Shelley L. Dowling, retired Librarian of the Court, US Supreme Court, has published Elbridge
Thomas Gerry: An Exceptional Life in Gilded Gotham with Talbot
Publishing. The book won the American Association of Law Libraries’ 2017 Joseph L. Andrews Legal Literature Award. From the press:Elbridge T. Gerry (1837-1927) was a prominent and influential Gilded Age New York trial lawyer, philanthropist and bibliophile whose 30,000 volume library became the foundation of the United States Supreme Court Library. Grandson of Founding Father Elbridge Gerry, who signed the Declaration of Independence, Dowling's extensively illustrated biography of Gerry highlights the influence of his family and its links to other prominent New York families, the Gallatins, Goelets and Livingstons. This biography of Gerry is also the story of Gilded Age New York, when the glamorous society balls that provided entertainment to wealthy New York families such as the Astors and Vanderbilts belied their philanthropic contributions in the Progressive era. Gerry built the first steam yacht, the Electra, which became the flagship of the New York Yacht Club while he also sat on hospital boards and founded the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children which still operates today. As Dowling shows, Gerry's brilliance and passion was at the heart of it all.
Further information
about the book is available here.
