Nathaniel L. Nathanson (1908-1983) Papers

The Nathaniel L. Nathanson Papers fill 32 boxes, including two half-size boxes and are arranged in eight subseries: biographical materials, correspondence files, teaching files, administrative files, research and consulting files, professional organization files, papers presented before professional organizations and publications. A small amount of legal-size materials are arranged at the end of the series.

The biographical materials include curricula vitae, partial bibliographies and diaries with scattered, brief entries for professional and personal activities.

The correspondence files form the largest subseries, occupying ten boxes. Nathanson and his correspondents wrote on a wide variety of professional, educational and personal matters. The correspondence is an important source of information and commentary on prominent American jurists. Several photocopied letters from Felix Frankfurter are filed here. Nathanson wrote several articles about Supreme Court Justice Brandeis, and frequently referred to him in his correspondence (e.g., letter from Nathanson to Stanley Kaplan, March 3, 1980, Box 8, Folder 5). There are also several letters to and from Justice John Paul Stevens, a Northwestern University Law School student of Nathanson.

The teaching files fill eight and one-half boxes and include material from Nathanson's four decades of teaching at Northwestern as well as from his work as a visiting professor at Arizona State University and the Universities of Washington, San Diego, and California, San Francisco. Nathanson's two major courses were administrative law and constitutional law. Toward the end of his career he developed a popular course on contemporary litigation before the United States Supreme Court. This subseries comprises case notes, schedules and reading lists, exam sheets and student bluebooks, grade sheets, student papers, and correspondence arranged first by institution, and then by course, title or topic. A small amount of administrative files pertain to Northwestern Law School programs and committees, including the 1970-71 committee to select the school's dean.

The research and consulting files provide a partial picture of Nathanson's varied interests in legal, political and community issues. These files are arranged alphabetically by subject headings. Of particular interest are Nathanson's files on the Administrative Conference of the United States.

The professional organization files demonstrate Nathanson's strong advocacy on behalf of civil rights issues and cases both in the United States and abroad. The bulk of this subseries deals with the Japanese American Society for Legal Studies. Nathanson served as the Society's American Representative Director for several years, arranged lectures and itineraries for several visiting lawyers and judges from Japan, and founded and edited the society's Newsletter.

The papers presented before professional societies illustrate both Nathanson's professional interests and concerns as well as his popularity as a speaker. Civil rights, legal procedures, administrative and constitutional law and the United Nations are among the issues and topics Nathanson most frequently addressed.

The publications subseries includes published and unpublished books and articles. Nathanson was a contributor to and co-author of the Administrative Law Case Book. He and several colleagues were at work on the fifth edition when Nathanson died. With the manuscript of Nathanson's unpublished book, The History of Peace-Keeping Assessments, is a letter from Alger Hiss in which Hiss comments on, among other things, two papers by Nathanson.