sensibilities better than the home he built that 1790. one he lived with his family and the people who are enslaved into death in 1835. the objects bring the rim alive. it does not take much to imagine the activity in the enslaved household and others who visited john marshals home. his books, furnishing, paintings, tableware, and personal items provided detailed picture of who he was, there is no artifact that define martial judicial career better than the robe he wore during the 34-year-old tenure as chief justice of the united states supreme court. the robe was cared for by generations of descendants, before finding its way into our connection. marshall wore this robe as he provided over 34 years of supreme court cases. during which time the supreme court was elevated to a coequal branch of the federal government. today, a simple black robe is the recognizable icon of the american judicial system. iconic symbols are often worn as stories. stories are resent who we are as a nation. they are american objects such as the liberty bell, the star-spangled banner, part of creating the american myth of. the world is one such mythic objects. it holds the stories appearing born hearing -- perhaps marshals most significant precedent. judicial review, asserting the court power and authority to interpret the u.s. constitution. it also hot stories of our nations injustice. it is a witness to president said to perpetuate the institution of slavery. this often carry stories and more mundane activities, such as hanging on a peg inside the u.s. capital, next to the ropes of other justices. to the care that it received as a icon by both staff and family members. just as marshall being the first to wear the uniform that defines judges today may have been exaggerated. it is no doubt that this robe has a witness object being worn during the most american's national treasure. we were able to successfully conserve this iconic piece of national history because of people like you. your contributions have helped ensure that the rope has been stabilized, a man environmental factors controlled to slow further deterioration. thank you. now our work continues. as we work to the next phase of presenting amputation of programming, like this information presented both digitally and in person. visit our website, and you can learn more through our a newsletter. so now, it is my honor to introduce you to preservation virginia lea lane, who graduated from a university of degree. she -- aaliyah joined preservation virginia at the very end of 2019 from the cincinnati art museum. since that time, leah has curated preservation virginia's most historic site through some of the most difficult times this organization has gone through with both greats, skill, and a fair amount of humor. it has been a pleasure to work with her on the conservation exhibit to how the john marshals robe. so leah, i will handed over to you. >> thank you jen. it has been such a delight working with you for over a year now. what a year it was! we are so excited to be here today to discuss this rogue -- it is really the combination of a lot of hard work, especially by folks like jen. who have been working on this the entire time she has been a preservation. hats off, it's been good stuff! i'm going to share my screen, it might take just a moment. do you hang in there with me for just a second. we will get this rolling. all right. as jen mentioned, we have cared for john marshals black silk judicial row for about 180 years now. it was one of the first objects in our collection. it has always been one of our greatest treasures. before i passed things on to matthew to go into the deeper story of judicial textiles. i would like to introduce you to this newly-conserved object, which is currently the centerpiece of an exhibit at the john marshall house. john marshall may have had more than one rogue over the course of his 31 years on the court. this is the only one that has survived. there is nothing that points to a particular date in terms of construction or materials. the only unusual aspect are the sleeves. the folds and the game are on the reverse rather than on the front, which is what you would expect to see on contemporary robes. whether or not this was a mistake by the original maker, it was clear that this did not bother martial. the robe show signs of yes and no attempt to mend the design. perhaps it was just personal preference. as for the signs of use. where on the ham, sweat and palmy residue around the collar, you can see a little bit of it on this image. they underscore the fact that, as jen said, this is a witness object. this was present during those everyday historical moments. marshall integrated five different presidents on multiple occasions. the press often noticed his black robe. he donned it four portraits, which happens to be my favorite. painted by chester harding taken in 1829. a course there were cases. this robe was witness to critical rulings like marbury the madison. and repeated denial of the african american freedom suits. we do not know exactly where the robe went after marshall's death in 1835. it likely passed to his daughter, mary marshall harvey. she inherited most of his richmond property. although she owned the john marshall hart, marked in green here. she actually lived a couple blocks away, in the house marked in red. the next time we have a confirmed sighting -- excuse me. of the robe, was in 1888. pardon me, something is blooming today. so the next time we see it is in 1888. it is with anna fisher harvey, one of mary's daughters. who loaned the robe to the virginia agricultural