripts, books, broadsheets, and periodicals. Using this archive, it is possible to trace the influence of a legal judgment or development of a penal methodology through various different jurisdictions. - Early American Newspapers
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This database features images and full-text from newspapers across the country. While assembling the original collection, Readex focused its publishing efforts on Clarence Brigham's History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820, concentrating primarily on those papers that began publication before 1820. - Google Magazines
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Google has scanned a number of full-image magazines cover to cover (with original ads) which they make available at no charge. This includes full color images from ABA Journal and Life magazine. Often limited years are available. - Google Scholar
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Google Scholar indexes scholarly publications in a variety of fields. To get links from Google Scholar to GW Libraries full text, even when off campus, go to Google Scholar > Settings > Library Links and add George Washington University and The George Washington University Law Library. - Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective
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Indexes over 750 publications. Includes law journals, annual surveys of the laws of a jurisdiction, annual surveys of the federal courts, yearbooks, and annual reviews of works in a given field or topic. - Library of Congress, Full Text Newspaper & Journal Databases
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Dozens of databases and historic newspapers are available to researchers visiting the Library of Congress in person. - Los Angeles Times (Historical)
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The Los Angeles Times Historical (1881-1995) offers full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue. The collection includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every available issue. - Newspapers.com
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Commercial database containing over 16,000 newspapers. 7-day free trial available. - New York Times (Historical)
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Offers full-text and full-image articles from the New York Times (1851-2015). Includes digital reproductions of every issue, cover to cover, in downloadable PDF files. - New York Tribune / Herald Tribune (Historical)
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The New York Tribune / Herald Tribune (1841-1962) offers full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue. The collection includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every available issue. - Periodicals Archive Online
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Historical (not current) coverage of thousands of periodicals in the humanities and social sciences, going back to Volume 1 for most titles (in some cases, over 200 years). Full-text articles are available from several hundred titles. - Readers' Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982
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Readers' Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 provides indexing of over three million articles from more than 550 leading magazines, including full coverage of the original print volumes of Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature. This important resource offers a wide range of researchers access to information about history, culture and seminal developments across nearly a century. - Washington Post (Historical,1877-2002)
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Online archival access to The Washington Post. Includes page images from every issue, cover to cover, in downloadable PDF files. Fully searchable.
Justices' Papers
Some researchers will find Justices' personal papers valuable for providing insight into decisions. The following source gives information on where Justices' personal papers are kept and the relative size of each collection:
Lee Epstein, Jeffrey A. Segal, Harold J. Spaeth & Thomas G. Walker, Table 5-11 Locations of Justices’ Personal Papers, in The Supreme Court Compendium: Data, Decisions, and Developments 476-84 (6th ed., 2015). Location: Ready Reference, 1st Floor. KF8742 .S914 2015.
The Library of Congress holds many Justices' papers in the Manuscript Division. Search the online Finding Aids for more information.
Note: Justices are not required by policy or statute to make their private papers available:
"Chambers papers are not part of the official records of the federal courts, and they remain the private property of the judge or the judge’s heirs. Disposition of those papers is the judge's or heirs' prerogative. Neither federal statute nor the policies of the Judicial Conference of the United States make any provision for preserving federal judges’ papers."
See p.4, A Guide to the Preservation of Federal Judges’ Papers, 3d ed.
Genealogy Research
Genealogy records may be useful to researchers of parties in Supreme Court cases. The U.S. National Archives provides genealogy research guides and free access to these commercial genealogy databases to users visiting the Archives: Ancestry, Fold3, and others.