Scope and Content Note
The papers of Joseph Anthony Lewis (1927-2013) span the years 1941-2007, with the bulk of material dating from 1963 to 2001. The papers document primarily Lewis’s career as a newspaper reporter and columnist for the New York Times and his work as an author of several books about legal issues. In 1963 Lewis won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting about the Supreme Court and is credited with changing the field of legal journalism. Although not a lawyer, Lewis had a grasp of the complexities of the law and a clear writing style that made legal issues more understandable to the public. The collection consists of two parts with some topics and time periods common to both parts. Part I consists chiefly of drafts and research files for two of Lewis’s books, Gideon’s Trumpet (1964) and Portrait of a Decade (1964), and letters from readers of Lewis’s New York Times column between 1969 and 1975. Part II makes up the bulk of the collection and pertains chiefly to Lewis’s tenure while a reporter and columnist with the New York Times from 1955 to 2001. Also included in Part II are files relating to his endeavors as a university lecturer and his writings, including drafts of articles, book drafts, and research files. The papers contain only a few items relating to Lewis’s career before 1955. The collection is in English.
Part I
Part I of the Lewis Papers spans the years 1941-1975, with the bulk of material produced from 1963 to 1974. Drafts, research files, and letters from readers of Lewis's New York Times column between 1969 and 1975 are organized into three series: Subject File, Letters from Readers, and Writings.
The Letters from Readers series comprises the largest part of Part I. Lewis's staff organized most of the letters he received between 1969 and July 1973 into a topical file and those received after July 1973 into a chronological file. The series provides insight into public opinion during a politically and socially turbulent era. Most of the letters were written by the general public and concern issues such as busing for racial integration of schools, medicine and health care, student protests, the Vietnam War, and Watergate. Prominent correspondents include Hubert H. Humphrey on busing; Allen Ginsberg on crime and drugs; general comments by David Halberstam and Daniel P. Moynihan; and Alfred M. Landon, John Le Carré, Lewis Mumford, and Benjamin Spock on Vietnam. Lewis's replies to these letters are included in the series.
The Writings series contains drafts and research files for two of Lewis's books. In Gideon's Trumpet, he explored the Supreme Court ruling in Gideon v. Wainwright that required states to provide indigent criminal defendants with free counsel. Research for the book includes copies of letters between Clarence Earl Gideon, Abe Fortas, and the court; correspondence and documents concerning amicus curiae briefs filed by various states; correspondence with lawyers representing Gideon in his second trial; and a survey of state public defender programs. In Portrait of a Decade, Lewis traced the civil rights movement from 1954 to 1964 largely through theNew York Times reporting of these events. Although the research files consist primarily of clippings, they also contain correspondence and an unsigned letter from Harris Wofford concerning his role in arranging John F. Kennedy's phone call to Coretta Scott King in November 1960.
The collection also contains a small Subject File comprising research material for some of Lewis's articles.
Part II
Part II of the Lewis Papers spans from 1944-2007, with the bulk of material dating from 1964 to 2001. Papers in this addition supplement Part I of the collection. The majority of the papers in Part II document Lewis’s career with the New York Times from 1955 to 2001. Lewis reported and commented for over five decades on many prominent issues relating to national and international affairs, including civil rights, the press, the Supreme Court and various legal issues, the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, the Iran-Contra Affair, the Middle East, the apartheid regime in South Africa, immigration, and terrorism. Also represented in Part II are teaching files pertaining to university classes that Lewis taught about legal issues and journalism, book files, and a few family papers. The papers of Part II are arranged into the following series: Annual File, Letters from Readers, Writings, Notebooks, Miscellany, and Classified.
The Annual File in Part II, 1949-2007, includes correspondence, subject files, interviews, notes, reports, newspaper clippings, and speeches and writings by Lewis. It is the largest series and focuses mainly on his tenure as a reporter and columnist for the New York Times from 1955 until his retirement in 2001. Papers in the Annual File, dating from 1955 to 1964, document Lewis’s reporting for the Washington, D.C., bureau where he covered the Department of Justice and the Supreme Court and includes files about various justices and Lewis’s notes for the October 1963 and 1964 terms. Other topics treated during his time in Washington are civil rights, reapportionment, and habeas corpus. Also chronicled in the Annual File is Lewis’s tenure as chief of the London, England, bureau from 1965 to 1972. Lewis’s reporting from London varied widely with coverage of politicians such as Harold Wilson and Baron George Alfred Brown and topics such as architecture, Anthony Burgess (writer), the Concorde, and the royal family. The London files also include topics that featured prominently in later columns by Lewis such as, Africa, the Vietnam War, the press, and race relations. Drafts of his “London weekender articles” are filed in Part II of the Writings series.
