Journal Article

The Switch to Black: Revisiting Early Supreme Court Robes

Hofstedt, Matthew

2021

Overview

“Did they really wear robes like that?” is usually the first question a visitor to the Supreme Court Building asks when gazing upon the portrait of Chief Justice John Jay in an elaborate robe, black overflowing with red sleeves and stole trimmed with white. Despite its appeal, there is little documentation to support this claim, and as will be explored, what evidence there is suggests the change occurred before Marshall became chief justice.2 What follows is an attempt to sort the facts from the fiction to come to a better understanding of the Court’s early judicial attire. A period newspaper reported, The special occasion of the exhibition of this historic robe to the court now is to settle a much-controverted point as to whether the members of the court ever did wear a black robe with pink facing, as exhibited in the portrait which was suspended upon the walls of the robing chamber. The exhibition of the actual robe worn by Chief Justice Jay when he sat upon the bench settles this question to the satisfaction of the entire court.19 In an apparently unanimous decision, the Waite Court justices deemed the robe to be the one worn by Jay “on the Bench” and discounted the story of its being borrowed from Livingston.

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Subject: 19th century / Black people / Engraving / Fairs & exhibitions / Fiction / Judges & magistrates / Supreme courts