exhibition who had a relics and antiquities section. a lot of these early exposition stud. by 1892, annie and our sister emily lived at the john marshall house. four years previously the house had been rented out to other families. by this point, 1892, it is back in the family home. they had a nephew named doctor hotly norman mason who recalled that the robe was tucked away in a cabin in the parlor. we now attribute the space to the smaller family dining room. the cabinet he is referring to, i think it's in the back of the circa 1980's image. this is during the harvey sisters residency. those two little doors in the back corner, the world is probably in there. we do not have a photo of dr. mason actually wearing the robe in 1892, where we cool if we did. but we don't. we do have this one of 1962 in the row. this was after an enormous conservation effort that took course during that year. over 600 hours of work. we did not try on the road that time. chase had changed a little bit. the stewardship was transferred to the association of virginia antiquities, now known as preservation virginia in 1911. in 1913 the house was open to the public. on that opening weekend the star traction was that rogue, on loan from the harvey sisters. when emily died in 1920, the row became part of our permanent collection. the robe have been exhibited in varying spots throughout the marshall house, generally shown on a mannequin. and has traveled for exhibitions, including to the smithsonian in 1967. many years of display, explosions lie and stress on the fibers caused by hanging it has all compounded the fragility of this remarkable objects. the silk robe itself is sometimes its worst enemy. it has what we call inherent vice. these are attributes that are inherent to that material that make it more sensitive to damage, makes it happen faster. heavy metals an iron was involved in processing of the so coons into the woven black fabric. this undermines the strength of the structure that was weaved. it also increases the rate at which it deteriorates. silk is also especially sensitive in general at the fiber to changes in temperature, humidity, as well as exposure to uv rayswi th the many years of between ths and many years of, play the role needed an intervention. since 2005, more than 15 years, it has been off view. it is only pulled out for special occasions and for visitors. here is jennifer with what might be another familiar face, associate justice sotomayor, when she came to the house to pay a visit. in 2019, preservation of virginia, in partnership with the john marshall institute for civics, launched the save the rove campaign which was to help support this conservation effort. thanks to the donors of that project many of whose names are mentioned on this live, we were able to place the robes in capable hands of howard sutcliffe of richard -- howard has worked on a priceless artifacts from across the world, from chinese court ropes to our own favored, kermit the frog. if you want to get the full story of the conservation of this role, which is fascinating, i encourage you to check out our metoo page for a webinar that we recorded with him a couple of weeks ago. now, i will not go too deep into detail here, but here is the basics of what he did. howard spent over 300 hours on this conservation project. he carefully studied the condition of the road, rope, especially with. -- in the top left, you can see some of the different types of patches that were there when he got the rope into the studio. sometimes these interventions are no longer in line with what we consider to be best practices and conservation's. before, they were not suffering these same structural support that they were intended to do. in cases, he removed those repairs completely. and others he added lines of special stages that linked an unstable textile with a new lining. he carried out an extensive surface cleaning, which i learned through this process, that conservators actually keep what they vacuum off. they use a very sensitive a low powered vacuum. when he brought the robe back he brought me a vacuum backup from john marshals robe. if anyone has any ideas of what they have to do about john marshals robe, i am all years. i -- it does have a pretty purpose in our geological contacts. not in our collection. that further ado, i want to show you a before and after shot. with howard's assistance, we worked with many productions based in chicago. we designed a case that would be a responsible way to display and to store this fragile textile. >> the massive extent of this robe is matched by the enormous scale of this case which you can get a sense of here. it measures six by seven feet. and as uv protected glass, an object chamber that will help keep the temperature and humidity stable. it is lit with emotion activated l.e.d. lighting. the goal is to create an environment that was as stable and as dark as we can possibly make it. one that would would narrow nearly never need to remove it from. humidex chemicals of how the damage going to happen to the artifact. howard also developed these special pads that help support the robe as it lies in a slight angle in its case. so, i invite you to come and see the robe. the snazzy new case, and the accompanying exhibit at the john marshall house. the exhibit explores the history of judicial attire but only at a pre-surface level. for the whole story, i am delighted to pass things on to jen, who will introduce a curator tour and scholar matthew costa. >> let me and share my screen. there we go. >> thank you, leah. that was excellent. the great pictures, right. now, it is