Monday, June 23, 2008

Documents in Search of Historians

Here's a post on two fairly recent acquisitions in the special collections department of Georgetown University Law Center's library. The first is the National Equal Justice Library, an extensive collection of published and unpublished material on the provision of legal representation to the indigent. The collection includes books, papers, oral histories and other materials related to the history of the legal services movement. More information, here
The second collection is the papers of Oliver Gasch, who sat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia from 1965 until his death in 1999. His caseload provides insight into the criminal rights revolution and such controversies, such as Goldwater v. Carter (on the termination of the American mutual defense treaty with Taiwan), the early stages of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International Ltd. (BCCI) money laundering scandal, and Steffan v. Cheney (on the dismissal of a sailor after he acknowledged he was gay). Gasch is also the subject of extensive interviews, conducted by Stuart Newberger, in the oral history collection of the Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit.
More information on the Gasch Papers, here.