HARLAN, Malvina Shanklin 1838-1916

PERSONAL:

Born 1838, in Evansville, Indiana; died 1916, in Washington, DC; married John Marshall Harlan (a U.S. Supreme Court justice); children: six. Religion: Presbyterian.

CAREER:

Writer.

WRITINGS:

Some Memories of a Long Life, 1854-1911, foreword by Ruth Bader Ginsberg, notes by Linda Przybyszewski, Modern Library (New York, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS:

Malvina Shanklin Harlan wrote the memoirs of her life with her husband, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan, in 1915, but the manuscript sat, unpublished, in a Library of Congress collection for more than eight decades. Its ultimate publication stems from a decision by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to present a talk on supreme court justices' wives for a lecture. Her request for background material turned up the typewritten manuscript by Harlan. Ginsburg approached publishers with the idea of printing the memoir, but she met with the same resistance the author's children did when they first attempted to get it published shortly after their mother's death in 1916. Nonetheless, the Journal of Supreme Court History devoted an entire issue to the memoir. Linda Przbyszewski, who knew of the manuscript because of the research she did for her book The Republic according to John Marshall Harlan, was hired to edit the issue. A follow-up article appeared in the New York Times, and this spawned renewed interest in the manuscript, which was finally published in book form in 2001, eighty-six years after Harlan wrote it.

The memoir begins when fifteen-year-old Harlan catches her first glimpse of her future husband, then twenty years old, in a doctor's office. Three years later, they are married, and Harlan finds herself transported from a Northern, liberal household that holds strong antislavery views, to Kentucky, where the Harlan estate is maintained by slaves. Nevertheless, as befitting the times, she supports her husband in everything he does and follows her mother's advice: "Remember now, that his home is YOUR home; his people, YOUR people; his interests, YOUR interests—you must have no other."

From this point, the memoir progresses, providing a close look at a Kentucky slave-owning household; her husband's career as he forges his way as a lawyer, soldier, politician, and, ultimately, a U.S. supreme court justice; and an insider's view of the nation's capital in the late 1800s and early 1900s, including its political and social elite. As for Justice Harlan, although his family had long had slaves, and he himself was conflicted about his views regarding blacks, he became a staunch supporter of civil rights. Harlan is, in fact, best known for his lone dissenting opinion in Plessy vs Ferguson, which gave legal approval to the "separate but equal" approach to civil rights after the abolition of slavery.

Many reviewers noted that Harlan's memoirs are tainted by her unquestioning support of her husband, particularly during the early days of their marriage, when they lived on the Harlan family's Kentucky farm alongside slaves. Gillian Gill, in a Christian Science Monitor review, wrote that, "While acknowledging the injustice and cruelty of slavery, Malvina insists that her in-laws were enlightened masters, that their slaves were happy and considered themselves members of the family." Gill also remarked that Harlan "writes mainly of what she can praise" and "moves briskly over experiences that must have been hard." Despite these criticisms, however, Gill stated that Harlan's memoir contains "charming" details of her social life, and that these remembrances "mask a complicated soul." In the New Yorker, Dana Goodyear noted that many modern autobiographies tend to be "self-indulgent," adding that "it is bracing to read about a life of actual historical interest." A reviewer in Kirkus Reviews, meanwhile, noted that in regard to Harlan's portrayal of her husband, "Malvina's ear for irony, albeit gentle, provides gems on the private man." The reviewer added that the memoir provides "a valuable personal look at a key figure in American judicial history."

In the University of Cincinnati News, Marianne Kunnen-Jones raised the question, "Why should anyone care what Mrs. Harlan has to say?" According to Justice Ginsburg, Harlan's memoirs provide readers with rare, primary source material about nineteenth-century American women's lives, as well as information on an early civil rights supporter and his complex views regarding blacks. "The idea that she (Malvina) would have nothing to tell us other than a few anecdotes is ridiculous," Przybyszewski was quoted as saying in the article. "She has a lot to tell us."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Harlan, Malvina Shanklin, Some Memories of a Long Life, 1854-1911, Modern Library (New York, NY), 2002.

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2002, review of Some Memories of a Long Life, 1854-1911, p. 309.

New York Times, August 5, 2001, "A Justice Champions a Witness to History," p. 1; August 12, 2001, "A 19th-Century American with a Keen Eye and a Good View," p. WK7.

New Yorker, February 11, 2002, Dana Goodyear, review of Some Memories of a Long Life, 1854-1911, p. 17.

Publishers Weekly, February 11, 2002, review of Some Memories of a Long Life, 1854-1911, p. 169.

Wall Street Journal, May 28, 2002, Thomas Mallon, review of Some Memories of a Long Life, 1854-1911, p. D7.

ONLINE

Christian Science Monitor Online,http://www.csmonitor.com/ (May 9, 2002), Gillian Gill, review of Some Memories of a Long Life, 1854-1911.

University of Cincinnati News Online,http://www.uc.edu/news/ (April 18, 2002), Marianne Kunnen-Jones, "Historian, Court Justice Give Voice to Wife's Memoir."*