my pleasure to introduce matthew hostile. he's a 1989 graduate at the university of notre-dame and served as a naval officer before embarking on a museum career. he's a master degree in museum studies from the george washington university and his first museum job was as a museum technician at the national museum of american history. in 1996, he joined an office of the supreme court of united states, and has been the associate curator since 2002. when he is not working with the court historic collection or developing new exhibitions, he researches the institutional regency of the court and topics like the judicial robes. this is right up his alley. we are so thrilled to have him present today. with that, i will turn it over to you. >> okay, great. let me share my screen now. let's get this up here. before we get started, i just want to say my thankyous to a couple of people. i want to thank jen and leah for inviting me to do the webinar. i have this as a pet project to figure out with robes and when they switch to the black robe for 20 years. i also want to thank preservation for engineer and all of the donors who got this project to completion. i want to say congratulations to you all for getting it done and making it happen. it looks great. i look forward to coming down to richmond's someday soon and taking a look at it. a couple of other things. to my colleagues in the curators office who listened to me talk about robes for all of these years, i apologize for that. here we are. to clare cushman of the supreme court historical society, i showed a draft of this article two her years ago and she has encouraged me to complete it for many years. i appreciate her patience and her encouragement. even though i do not know a lot of answers, that we can go ahead and have this article that is going to be published in the next journal of the stork society. and then we have this webinar. we are getting the story back out and see if we can learn more about these early robes. without further ado, i want to talk a little bit about -- in the supreme court hall in the building if you've not visited. the great chief justice is known as the test long shadow not just in legal history but in the institutional history of the court. as we alluded to earlier, there is a lot of traditions that the court does that are attributed to john marshall. i think in the 19th century, often, these were said to not know if it goes back to john marshals time. would have been overtime, people start to put agency to these stories. they started attributing then marshall did them on purpose and had a reason for doing them. the most recent one is the switch to the black robes. these stories and told in recent biographies of marshall and in court histories where he was specifically to chose the black world to go against those colorful and the judges had chosen before. it goes to show complicity and leadership of the court. unfortunately, i'm here to tell you that the story is not true. now i have some prove to finally share that and hopefully you will agree with my conclusions of all of that. one story is, why does marshall get the credit. it is based on one quote. it is a sad quote from senator mason in january of two. he says, state upon his knees before ford verbal judges, decorated in former robes. people looked at that quote and assume that it would be sense john marshall got there. this is where the story moved into this other realm of giving martial agency, rat and then we are not sure who did this. this is the quote that -- this is the reason why he gets credit for this. we have to remember is that when he came to washington in 1800, he was secretary of state under john adams. he was doing that job. this is the capital building in early 1801. the court met here in a borough conference room. no one knew where the court was going to be when it should've been february 18th 2021. marshall gets appointed to justice and 28. he sits with the court in february 4th and i can't imagine that was in those two weeks that without these doing he got a fitted robe and told other justices that they need to wear black. the story does not give -- is a hold of you start to give scrutiny -- this goes back to the 1970s. what really did have been? let's jump back. i want to talk to this portrait about the johnson & johnson a. it started in 1793. jay sat for the head only. he had to go off to england to negotiate what would be the jade treaty. there were letters in the family that suggests that his nephew posed in his chief justice rogue for the painting to be completed. it was delivered to mrs. jay in 1794. she immediately hung it up in their house. this was a family portrait that no one saw very much. it was not until 1815 that i found the first engraving of this portrait that was widely produced. the colorful robe of jay was not really seen that much in the early periods. people knew that it was his chief justice rope, anyone who knew about it. john adams, when he saw the engraving, roll back to the publisher and said there is john j with his chief justice rogue. this started developing the rogue. it is the only one that everyone knew about. it is popular when it is pre appears in the supreme court. it is a copy of that portion. it is not above the mantle in the justices roving room. when they come and they are asking for the robe. they would ask, what is she wearing. this is part of the mythology-able building. . this -- this is going to george washington. this is in 1789. there is no proof that he ever wore a robe at this event. even though it looks just like john j's role, and there is a story for years