Harlan Fiske Stone: A Man for All Seats
Introduction
Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone at his desk in his home office, October 4, 1941.
Harris & Ewing
Harlan Fiske Stone joined the Supreme Court as an Associate Justice on March 2, 1925. When he took his oaths of office to become the twelfth Chief Justice of the United States on July 3, 1941, he became the first—and, to date, only—Justice to sit in every seat on the Bench.
This exhibition commemorates the 100th Anniversary of Stone joining the Court, looking back at Stone’s life and service on the nation’s highest court. During his twenty-one-year tenure, Stone helped to decide cases and wrote significant opinions that shaped the nation’s legal system through the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, the New Deal era, and the Second World War.
Unless otherwise noted, all images are from the Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States.