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Wives, Children … Husbands: Supporting Roles
Author(s) -
CUSHMAN CLARE
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of supreme court history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1540-5818
pISSN - 1059-4329
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-5818.2011.01274.x
Subject(s) - wife , supreme court , salary , law , sociology , psychology , political science
In 1965, Hugo L. Black asked his wife, Elizabeth, to host a dinner party. The purpose: to help him persuade Carolyn Agger, wife of Washington attorney Abe Fortas, to allow her husband to accept President Lyndon B. Johnson's offer of a seat on the Supreme Court. A tax lawyer at the same firm as Fortas, Agger was displeased that the move would mean a big cut in his salary; she thought he should spend a few more years in his lucrative private practice before becoming a judge. After all, he was only fifty‐five. Elizabeth Black described the tense occasion in a diary entry: