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This digital collection is the result of a partnership between Gale and the Harvard and Yale law libraries — two of the foremost repositories in the world. In addition, it includes outstanding trials from the Library of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

The Harvard, Yale and Association of the Bar libraries have long collected not only published trial transcripts, but also popular printed accounts of sensational trials for murder, adultery and scandalous crimes. Thos online collection will grant researchers access to unofficially published accounts of trials, as well as briefs, arguments and other trial documents where these were reprinted or issued as separate publications.

Students of legal history, social history, economic history and literary history as well as students of government, psychology, critical theory, theater and performance, gender studies, race studies and journalism will find this collection. Topics covered include:

• Adultery
• Commercial law
• Conspiracy
• Constitutional Law
• Crimes against persons
• Domestic relations
• Duels
• Elections
• Impeachment
• International Law
• Land
• Libel
• Military offenses
• Murder
• Slavery
• Theft
• Torts
• Treason
• Wills

Famous subjects in British history include:

• Charles I
• Henry Sacheverell
• Warren Hastings
• Queen Caroline
• Daniel O’Connell
• Oscar Wilde

Famous subjects in American history include:

• John Andre
• Aaron Burr
• John Brown
• Andrew Johnson
• Lizzie Borden
• Sacco and Vanzetti
• John Scopes
• Dred Scott

Famous subjects in French history include:

• Joan of Arc
• Martin Guerre
• Caron de Beaumarchais
• Francois Babeuf
• Alfred Dreyfus

Relive celebrated U.S. trials, including:

• Court-martial of Major General Benedict Arnold
• Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
• United Mine Workers of America vs. the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company
• Sacco and Vanzetti murder case

Discover details of historic British trials, such as:

• Condemnation of priests for high treason in 1679
• Trial of Rev. J. Smith for assisting in a slave rebellion
• Brutal bean-hook murder of Ann Pullin by George King

Learn the sordid details of famous love trials:

• The Cuckold’s Chronicle, with trials for adultery, incest and imbecility
• Trial of Richard Vining Perry for abducting an heiress
• Confessions of Dr. Pritchard to the murder of his wife

When creating The Making of Modern Law: Trials, 1600-1926, key scholars were consulted to define bibliographic scope; suggest organizational structure; and recommend sourcing institutions. Gale’s proprietary imaging technology and process optimized documents for both machine and human readability. On-screen magnification increases document legibility of even damaged originals.

Gale’s award-winning digital archive platform allows for advanced search delimiters, flexible document navigation, exportable search records, MARC lists and citations. Industry-leading optical character recognition results, hit-term highlighting and specialty metadata and indexing yield highly relevant search results.