On the Doors of the U.S. Supreme Court, Part I Artwork

90 Second Narratives

90 Second Narratives is a podcast featuring engaging true stories told by trained historians. Each episode includes a short story interwoven with expert analysis of the story’s historical significance. The concise length and storytelling format of the episodes make history accessible, dynamic, and entertaining. The subjects of the stories are diverse—spanning the globe and ranging from the pre-historic to the modern age. While individual stories stand alone, the episodes in each season are linked thematically and combine to offer comparative perspectives that illuminate connections from across the human experience. Every episode also includes recommendations for further reading. 90 Second Narratives provides a novel way to hear historians share the wonders of the past in their own voices.

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On the Doors of the U.S. Supreme Court, Part I

October 26, 2021 • Sky Michael Johnston • Season 9 • Episode 6

“During a recent visit to Washington D.C. with my family, we visited the United States’ Supreme Court Building. It was a quiet Monday afternoon without a cloud in the sky…”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Sky Michael Johnston.

For further reading:
“The Bronze Doors” Information Sheet

90 Second Narratives
Season 9: “Friendship”
Episode 6: “On the Doors of the U.S. Supreme Court, Part I”

Sky Michael Johnston:

Welcome to 90 Second Narratives, the podcast that brings you “little stories with BIG historical significance.” I’m the host and creator of the podcast, Sky Michael Johnston. Today, I am sharing the beginning of a two-part story about a friendship that is memorialized on the United States’ Supreme Court Building. The friendship, was that of U.S. Supreme Court justices John Marshall and Joseph Story. Today, I start with a little context about the building and their place on it. Here is my story, “On the Doors of the U.S. Supreme Court, Part I.”

* * *

During a recent visit to Washington D.C. with my family, we visited the United States’ Supreme Court Building. It was a quiet Monday afternoon without a cloud in the sky and only an occasional fellow tourist passing by. As the setting sun made its way towards the Capitol Rotunda behind us, the white marble of the Supreme Court Building was so bright we had to squint.

The building, completed in 1935, was obviously intended to inspire awe of the court that it houses. Above a mountainous stairway, sixteen towering Corinthian columns in two rows of eight support an ornate entablature prominently displaying the phrase: EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW.

Behind the columns you can find two doors that look much larger when you are standing in front of them than they do in pictures with only the massive columns for scale. In fact, the doors are seventeen feet tall and nine-and-a-half feet wide. Made of bronze, they weigh around 13 tons.

Each door comprises four square bas-reliefs stacked upon each other. Within each of the eight squares are scenes featuring two figures representing important developments in the history of law in the Western tradition.

The doors were designed by Cass Gilbert, the architect of the Supreme Court Building and John Donnelly, Sr. Donnelly and his son, John Donnelly, Jr. were a father-son team in which Donnelly, Jr. served as the sculptor.

The eight scenes on the door situate America within a linear narrative of the Western world—a narrative that runs from Ancient Greece to Washington D.C. itself. The Neoclassical style of numerous buildings in Washington, including the Supreme Court Building, vividly portray this imagining of history. The door tells this story quite explicitly. The first scene features an episode from Homer’s Illiad, the second, third, and fourth scenes move chronologically through the Roman Empire. Of the four scenes on the second door three scenes depict episodes from English history: the Magna Carta and the Westminster Statute of the thirteenth century and Sir Edward Coke barring King James I from the high court—separating the executive and judicial branches of English government in early seventeenth century.

The eighth, and culminating, scene on the doors shows early nineteenth-century U.S. Supreme Court Justices John Marshall and Joseph Story.

* * *

In Part II of this story, I’ll discuss the friendship between Marshall and Story and the event that the doors of the U.S. Supreme Court Building place at the apex of legal history in the Western tradition.

Click on the episode description for a link to a picture of the U.S. Supreme Court doors and some additional information about them.

And please come back next Monday for Part II of the story about the friendship depicted at the entrance to the U.S. Supreme Court.