told that j borrowed the robe to be painted by stuart. it does not hold water when you start realizing the fact that the rope is still with us. here is the john j rope. it is in the collection of the smithsonian at the national museum of american history. it looks where we saw in yeah. >> i see there's an interstate here. >> this is such pieces on the outside. he stated that there is the white trim there. this is actually sent to the court in the 18 80s and they think it is roe. theresa may continues over this robe came from. is it an academic robe? there is a story that came from the university of edinburgh and gave j.d. an unusual raphael -- it cannot have come from scotland. then there are stories that came from the university of dublin. there are stories that it is a harvard robe. harvard robe is the most talked about in the more recent books. unfortunately, there is no evidence that harvard gave out the ropes of the time. they did an award degree. there is no evidence that they give him any type of road. he did not attend the ceremony. the idea that this academic robust from some university does not hold water either. eventually, the robot comes back to washington. the court cannot take it in the 1920s. it goes to the smithsonian. that's where it is today. it is a great thing because they have taking good care of it, like the john marshall rogue. it is well cared for. it goes to several conservation efforts. they're in good shape. we're gonna see some roads that did not get the same treatment? what is a look the way it does. is because we have english judges that would have been at the same time if the american colonies are going to move in at the same time. this is the famous wayne and blackstone bloods. he's wearing a doctor civil of rogue which is similar south of the j robe. the other one is a white common, for edges, with scarlet robe. these were legal attire of the 18th century. when the colonies also have courts, obviously, you have colonial roads that are also colorful. this is judge edward of -- this is one of the greatest portraits i've ever seen of a judge. this chief justice martin howard of the supreme court north carolina. it is in a museum was feign. if you look at it, definitely do. the fabric comes out of the painting painting. >> -- there were robes prior to the american revolution. what happens when the new supreme court that has been created comes in and sits in new york city? this is a building where they met. this is the merchants exchange building which would have been at the foot of broadway and downtown york city. the court met on the second floor. it is an open air market underneath. very little there is no description what the judges were they just its own business there were no cases to hear. and there is there is documentation that when this session ended there was no decision about what the judges would wear. in fact there is a letter from james irondale, an associate justice still in north carolina. his brother-in-law writes him a letter he says the judges did not make a decision, you should wear your bar gown when you wear the circuit. a bar gown was a simpler robe that lawyers would use arguing in english courts. we are pretty sure that they did not wear any roams at the first sitting at the court. in fact, i will show you and the second. there was one commentator that prior to the wearing of robes, they wore simple black coats, which he preferred. we leave new york and we head to philadelphia. this is a receipt that was sent to john j it actually details a rogue transaction several justices write letters mentioning why they want to wear the robes. we do know that they are starting to get these rugs and pay for them. this one is about james wilson, one of the associate justices borrowing money from jay, to pay george douglas $53 and change for a rogue. making a account. george douglas i'm, not exactly sure who he is. there is no one in the city directories and philadelphia with that name. there is a father and son in new york city who are merchant tailors, they were right around the corner basically from the merchant exchange building where the court was meeting in where jay lived in new york. my suspicion is this is the key player on where the early robes came from. my feeling is this is connected to it douglas trading company who had branches and call it -- my suspicion is these early rogues may have been ordered from overseas and sent to the court. it takes almost two years for them to finally arrive. we are still not entirely sure. there are still some questions. that gives us some clues as to where the justices are coming from. there is a really interesting letter that comes from thomas johnson to james wilson. thomas johnson joins the court in 1791 after john religious resigns. he writes to wilson, would you oblige me by having a dress made for me that is agreeable intended for the other judges. it indicates that the other judges have already ordered the robes, johnson needs to get one so he can match whatever one else have on. and this letter at the end he says, i should have rather inclined against it, the wearing of robes. i am not too perverse to be singular in things in themselves in different. he probably himself would've voted against wearing robes. there is some dissent within the early justices whether they should wear these colorful robes. johnson wanted the robe. a wilson rights back to have a couple of months later and says your robe has been made. we know that it was made. what happens, february 1792? the court comes to me in this building. city hall in philadelphia. now called the old city hall, right