Zechariah Chafee papers

Predominantly general professional correspondence, dealing withChafee's writings, lectures, speeches, general law school matters,publication matters, proposed federal legislation, etc.Correspondents include Harvard College and Harvard Law Schoolcolleagues, law teachers in other parts of the U.S. and abroad,practicing lawyers, editors of law reviews and national publications,former students, etc. Period covered is mainly 1916 to 1928, withlittle correspondence after that. Correspondence concerning specificactivities is generally filed with the particular activity,committee, investigation, organization in Series IV, V orVI.Correspondence includes letters from Harold Laski, ArchibaldMacLeish, Allan Nevins, Frank W. Taussig, Alfred North Whitehead, andHerbert Croly.

Predominantly professional correspondence, discussion of Chafee'sbooks and investigations, acknowledgements of receipt and expressionsof gratitude for articles and other material received from Chafee,comments on current legal cases of national prominence, etc.

Material includes correspondenceof various members of Chafee family, some clippings, photos, estatematters, and other personal miscellany.

Material inthis series covers mainly professional activities outside of ProfesorChafee's teaching and writing. Much of it is material gathered forspecial committees and special investigations. Material includesreports, correspondence, memoranda, pamphlets, reprints of articles,federal laws, and newspaper clippings.

ProfessorChafee was the author of the Federal Interpleader Act, which waspassed by Congress in 1936. He undertook his studies for the Sectionof Insurance Law of the American Bar Association. Material in thisseries includes correspondence in connection with the research for,and drafting of, the Federal Interpleader Act, the study of specificcases used as a basis for the drafting of the Act, and correspondenceabout articles and reports that resulted from his investigations. The"Research" section of this series is confined to his research of theindividual states of the Union concerning existing statelegislation.

Professor Chafee was the outstanding legal scholar of the firstpart of this century in the field of Civil Liberties. For forty yearshe spoke and wrote about the Bill of Rights and the problems of CivilLiberties such as mail censorship, academic freedom, loyalty oaths,etc. Materials in this series includes reports, memoranda, analysesof Browder, Bridges, Hollywood Ten and similar cases, discussion ofCongressional bills and state legislation designed to limitconstitutional freedoms. Manuscripts of Chafee's writings in thefield of Civil Liberties are found in Series IX.

Material in this series consists of Chafee's hand-written lecturenotes, typescripts of notes, diaries of courses, correspondence aboutcourses, cases he used for illustrations of points, examinationquestions, etc. Included are notes for courses that he taught atHarvard College. Boxes 36-39 contain material for "Old Courses,"courses he taught during the first part of his teaching career.During the later part of his teaching, Chafee specialized in Equityand in Bills and Notes.

Material in this series consists of Chafee's own student notes andtrial briefs while at the Harvard Law School, correspondence,memoranda, minutes and reports of various faculty committees heserved on, examination questions, miscellaneous correspondence,miscellaneous memoranda, book-lists, material concerning law clubs,policy statements, and photographs. The abbreviation H.L.S. forHarvard Law School is used throughout.

This seriesconsists of manuscripts for books, speeches, outside lectures,articles, correspondence with Chafee's publishers, copies of bookorders, reviews of Chafee's books, correspondence with co-authors,financial matters, background material Chafee collected for hiswritings, copyright matters, early writings (juvenilia), andmiscellaneous clippings.

Thisgroup of materials was placed under the heading of "Legal Miscellany"by Prof. Chafee himself and was arranged by him in alphabeticalorder. It contains various items relating to his research, histeaching and writing, legal issues of the day, prominent legal cases,material relating to professional groups, etc. Period covered extendsfrom the beginning of his teaching career until his death in1957.

This seriesconsists of Chafee material which was brought in after the completionof the arranging of the papers, from various sources within the LawSchool, mainly the late Professor Mark DeWolfe Howe's office. (Prof.Howe was Prof. Chafee's literary executor.)