Stanley F. Reed Oral History Project

Stanley F. Reed (1884--1980), born in Minerva, served two terms in the Kentucky General Assembly, was appointed by Herbert Hoover as general counsel for the Federal Farm Board and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and served as solicitor general of the United States (1935--1938) and as a United States Supreme Court justice (1938--1957).
Colleagues, relatives, and law clerks discuss Reed's work habits; the duties of a law clerk at the United States Supreme Court; Jones versus the City of Opelika, Alabama; the Securities and Exchange Commission versus Chenery Corporation; civil rights; Brown versus the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas; Reed's ideology and judicial philosophy; Reed's relationship with Fred M. Vinson; Morgan versus Virginia; Reed and the Washington social scene; Sweatt versus Painter; McLaurin versus Oklahoma State Regents; McCarthyism; Reed's opinion of Plessy versus Ferguson; Partmar Corporation versus Paramount Pictures; Florida ex Rel. Hawkins versus the Board of Control (Black Bass case); the United States versus Du Pont de Nemours and Company et al. (Cellophane case); Shields versus the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company; and United States versus the Appalachian Electric Power Company.