Scope and Content Note
The papers of Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965) cover the period from 1846 to 1966, although the bulk of the material begins in 1907. This collection, which Frankfurter considered to be his personal papers, is supplemented by his Supreme Court files which he gave to the Law School of Harvard University, his correspondence relating to the Sacco-Vanzetti case, also at Harvard, and documents relating to the Zionist movement, which are at the Hebrew University in Israel. The Manuscript Division has a microfilm copy of the Zionist documents, some of the Sacco-Vanzetti material, and the Harvard Law School collection. In addition, a considerable amount of material relating to the Supreme Court, for the most part in photocopied form, is scattered throughout the Library's collection of personal papers.
The Frankfurter Papers consist of diaries, correspondence, subject files, a speech, article, and book file, a legal file, miscellaneous material, and an addenda of additions to the collection. Also included are papers of William Henry Moody (1853-1917), United States attorney general and associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. Frankfurter's involvement with significant political and social movements and events and his acquaintance with leaders in many segments of society make his papers a rich source for the study of a variety of topics. The complex character of the man and the general feeling of the times--the Zeitgeist, as he called it--are illuminated through a study of his papers.
In his correspondence, Frankfurter was as likely to expound his philosophy of life and law to a graduate student or an aspiring author as to a distinguished and cherished friend, a fact which makes the correspondence series particularly important. Dean Acheson, Charles C. Burlingham, Frank W. Buxton, Alfred E. Cohn, Herbert David Croly, Herbert Feis, Jerome Frank, Henry J. Friendly, Learned Hand, W. S. Lewis, Max Lowenthal, Archibald MacLeish, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Franklin D. Roosevelt are representative of his numerous correspondents in the General Correspondence series. For his early years as a lawyer in the public service, the correspondence with Emory R. Buckner, beginning in 1907, and Henry Lewis Stimson, beginning in 1908, is probably the most substantive.
Letters from the British economist Harold Joseph Laski provide many comments on British and American politics during the period 1915-1950. Few copies of Frankfurter's letters to Laski are included in the collection, indicating that most of these were probably handwritten items of which he kept no copy. A similar situation exists in Frankfurter's correspondence with Louis Dembitz Brandeis. Frankfurter once wrote that "the correspondence between him [Brandeis] and me was--with very few exceptions--in longhand on both sides. I made no copies--not even a notation--of my letters to him" (letter to A. T. Mason, 18 June, 1943). In the collection, Frankfurter's letters to Brandeis exist exclusively in the form of photocopies. The correspondence itself is a rich source for study of the judicial process, and particularly of the Supreme Court, since Frankfurter was one of the few people off the court with whom Brandeis discussed court matters. The Brandeis file also contains a few letters to Brandeis from Samuel D. Warren, Jr., 1878-1879, concerning their proposed law partnership in Boston.
Frankfurter's correspondence with his wife, Marion Denman, both before and after their marriage, is also a significant portion of the collection. Long letters to each other record their personal feelings and philosophies and comment on the people and events they observed. Frankfurter's letters from Paris in 1919 give perhaps his only account of the people and events he encountered as a member of the Zionist Commission at the peace conference.
Significant letters can also be found in the Special Correspondence series, the organization of which as a separate entity reflects the organization of Frankfurter's files. The Oxford correspondence is essentially general correspondence for the period 1933-1934 when Frankfurter was George Eastman visiting professor at Oxford University. Many of the letters he received at the time he declined the appointment to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and upon his appointment to and retirement from the Supreme Court are more than merely congratulatory notes.
Subject files in the Frankfurter Papers are as important as the personal correspondence. They are especially relevant for those interested in the development of legal and social institutions. Compiled for the most part during his years at the Harvard Law School, they reflect the exercise of his talents and influence beyond the confines of the classroom. Significant and related files exist for the American Law Institute, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Cleveland Foundation, the Harvard crime survey in Boston, the National Consumers' League, the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, known as the United States Wickersham Commission, and the Social Science Research Council.
