Through the efforts of Neville Miller, former dean of the University of Louisville School of Law, a body of personal papers of the first Justice John Marshall Harlan, 1833-1911, was donated to the University of Louisville in 1941. University of Louisville Board of Trustee Minutes document the gift by Justice Harlan's grandson, John Marshall Harlan (himself a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1955-1971) with the understanding that he be consulted about the use of the papers. That right of consultation on the use or publication of the papers succeeded to the donor's daughter, Eve Dillingham (1932- ).
When the papers arrived in Louisville, law librarians arranged them and placed them in manuscript boxes. In 1976, the University Archives produced a microfilm edition of the Papers of John Marshall Harlan at the University of Louisville, edited by Thomas L. Owen, Assistant Director. Since that time, the original papers have remained on deposit at the University of Louisville Archives. In 1978, the School of Law and the University Archives secured funds to have the bound volumes of Harlan Papers resewn and the loose manuscripts transferred to acid free folders and boxes.
