The Louis Dembitz Brandeis Papers at the University of Louisville reflect the varied personal and professional interests of a Louisville native, Boston attorney, and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
The papers generated by the Justice fall within the years, 1870-1941. They include correspondence, drafts of speeches and publications, news clipping scrapbooks, reference files, pamphlets and reports, and legal documents. Family letters, the earliest dated 1810, and biographical sketches as recent as 1976, are also found. Brandeis' pre-court years as a reform-minded Boston attorney and his active role in the Zionist movement are extensively documented in the papers. While Brandeis was on the Supreme Court, he wrote most of his letters in long-hand and kept no copies. As a result, the correspondence between the years 1916 and 1941 is primarily incoming.
Most printed materials that were not authored by Brandeis nor annotated by him, were not filmed. These items remain in place in the collection and are available to researchers.
The collection is divided into ten topical series. Each series, with its initialed designation and inclusive dates, is as follows:
Series 1: Nutter, McClennen & Fish (NMF), 1881-1927
Series 2: Supreme Court (SC), 1907-1938
Series 3: Savings Bank Life Insurance (I), 1905-1906, 1929-1938
Series 4: World War (WW), 1916-1920, 1926
Series 5: Government (G), 1916, 1924-1937
Series 6: Zionism/Palestine (Z/P), 1905, 1913-1938
Series 7: Miscellaneous (M), 1810, 1844-1939
Series 9: Addendum (A), 1871-1941, 1956-1976
Series 10: Warren & Brandeis/Brandeis, Dunbar & Nutter (WB), 1881-1947
