Exhibition Themes > Law > 186. Dwight's retirement folio
186. Dwight's retirement folio. Manuscript folio. New York, Dempsey & Carroll, 1891. Arthur W. Diamond Law Library, Special Collections
This hand-colored memento was presented to Theodore W. Dwight (1822-1892) upon his retirement as the first Dean of Columbia College School of Law. In 1858, Dwight had been called from the Law Department of Hamilton College in Clinton, New York by the Law Committee of Columbia's trustees to organize a department of law and jurisprudence at Columbia. As Professor of Municipal Law, Dwight directed the instruction and oversaw the expansion of the school for 33 years. At the School's first commencement in 1860, twenty-seven men were graduated. When Dwight retired in 1891, the graduating class had grown to 230 members. Students of the classes of 1891 and 1892 commissioned this book of remembrance, richly illustrated with colored vignettes and borders. Members of these classes, including Benjamin N. Cardozo, signed the folio, which shows the Law School building, then located at Madison Avenue and 49th Street.
George Welwood Murray Fund, 2001