In 1969 while still in London, Lewis began a column for the New York Times that would later be entitled “At Home Abroad” or “Abroad at Home” (depending on his location) about national and international affairs. In 1973 Lewis returned to the United States, writing the column from his home in Boston. Many of the columns reflected Lewis’s interest in the law and his belief in its importance to a diverse country such as the United States. Lewis brought a liberal perspective to his column on a wide-range of issues such as the energy crisis in the 1970s, immigration, courts, the Supreme Court, the environment (filed as surroundings), capital punishment, the press (especially libel issues), free speech, civil liberties, human rights, terrorism, presidential administrations and elections, the Iran-Contra Affair, Watergate, Latin America, the Middle East, the Vietnam War, Africa, the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, and the unrest in Yugoslavia during the 1990s. Files from 2001 to 2007 reflect Lewis’s interest and thoughts about the reaction of government leaders to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the ensuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the War on Terrorism.
The Annual File is arranged by year except for the first group of files from 1949 to 1965 which were filed together as a group by Lewis. Annual File topics "A-L" for 1966 were not received by the Library. Items from a prior Annual File year are occasionally carried over to the next year. Also some years of the Annual File contain background information items that are dated earlier than the year in which they are filed. The majority of the papers in the Annual File were used by Lewis as background research for his reporting and columns. Lewis, however, also traveled to gather information for his articles and columns. The Annual File is replete with trip files, particularly for Africa, the Middle East, and Vietnam, documenting Lewis’s insights. Information relating to his trips is also chronicled in Part II of the Notebooks series.
The Annual File also documents Lewis’s correspondence with an array of individuals including colleagues, Supreme Court justices, judges, lawyers, members of Congress, government officials, academics, entertainers, friends, and the public. The bulk of the correspondence, usually including both incoming and outgoing, features praise by Lewis relating to an achievement by a correspondent or vice-versa. Most of the letters are filed in the miscellaneous folders located after topics in the Annual File. Also documented in the Annual File are invitations and arrangements for social engagements. Correspondents include Russell Baker, Felix Frankfurter, Anna Freud, Henry Kissinger, James Reston, and Arthur Ochs Sulzberger.
The Letters from Readers series in Part II complements the Letters from Readers in Part I. This series includes incoming letters, usually accompanied by Lewis’s outgoing replies. The incoming letters are usually a one-time response to Lewis’s articles and commentary, although the letters do feature recurring correspondents. Topics represented are the Middle East, Cambodia, the Vietnam War, South Africa, abortion, race, immigration, the environment (filed under surroundings by Lewis and his staff), Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and political conflict in Yugoslavia during the 1990s.
The Writings in Part II are comprised chiefly of drafts of Lewis’s “London weekender articles,” and files relating to several of Lewis’s books. Most of the book files pertain to Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment in which Lewis examines the issues of freedom of speech, libel, and the press in the Supreme Court case New York Times v. Sullivan. Other writings by Lewis are located in Part II of the Annual File, especially the byline folders and topical files. Some proposed books and a few books authored by Lewis were also filed in the Annual File by Lewis’s staff. Files pertaining to Gideon’s Trumpet occur throughout the Annual File. Years after its publication, Lewis still received correspondence about the book. Papers in 1979 and 1980 Annual File contain files relating to a movie based on Gideon’s Trumpet.
The Notebooks series documents many of Lewis’s endeavors as a reporter and columnist from 1974 to 1999. The Notebooks from his London bureau tenure, 1965-1972, cover a wide range of topics such as the beginning of the political violence in Northern Ireland, the British entry into the European Economic Community (EEC), the withdrawal of British forces abroad, and the relationship between the United States and Great Britain. The Notebooks include Lewis’s interviews of people from Northern Ireland regarding the Irish Republican Army bombings and the policies of the Democratic Unionists Party. Also represented in the series are the British Parliament’s discussions on withdrawing forces from territories east of Suez and military forces which were a part of the British Army of the Rhine. Other notebooks chronicle the parliamentary discussions about the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War and the bombing of Cambodia. Notebooks from 1973 to 1999 document mainly Lewis’s many trips to London, Africa, and the Middle East. One 1973 notebook contains notes relating to Watergate.
The Miscellany series consists chiefly of files pertaining to Lewis’s teaching files about legal issues and journalism. The majority of the teaching files document Lewis’s lectures at Harvard Law School, Columbia University, and Yale University. This series also includes appointment books, photographs, and a few family papers.