340: Rebels at the Bar by Jill Norgren

340.0820973: Norgren, Jill. Rebels at the Bar: The Fascinating, Forgotten Stories of America’s First Women Lawyers. New York: New York University Press, 2013. 212 pp. ISBN 978-0-8147-5862-5.

Dewey Breakdown:

• 300: Social Sciences
• 340: Law
• +082: Women
• +0973: United States

Jill Norgren, in her upcoming book Rebels at the Bar, wants to shine a light on a forgotten corner of American history. While there are many woman law practitioners today, the mid-1800s saw the breaking of the barrier. America had come out of the Second Great Awakening with an interesting amount of education societies of which women were a large part. With new-found access to education (no thanks to men legislators and officials), they sought to work along side their male counterparts in many notable professions. This included the law. While lawyers were generally seen in the same way as we do today, well-meaning members of society thought the law to be a noble calling. Norgren’s book details the life and times of eight pioneering women in the field.

346: The Democracy of Sound by Alex Sayf Cummings

346.730482: Cummings, Alex Sayf. The Democracy of Sound: Music Piracy and the Remaking of American Copyright in the Twentieth Century. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013. 223 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-985822-4.

Dewey Breakdown:

• 300: Social Sciences
• 340: Law
• 346: Private law
• 346.7: North American private law
• 346.73: United States private law
• 346.7304: Property law
• 346.73048: Intellectual property
• 346.730482: Copyright law

When a work is created, who owns it? In most cases, people would automatically credit the creator with ownership. The creator normally says who can reproduce the work and how. This is the domain of copyright law: just who has the right to copy a publication. This works well for a written creation, but what of a musical composition? Who owns the music, the sound? Can you own sound? These are the questions that faced the fledgling recording industry immediately after the invention of the phonograph. Alex Sayf Cumming examines the history of musical copyright law and how the recording industry copes with increasing nuance in The Democracy of Sound.

347: Out of Order by Sandra Day O’Connor

347.732609: O’Connor, Sandra Day. Out of Order: Stories from the History of the Supreme Court. New York: Random House, 2013. 131 pp. ISBN 978-0-8129-9392-9.

Dewey Breakdown:

• 300: Social Sciences
• 340: Law
• 347: Procedure and courts
• 347.7: Procedure and courts of North America
• 347.73: Procedure and courts of the United States
• 347.732: Federal courts
• 347.7326: Supreme Court
• +09: History

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan nominated a jurist from the Arizona Court of Appeals to the US Supreme Court. For the first time in the court’s 191-year history a woman was named to fill a seat on the nation highest bench. Sandra Day O’Connor served the Supreme Court for 25 years with distinction and Honor. And now she wants to share her knowledge of the history, traditions, and personalities of the Court with us in Out of Order.

341: Capital of the World by Charlene Mires

341.2309: Mires, Charlene. Capital of the World: The Race to Host the United Nations. New York: New York University Press, 2013. 227 pp. ISBN 978-0-8147-0794-4.

Dewey Breakdown:

• 300: Social Science
• 340: Law
• 341: Law of nations
• 341.2: The world community
• 341.23: The United Nations
• +09: General history

Very few people alive today remember the founding of the United Nations. Started as a small group of countries in Yalta in 1944, and chartered in 1945, the United Nations started its life as a homeless newcomer in the large arena of international diplomacy. So, one of the first things they had to accomplish was finding a headquarters. With voices from all over the globe clamoring for supremacy, the hunt was wild, furious, and even laughable at times. No place on Earth was free from political pros or cons, and Charlene Mires’s Capital of the World chronicles the twists and turns of how the UN eventually came to be housed in Manhattan, New York.

349: You Can Get Arrested For That by Rich Smith

349.73: Smith, Rich. You Can Get Arrested for That: 2 Guys, 25 Dumb Laws, 1 Absurd American Crime Spree. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006. 237 pp. ISBN 978-0-307-33942-3.

Dewey Construction:

• 300: Social Science
• 340: Law
• 349: Law of specific jurisdictions, areas, socioeconomic regions, and regional intergovernmental organizations
• 349.73: Laws of the United States (in general)

During a Christmas holiday with his family, Cornish journalist Rich Smith was playing a trivia game and asked the question “What is illegal for a divorced woman to do in Florida on Sundays?” The answer, to everyone’s astonishment was: parachuting. After that, he wanted to find out what other silly acts were illegal in the US. Once the plan was in mind, he hoodwinked his buddy Bateman into driving him around for the summer and the race was on.

342: Though the Heavens May Fall by Steven M. Wise

342.4208625: Wise, Steven M. Though the Heavens May Fall: The Landmark Trial That Led to the End of Human Slavery. US: De Capo Press, 2005. 225 pp. ISBN 0-306-81450-1.

Dewey Construction:

• 300: Social Sciences
• 340: Law
• 342: Constitutional and administrative law
• +42: In England and Wales
• +08625: Concerning slaves, serfs, or peons

In 1772, a landmark case was presented before The Court of King’s Bench in London. Lord Mansfield, the celebrated jurist of his day, and three associate judges heard the case of James Somerset, a black man from Africa, who had been sold into slavery to Charles Steuart, transported to the West Indies, and then to America. Once in England, he escaped from his master and, with the help of an 18^th-century legal dream team, petitioned to be considered a free man under English law.

This is his story.