Vintage sepia matte-finish 14 x 11 Harris & Ewing photo of the Hughes Supreme Court, circa 1932–37, signed in fountain pen in the lower margin by all nine Justices: Charles E. Hughes, Louis Brandeis, J. C. McReynolds, George Sutherland, Harlan Stone, Benjamin Cardozo, Willis VanDevanter, Pierce Butler, and Owen J. Roberts. Tiny tear to top edge (easily matted out), mounting remnants to reverse, and faint pencil remnants visible beneath a few signatures, otherwise fine, clean condition.
After the onset of the Great Depression and the election of Franklin Roosevelt as president, the Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Charles E. Hughes, placed itself at the center of controversy by thwarting the government's attempts to create social welfare programs. Though Hughes was progressive on matters of race and sympathetic to Roosevelt's New Deal policies, he sided with Court conservatives in striking down several key pieces of legislation. He provided a swing vote on the Court and sometimes sided with the minority against the conservative majority, whose core consisted of four justices termed the "Four Horsemen". He vigorously opposed Roosevelt's efforts to "reorganize" the Supreme Court in 1937 to sideline the conservative, hard-line justices. His majority opinion that year upholding the National Labor Relations Act and his ruling upholding a state minimum wage law defused the crisis by suggesting that he and the other moderate on the Court, Justice Roberts, would thereafter side with the liberals.
Hughes served as Chief Justice until his retirement in 1941. He was succeeded by Harlan Stone. Each of the high court’s esteemed personages are captured in their judicial attire, and the portrait carries every bit of the clarity expected from a Harris & Ewing photograph. Pre-certified John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and RRAuction COA.
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