by independent tall. there is a courtroom inside interpreted as the national park service as the courtroom of the supreme court. this is where the justices first wore a unique set of judicial designed rubs. not academic robes, not anything else. here is a picture of it! [laughs] now, this is actually a drawing day artist made in the 1940s trying to show what the early court might have looked like. the only effort i've seen, it's not great but here it is. we do know there are newspaper articles. one of the correspondents says he is very highly pleased with the appearance of the justices of the supreme court wearing their robes of justice. the elegant, gravity, and minutes of which were a full view of all spectators. we do not know what they were thinking but we do think it was connecting to the legal connection of robes connected to the english courts. they wanted to have dignity and -- almost immediately, people do not like the robes. there is obviously the nascent federalist anti federalists sort of war starting to develop early in the united states in the 1790. here in a newspaper articles written under the pseudonym of russell. i was unable to determine who russell was. they actually address the dresses of the judges. there is a long time to try about how they should wear any of the stuff. it should be simple republican virtues. no robes at all! he actually mentions that he went to the court and he found them to be in scarlet truth with herman. this is probably mistaking that white trim on jay for the four of the herman. or it is intentional slight trying to connect to these english judges. he notes earlier that he saw the black codes which until lately were observed on the seats. that is the one person i was able to find that confirms that before the zeroes came out they were not wearing robes. you have these two different sides of the argument. they are trying to figure out why the judges are wearing these robes. they continue to do so probably through 1793 1794 but then in 1795 there is a letter from john religion. the social judge who resigned, he comes back as chief justice under a temporary commission. he writes to james hired all who he knew from the southern circuit. he writes that he had just gotten into town during philadelphia, he will sit with the court during august of 75. i would be obliged that you could give me a sight of your gown. or if mr. james or mr. bryan rogue is here, can i get it so i can wear tomorrow to wear where to court. something that matches everyone else's. this letter is important to me because he thinks jay, chief justice, and blair is wearing the same robe and they are all interchangeable. it is another clue that all the robes look the same. james rogue is actually back in new york at this point. we know he's using it to paint that portrait of a new york. he keeps it with the james family. possibly blair who had just resigned a few months before, and his role may have been available. we just don't know. that gets us to 1795. we have a period where they are wearing the colorful robes. here comes this portrait. this is a portrait of william patterson. he is wearing the same judicial robe. we think this portrait dates to sometime in 1797. it's hard to day, the artist came in light 1795. that was as early as it could've been painted. he painted almost threw up to the 1800s. somewhere in that time period. unlike stewart, he painted very small portraits. six by eight inches, it was done in two hours. he would hand it to the person who was getting the portrait on right after it was done. the fact the patterson where since roe was it was indicative sitting there having a portrait down. he wouldn't have known about jay's portrait, hanging in the j. family house back in new york. he had to have been in this world. this gives us a sense that the robes may have been worn into this late 1790. again there is not a lot of documentation by this. here are the two rogue signed by side. these are the only two from life portraits we've been able to locate. showing the robes. jay is here, if you were to turn j. to profile i think the robot line up very similarly to this. it looks very wide here, you can't see it on this angle. i think it is basically they are all wearing the same robe. so, what happened to all of the other robes? they all got them, what happened to them? here's what i have been able to determine so far. we know james rogue exist. john relish probably didn't have a role because he left when they first ordered them and then he comes back as chief justice and is looking for one. james wilson, and william cushing, there is nothing about the rooms that anyone has been able to locate. or at least i haven't been able to locate. if anyone out there knows anything about the robes, please contact me john blair we know he paid for a, of the assumption is he had one. thomas johnson we know a rogue was made for him. when patterson -- he has the rope in the portrait. these two robes could be the same robe it's possible the johnson retires or resigns, he just passes it to patterson. it was never used. we don't know it, maybe possible. some of you that our students of the early core you may have noticed i left someone out. this is justice james irondale. irondale was on the court from 1790 to 1799. he died in october of 1799. thanks to ross davies, a professor at george mason university, he gave me a tip that there was a mention of and irondale rural being on exhibit. i found this old kara log of the north carolina exhibition, from 1907. the exhibit actually goes back into the 1890s i think. somewhere in this exhibit was james