Some Memories of a Long Life, 1854-1911

by Malvina Shanklin Harlan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Foreword by), Linda Przybyszewski (Afterword)

Overview

Like Abigail Adams, Malvina Shanklin Harlan witnessed—and gently influenced—national history from the unique perspective of a political leader’s wife. Her husband, Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan (1833–1911), played a central role in some of the most significant civil rights decisions of his era, including his lone dissenting opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson, the infamous case that endorsed separate but equal segregation. And for fifty-seven years he was married to a woman who was busy making a mental record of their eventful lives.

After Justice Harlan’s death in 1911, Malvina wrote Some Memories of a Long Life, 1854–1911, as a testament to her husband’s accomplishments and to her own. The memoir begins with Malvina, the daughter of passionate abolitionists, becoming the teenage bride of John Marshall Harlan, whose family owned more than a dozen slaves. Malvina depicts her life in antebellum Kentucky, and her courageous defense of the Harlan homestead during the Civil War. She writes of her husband’s ascent in legal circles and his eventual appointment to the Supreme Court in 1877, where he was the author of opinions that continued to influence American race relations deep into the twentieth century. Yet Some Memories is more than a wife’s account of a famous and powerful man. It chronicles the remarkable evolution of a young woman from Indiana who became a keen observer of both her family’s life and that of her nation.

When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg began researching the history of the women associated with the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress sent her Malvina Harlan’s unpublished manuscript. Recalling Abigail Adams’s order to “remember the ladies,” Justice Ginsburg has guided its long journey from forgotten document to published book. Some Memories of a Long Life includes a Foreword by Justice Ginsburg, as well as an Afterword by historian Linda Przybyszewski and an Epilogue of the Harlan legacy by Amelia Newcomb. According to Library Journal, “This is the sort of book you call a publishing event.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780812967449
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/08/2003
Series:	Modern Library Classics
Edition description:	REPRINT
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.14(w) x 7.98(h) x 0.65(d)

About the Author

Malvina Shanklin Harlan (1838–1916) was the wife of Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan and the grandmother of the second Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan. Born in Indiana, she died in Washington, D.C., a year after completing Some Memories.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court since 1993.

Linda Przybyszewski is an associate professor of history at the University of Cincinnati. She is the author of The Republic According to John Marshall Harlan.

Read an Excerpt

Courtship and Marriage

One day during the late summer of 1853 in Evansville, Indiana, a small but growing town in the Southwestern part of the State-a young girl of fifteen, suffering from some slight affection of the eyes, had been confined by the physician's orders to a darkened room.

Happening at the moment to peep through a narrow crack of the almost closed window-shutters she saw a young man passing by. As she had lived all her life in that small town and was familiar with almost every face in it, she knew at once that he was a stranger.

That was sixty-one years ago; but, as clearly as if it were yesterday, she can still see him as he looked that day-his magnificent figure, his head erect, his broad shoulders well thrown back-walking as if the whole world belonged to him.

On the sixth of the following February, 1854, she was invited to take supper with the family of Dr. J. G. Hatchitt,1 a young physician living in the block beyond her father's residence. To her surprise, as she sat talking to her hostess, a young man-with a rope to each arm, as he "played horsey" for the little nephew that was the delightful and uproarious Jehu-suddenly pranced into the room. The young girl at once recognized him as the interesting stranger who had caught her eye six months before, as she peeped through the narrow crack of her window-shutters, and whom, after the romantic style of that period, she had (to herself) called "A Prince of the Blood."

Very much amused and yet covered with manly confusion, at thus being caught by a strange young girl in the act of "playing the boy," the young man who proved to be John Marshall Harlan, of Frankfort, Kentucky, and a brother of the hostess (Elizabeth Harlan)-was duly presented to "Miss Malvina Shanklin."

His conversation during that evening greatly interested the young girl, showing unusual thought and intelligence for a youth of only twenty-one, and that night he escorted her home.

As was her custom, being an only daughter, she went straight to her mother's room to tell her "all about" the very pleasant acquaintance she had just made. She showed so much enthusiasm in her description of him that her mother,2 after listening awhile to her girlish outburst, said, in a very dry, decided and matter-of-fact tone: "You have talked quite enough about a young man whom you have only seen for an hour or two; now, you can go up to your room. Good night."

During the next week, a daily call from this new friend gave me a new interest in life; and at the end of the week, before he left for his Kentucky home, to my great surprise he asked me to be his wife. "Does the course of true love ever run smoothly?" Considering the strain put upon it in this case, where disenchantment might so easily have followed, I can say that for me it did.

A Mischievous Brother's Prank

In my memory of those first days of courtship, one absurdly embarrassing incident stands out very vividly.

At that time I had three brothers3 living-one of them my senior by three years, the other two being a few years younger. My oldest brother was a great tease and, as the only sister, I was often the victim of his harmless practical jokes.