For an analysis of the relation between law and social action, files on independent regulatory commissions and industrial relations are informative. The files of the War Labor Policies Board and those concerning the Mooney case tell something of Frankfurter's activities during World War I when he took leave from his Harvard professorship to work in Washington. Also of interest are the files concerning Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in which correspondence of Holmes's law clerks for the years 1929-1935 tell of the justice's last years.
As an unofficial adviser to Franklin D. Roosevelt even before Roosevelt's presidency, Frankfurter was intimately involved with the New Deal from its inception. Subject files on banking reorganization, the National Industrial Recovery Act, public utilities, railroad reorganization, labor injunctions, unemployment, and the Supreme Court document the Frankfurter-Roosevelt correspondence.
The Frankfurter Papers are also of value for literary historians. Frankfurter once wrote, "When all is said letter writing is the most abidingly fascinating literary form" (letter to his wife, 3 October 1922), and it was a form in which he certainly excelled. Indeed, the whole collection is a superb example of the art of belles lettres, as can be seen in Frankfurter's correspondence with Francis Hackett, author, literary critic, and an early editor of the New Republic. Spanning the period from 1918 to 1964, this exchange yields much critical information on the literary world and its personages in the period between the two world wars.
As one of the original group influential in founding the New Republic in 1914, Frankfurter was for many years a trustee of the journal and a regular contributor to its columns. Copies of many of these contributions can be found in the Speech, Article, and Book File, which contains seven bound volumes housing a nearly complete set of Frankfurter's speeches and published articles. Also in this series are oral history interviews begun for the Columbia University Oral History Project and eventually published as Felix Frankfurter Reminisces. The many letters he received after its publication are in the Special Correspondence File.
Not to be overlooked is the Miscellany series, which includes research notes, memoranda, biographical material, copies of favorite quotations, and typed copies of a Civil War diary and correspondence of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. A memorandum of conversations with Brandeis records commentary on Supreme Court personalities and their judicial philosophies.
The final series in the collection, Addenda, consists of additions acquired by the Library from 1971 to 2020. The 1983 addition includes letters from Frankfurter to his sisters Ella Frankfurter Rogers and Estelle S. Frankfurter along with letters exchanged between the sisters and related items; correspondence, reports, memoranda, clippings, and printed matter, relating to Franklin D. Roosevelt; correspondence with Loring Christie, Albert Einstein, Albert M. Friedenberg, and Eleanor Roosevelt; and a memoir, "Chum Felix Frankfurter," by Frank W. Buxton.
The 1997 addition consists of correspondence between Frankfurter and Julian Huxley and Archibald MacLeish and an annotated copy of Frankfurter's book, The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti: A Critical Analysis for Lawyers and Laymen. The MacLeish letter contains an attached memorandum of a conversation with Franklin D. Roosevelt and a typed copy of a memorandum from Roosevelt to "F.A.D." (probably Fred Delano) relating to Roosevelt's thoughts concerning future memorials dedicated to him. The Sacco and Vanzetti book contains typewritten and handwritten annotations by Frankfurter. Notes and printed matter about the Sacco and Vanzetti case and other cases removed by Library staff from the volume for preservation reasons are filed with the volume.
The 2023 addition contains letters from Frankfurter to Benjamin Cohen, Thomas Corcoran, and Harold Laski discussing Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Other letters from Frankfurter addressed to Everett R. Clinchy and to Gilbert Harrison relate, in part, to the New Republic.
Papers of William Henry Moody (1885-1917), associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1906 to 1910, that came with the Frankfurter Papers have been retained as part of the collection. They consist mainly of personal letters received by Moody during the period 1906-1916 and complement the larger collection of William H. Moody Papers in the Manuscript Division. Correspondents include Ira A. Abbott, Robert S. Bradley, William A. Day, A. T. Mahan, and Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919).