irondale's robe. i haven't been able to spot in here. the portrait is up here on the wall. but the robe is invisible. the catalog actually says that at this point, the robe had suffered from the terrible times from the time, so it is in bad shape. not to shock anybody, unfortunately this is the state of the irondale robe. this robe is now in the collection of the north carolina museum of history. i think them very much to let me come down a few years ago and taking it out of storage. i don't think it had been out of its box in years because of his condition. related out take a look at it to see what was going on. well you will notice right away is, it's all black! there is no red and white pieces. that shocked me, right? when i first saw this it lead me to what we are doing today. but you will notice is the main body of the rope is completely bomb. i think it's the laughter the weave after get the textile terms, it is completely gone but you see that the sleeves, the inner sleeves of the robe like jay had are pretty intact. the top part here we can see is fairly intact. these are actually the outer sleeves. remember on the jay robert red and white pieces. these are outer pieces where this would be attached to this inner sleeve. you can tell it has a weird sheen to them. i am trying to work with the two museums, the north carolina museum and the smithsonian to get these rogue side by side so they can really be looked at. but you will notice right away is there is very similar attributes. this is the outer sleeve of the j rogue on the right in the irondale sleeve on the left. they have same treatment of the buttons. this is at the top of the sleeve, not on the back of the sleeve like john marshals. but a similar treatment there. this seems to be more decorative, it doesn't have a function that i could tell. there are slight distances. their portage looks a little different. the red colors here. this rogue, the jay rogue has been massively conserved. i'm not sure what's real and what has been conservation pieces added. until they can really be looked up by textural historians and taken apart, we just won't know for sure. there is enough similarities to think there is very closely related in design, if not made at the same time. at least remained one after the other in a short amount of time. the salvage is on the set pieces are matching as far as i can tell. in the john marshall pictures, they have both self, due to. -- that is what they were using for these robes. when i found interesting here is there is this piece of fabric still at the top of the robe. and has this red, peachy red, white color of the faded jay rogue. this i think is a remnant of the stole that was removed from the irondale robe. it was altered to become a black robe sometime between 17 and five and 1799. until further study is done we will not know for sure. that seems to be what happened. whatever changes happen during this time, in 1796 we have two new justices coming to the court. samuel chase, and -- there are no life portraits showing them in robes prior to 1800. this one is a later engraving of ellsworth. they could've been the reason why, just be practical reality. we have two new justices showing up. we don't have these colorful robes. we ordered them from england it's gonna take a year, let's just change to a black robe. that is a potential scenario. it could also be the building animosity of the anti federalists complaining about the rams. they decide to tone it back a little bit, going to a black robe which is a little bit more acceptable. we don't know! we are still trying to figure that question out. just yesterday, literally, after the tweet went out about the webinar professor gerald magnolia, i hope i said your name right, of indiana university sent me an email. i do you know about this letter about justice bush rod washington's rome it's always confuse me because he wore black robe and it is dated from april 1799. washington joined the court of november in the 1798 during the research commission. he must have known, or soon thereafter, that he needed a black robe. it pushes the date in the switch prior to april of 1799. the letter is a -- from a friend of his promising to be ready by 1799. i just discovered this, a promise to publish it. hopefully more things like this will be generated from the top and the article being published. new timeline, no robes worn between 1790 and 1791, colorful robes from 92 to 95, not sure what happens between 96 and 98, and then 1799 and on all black rose were warm. unfortunately john marshall cannot be given for this anymore. one interesting topic that i have not been able to run down, it doesn't appear that they have worn these robes outriding circuit. there are a few anecdotal things that may indicate they did, but so far they have yet to hold up to any scrutiny. i just recently found a letter referencing joseph story returning costumes to the federal circuit court in 1824, that maybe when this happened. that is another area to do some research. what's next? i want to whip through here so we can get some questions in. of course, is there another pre-1799 rogue out there. it would be amazing to fine. we do have a document that references patterson's robe having survived. i have yet to locate it in any place that logically might be. are there more archival records out there? like professor maggie lee opus sent me. hopefully there are, which would help fill in all these gaps. and there is a question of what do we know about the john marshall rogue really? how old is it? is it from 1801 or some other time? i have two suggestions on that. there are two robes that i know of that are closely related. this is the robe of chief justice roger brook tommy. it is at the frederick county historical society in frederick, maryland. it is in remarkable shape. it is almost supple still. this makes me think it is probably from the 1850s, more than the 1830s. he became chief justice in 1836. looking at the design of this rule might lead clues to where marshals robe was made. if you were a chief justice, your robe got taken care of. if you were an associate justice it might not have been. this is another robe that i found. this is the robe of associate justice philip pendleton barber. it is in terrible shape as you can see from the one picture. i think the museum, they got out of the box with this in. they were afraid even touch it, it would literally just fall apart. this rome's construction, if it could be taken out and looked at, might be very close to marshals rogue. he wore in the core in 1836. there is some research potential if you want to research the marshall role morton trying to figure these things out. finally we get to the 1840s with photography. their cornrows become known to everybody. you can actually document the rubs little bit better. we actually acquired a robe we thought with just the stories we're about ten years ago, from a descendant of his. we got it and we really looked at all these images we found out that it probably wasn't. it was an academic robe probably something he wore when he was teaching at harvard. he was a law professor at harvard. unfortunately, but now we know more with these robes look like in how they change overtime. of course that leads to the iconic supreme court photograph of the justices in their robe. you don't know a lot of this is open in the front. it's interesting to discuss the style with the marshall rogue. how he wore it, and how that plays out. of course that brings us to the present a court. this is our most -- just taken a few weeks ago. there are slight distance events meng the different justices. even here with just a plain black robe. chief justice rehnquist put gold stripes on his sleeve for a short period of time. there is no rule is that the justices have to wear robes. that changed in 1799, probably 1798, it led to this being the iconic where we all look at our judges. it has spread through all the courting that states and in some places, throughout the world. witness objects is a totally great way to think of the robe. the portrait of chester harding is amazing. it is a document of what we think the courtroom look like in 1830. he was working on this massive group portrait, it never happened. we have another one of those witness objects, this chair is in the court collection. that chair is right here in the portrait. we've got one to go with your witness object. these are important ways -- there are not a lot of things that federal judges make that make paper. they don't make laws, they interpret and make decisions. these objects are few and far between. we really appreciate the preservationist taking the time to save this really remarkable judicial artifact. in the end, john marshall the great chief justice, he will always be the great to justice whether he is interim or not interim. these are the two images of martial from the supreme court building that i thought would be fun. thank you for listening. you can reach the curators office and me through a portal on our website. i just put the link up, if anyone has any question on these rooms i would appreciate it. it's a great pleasure to be here today. hopefully you enjoyed listening. i think we have time for a couple of questions. hopefully we will. go along, i have to tell my screen, right? here you! >> thank you, we learned so much just now. >> i hope i didn't go too fast. >> no, it was wonderful. your research was invaluable and we put together this exhibit. i don't think i mentioned that earlier but if it wasn't for you i don't think our current exhibit would be halfway could have been. thank you for that! so, we do have a couple of questions. i will just start from the beginning. we did have a question for leah about history on the road at the exhibition. where was it displayed? why was it displayed there? any information you have on that. i did not want to go too deep into it because i was learning at the same time but the exhibit took place in richmond proper. i do not know where in richmond. there was a main central structure, i imagine there was a subset structure of that. the objects assembled for this were actually quite amazing. and it be representative of the classic founding fathers. patrick henry's letter, someone so snuff box. it was really very much a relic focus. i find it really fascinating, especially in a post civil war contacts. relics became really mainstream. the idea of collecting these things became very important. you see these massive world fairs and exposition start happening all across the globe. there is an interest in collecting, categorizing, figuring out what's important! what do we need to save? telling that from this early day, least hardy sisters who self the mitten, i think this is something worthy of displaying. they would probably put it on display. i imagine they had the impetus to do the. it is not a great answer for your question, but i would definitely advise going down that rabbit hole. >> thanks. all right, another question, there was a letter, matthew, that he put out. stating that the robe would cost $53. any idea how much money that would have been today, or what the equivalent would've been at the time? >> i have not had a chance to sort of