Editorial Reviews

Like Abigail Adams a century before her, Malvina Harlan used astute powers of observation and a natural gift with words to leave a written legacy, one that illuminated not only her life and that of her famous husband, Justice John Marshall Harlan, but the momentous times in which they lived.” —Linda Greenhouse, The New York Times

“Reading [Some Memories] is like engaging with a fine conversationalist. From antebellum Kentucky to twentieth-century Washington, she observes customs, manners, clothing, people, places and events with the skills of a gifted storyteller.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Some Memories offers a strong antidote to much modern memoir writing.” —The Wall Street Journal

“A compelling memoir about the Harlans’ life and times—remarkable times, encompassing slavery, the Civil War and its aftermath.” —The Washington Post

“A publishing event.” —Library Journal

“[Harlan’s] recollections of her married life shed considerable light on the complexities inherent in race relations in America.” —Publishers Weekly

“Bracing . . . a life of actual historical interest.” —The New Yorker

From the Publisher

These memoirs by the wife of a noted Supreme Court justice, John Marshall Harlan, first appeared last summer in the Journal of Supreme Court History and gained considerable attention thanks to Ruth Bader Ginsburg's enthusiastic support. Now they are being made available in a popular edition complete with foreword by Ginsburg (not seen by PW) and extensive notes by Przybyszewski. Justice Harlan, though a former slave-holder, is remembered for his lone and eloquent dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, the case that established the doctrine of "separate but equal." His wife's recollections of her married life shed considerable light on the complexities inherent in race relations in America and help explain such an apparent contradiction. Mrs. Harlan was a conventional woman; she shared the unreflecting assumptions of white superiority and wifely subordination common to her class. Indeed her decision, at 50, to visit Italy without her husband's express permission was so uncharacteristic that it went down in family annals as "Mother's Revolt," while her portraits of the slaves in her father-in-law's household, though well intentioned, will produce nothing but deep embarrassment in the contemporary reader. Nevertheless, she stood squarely behind her husband's dissent. No visionary, Malvina Harlan was a thoroughly nice woman who behaved as she knew she should. Her journals will most interest students of the period. Photos not seen by PW. (May) Forecast: Clearly, Modern Library is counting on the clout of Justice Ginsburg's name to help sell the book, as the announced first printing of 75,000 copies attests. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Harlan, wife of U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan of Kentucky, was a skilled and astute observer of 19th-century American politics and society. Originally written in 1915, this memoir was discovered by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (she had asked the Library of Congress for material on the wives of Supreme Court justices) and published last year in the Journal of Supreme Court History. It is a significant historical document, not only capturing our national experience from the Civil War to the early modern eras but also including many pieces authored by her famous husband, the sole dissenter in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson segregation decision. Harlan notes that her husband kept the flame of federalism alive through both his political and his legal careers, holding fast to the notion of Unionism, fighting arduously (though unsuccessfully) to keep Kentucky aligned with the Union cause during the Civil War, and consistently rejecting the narrow interpretation of the federal Constitution championed by Thomas Jefferson earlier in the 19th century and propagated by the Democratic Party through the shelling of Fort Sumter. She also provides rare, insightful glimpses into Washington society during the postbellum and early modern eras, including the couple's interactions with prominent politicians, diplomats, movers, shakers, and other notables. Ginsburg provides a foreword. Recommended for public and academic libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/02.] Philip Y. Blue, New York State Supreme Court Criminal Branch Law Lib., New York Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Recently discovered in the Library of Congress, a previously unpublished memoir by the wife of Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan, revealed here as a former slaveholder whose ringing words in defense of civil rights contrasted with his decidedly paternalistic view of racial minorities. Malvina Shanklin (1838–1916) saw Kentucky lawyer Harlan (1833–1911) as a "heroic figure" from the day they met when she was 15, and in her eyes he never descended from the pedestal during 57 years of marriage. Written as a tribute to her beloved husband four years after his death, her observations nonetheless suggest deep conflicts between Harlan's inherited attitudes and his legacy as the lone dissenter in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) who famously declared, "Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens." Malvina's writings innocently document the fact that Harlan owned slaves until Emancipation and held jaundiced opinions on "Negro" ethnicity throughout his life. Yet he served in the Union Army and commented on the evolution of his attitudes from the time he was appointed to the Court in 1877: "I would rather be right than consistent." An introduction by Linda Przybyszewski (History/Univ. of Cincinnati; The Republic According to John Marshall Harlan, 1999) provides a contemporary analysis of Harlan's key civil rights opinions. Following Plessy, further rulings amply display his conviction that Negroes had to become full partners in the American experience. Malvina's ear for irony, albeit gentle, provides gems on the private man: a staunch Presbyterian, for example, he is brought up short when a long-lost cousin reveals that his Quaker forebears had abandonedtheir pacifist faith in favor of the Scottish sect so they could fight Indians harassing the frontier homestead. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose request for material on justices' wives prompted the manuscript's discovery, provides a foreword claiming the memoir as a revelation of Malvina's sterling worth as well as John's public life. A valuable personal look at a key figure in American judicial history. First printing of 75,000

Kirkus Reviews