Eugene C. Gerhart: Jackson Biographer
Eugene C. Gerhart |
Eugene C. Gerhart is the author of the only book-length biography covering Justice Jackson’s personal and professional life. Like Justice Jackson, Mr. Gerhart practiced as a lawyer in upstate New York. He has also been a prolific writer and editor on legal subjects.
He began following the career of Robert H. Jackson as early as 1941, when Jackson was made a Justice of the Supreme Court. He heard Jackson speak five years later and was captivated by Justice Jackson’s personality.
He began collecting materials for a biography of Jackson and obtained Jackson’s consent for the project. At intervals during the last seven years of Jackson’s life he went down to Washington for interviews lasting a day or two at a time. With the Justice’s permission, he kept stenographic transcripts of them. On certain subjects, Jackson prepared special memoranda for him, on which he has drawn usefully. This preparation lead to Mr. Gerhart’s first book on Jackson - American's Advocate: Robert H. Jackson – published in 1958.
His second book on Jackson - Robert H. Jackson, Lawyer's Judge – published in 1961, provided more detail on opinions that Justice Jackson participated in while serving as a United States Supreme Court Justice.
Mr. Gerhart graduated from Princeton University in 1934 and Harvard Law School in 1937. He practiced law in New Jersey before serving with the United States Navy during World War II. He settled his family in Binghamton, New York in 1946, where he continues to reside today. He was admitted to the New York Bar in 1938, and is now of counsel with the law firm of Coughlin & Gerhart.
He has written and edited several books and articles on legal subjects in various publications.
Of Jackson, Mr. Gerhart says: “Not only was he a great American advocate fighting internally for the kind of America we can be proud of, but he also acted in a world setting to fight for world law.”
Jackson Center Mourns Death of Eugene C. Gerhart
The Jackson Center mourns the October 27, 2007, death of attorney, author, friend and benefactor Eugene C. Gerhart, age 95. Gerhart was a friend of Justice Jackson and author of two books on his life and work. Click here to read Professor John Q. Barrett's Jackson List post, "Eugene C. Gerhart (1912-2007), Jackson Biographer." Click here for the notice published in the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin. For a slideshow of images from Gene Gerhart's visits to the Jackson Center and Jackson sites, click here.