Scope and Content Note
The papers of James McCauley Landis (1899-1964) span the years 1916-2004, with the bulk of the material dating from 1927 to 1962. The papers are organized into the following series: Diaries and Family Correspondence; General Correspondence; Office Files; Subject File; Speech, Article and Book File; Miscellany; Addition I; Addition II; and Oversize.
The papers are comprised of correspondence, legal drafts and briefs, memoranda, drafts and copies of Landis's writings, scrapbooks, financial papers, and other material relating to his career as professor at Harvard, dean of the Harvard Law School, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board, advisor to both Joseph P. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy, and supervisor for the town of Harrison, New York. The papers document his interest and activities in the regulation, administration, and expansion of civil aviation, economic development of the Middle East, the Federal Power Commission, public administration, the controversy over the plan to reorganize the Supreme Court in 1936, the Harry Bridges case, the election of 1940, the motion picture and television industry, and Landis's New York law practice. Correspondents include Louis Dembitz Brandeis, Benjamin N. Cardozo, Zechariah Chafee, William O. Douglas, Felix Frankfurter, John F. Kennedy, Joseph P. Kennedy, David Eli Lilienthal, Langdon P. Marvin, Claude Pepper, Roscoe Pound, Richard Manning Russell, and Herbert Bayard Swope.
The Additions include material from Landis's second wife, Dorothy Purdy Brown, items from his State Department position as minister to the Middle East during the final years of World War II, papers from various business pursuits, and material that was gathered by Donald Ritchie for his biography of Landis. The Ritchie collection includes the author's interviews and correspondence with Landis's family and friends, and medical and psychiatric records. The Oversize series consists of certificates, including many that document presidential appointments.