figure that out. it seems to me to be a lot of money for one rogue. at the end of this letter it says to settle this account. it could've been other things that jay was charging with the merchant. the merchant who wrote the receipt was named john shields. he is a merchant in philadelphia at the time. i have not taken the time to figure out how much that was. i think the justices were making not that much money in those days. their salaries were 500 or $1,000 a year i believe. i think it's a pretty substantial sum. it did seem a bit odd to me. >> am i right in thinking that the justices paid for and continue to pay for their own roams? >> yes, the justices supply their own rose. i've heard this story, i have yet to include in anything because i'm not documented it. they requested from the government to have the robe pay for in the government denied that request. i read that somewhere one of those sketchy stories. i am hoping to one day track it down. i was not able to before all this happened. there were a couple of points made about the whigs, and how the english court they kept the room but not the way things do you have any thoughts on that? >> i do know that there is one story i have been trying to focus on robes but the william cushing's story is usually the one that is told. cushing is a massachusetts job, he wore a wig. he continued to wear other wigs. they were starting to go out of style in the early 17 90s when the court was sitting anyway. there's a story he wore the whip the first day the court was coming together in new york city. people started following him and laughing at him as he walked down the street. he didn't stand why this was happening. someone said, it's rid of course! he was so embarrassed he took it off. that's the only story, i traced back to the 1830s. that has some validity that it could've been told a generation before. someone who actually knew william cushing. i think the whigs we are so horrible. and the quote about jefferson with the rats hearing out of the outcome is cell on poor. i cannot find anything earlier than 1896 when this guy wrote this article. his name was lucas proctor. he manufacture this amazing story between jefferson, hamilton, and aaron burr of course! you know, they are in hamilton! of course that's who they would use. even then he says they are sending letters back and forth, they're having this dialogue -- there is just no evidence of any of it! i think it's made up. [laughs] >> going along those lines, there is also a question about do you think that the movement to the black robe had to do with party transitions? >> party transitions? political parties? >> from a federal court two -- ? >> right, at this point i don't think that is the case. if we move this day forward to 1798 or 1799, there is a lot of growing tension but the federalist are still mostly in charge. i'll ellsworth comes in as chief justice, he is a federalist. one of the senators who is drafting the judiciary act things like that chases a staunch federalist! he gets in trouble for being so pro federalist that they try to impeach him later. i think the change may have something to do with it but my gut instinct is it is a practical decision, based on where we're going to get these rogue from? doing something that is more simply available and can be made quickly. i think you noted in howard's lecture that i listen to that the john marshall robe is even kind of sloppily put together. the construction isn't really very good. it implies it was probably made in the united states and not a professional robe maker in england. there is probably some level of, hey, we should probably think about getting rid of these colorful robes. some justices did not like it. the letter of john roberts indicated. and the membership changed i think there was a turn to get rid of the robes. i think that wilson had something to do with all of it. when he dies in 1798, i'm guessing there's not enough votes in the conference as we call it today to keep wearing the robes. they made the switch. >> one last question, where do the modern justices get their robes from? >> where did they get them from? there are a couple of companies that sell judge robes to everybody. they can get them to -- there are some people who actually get them overseas. their eyes nice rulemaking still done in england and france. i did not know what the current justices are wearing but i know that some of the prior justices had robes justice ginsburg had a rogue from france. you know, thinking get them from a variety of sources, it is not that hard to find a judicial rogue these days. that is good to know. >> in case you need one. >> that is about the end of our time. matthew, thank you so much for joining us in this webinar. this was an absolute pleasure. for all of you who do not have the opportunity to go out to d.c., i do not know -- i do not know when you guys are going to let people back in. >> no word yet. one day soon. >> any details you wanted to talk about for the article. maybe where we can find it? >> it's in the next issue of the supreme court journal history. it is put up by the supreme court historical society. i believe it is published online already. the paper copies are being printed and will be sent out as soon. the historical society has this website. it is separate and the court itself. you can check out the website to to look into that. >> the u.s. supreme court historical society. >> yes that is their official name. >> okay, it is an amir amazing article. i hope everyone has a chance to see it. leah, matthew, thank you so much for joining us. have a great day. goodbye.