37. Charles Evans Hughes

Gorham Archives, Hay Memorial Library, Brown University, Providence, RI

Date	1916
Material	Bronze, walnut for casting
Dimensions	9 ¾ x 6 ½ in. (24.8 x 16.5 cm)
Description	Bas relief portrait of United States Supreme Court Justice, made for Balfour Company. Cast by Gorham Co. Bronze Division in 1916 from original in walnut.
Markings	Inscription: Made for Balfour Company. The Gorham Company, Founders; Signed: CP, Sc
Provenance / Location	Location unknown.
Alternate Title(s)	n/a
Notes / Sources	Known from image in Papers, SC; listing, 1916, Gorham Archives, Hay Memorial Library, Brown University, Providence, RI; Members of the Utopian Club of Providence, R.I., had an exhibition of metalwork at Tilden-Thurber Corp. Petersen exhibited a set of plaques and medals including figures of Abraham Lincoln and Charles E. Hughes. (Known from the Jewelers’ Circular Weekly, March 28, 1917, p. 69).

Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948) was an American politician, statesman, and jurist. The son of Baptist minister David Charles and Mary Cahterine Connelly, the hyperlexic Hughes graduated from high school at 13, received his undergraduate degree from Brown University, and earned a law degree from Columbia University before passing the bar exam at the age of 22 (with the highest score ever awarded in the state of New York).

While practicing law at a private firm in New York City, Hughes became involved in Republican reform politics. In 1906, he defeated William Randolph Hearst for the governorship of New York and in 1910 President William Howard Taft appointed Hughes as an Associate Justice to the Supreme Court of the United States. When Christian Petersen created this bas-relief in 1916, Hughes had resigned his seat on the Court to challenge incumbent Woodrow Wilson for the Presidency, an election Hughes nearly won.

Following this defeat, Hughes returned to private practice until Warren G. Harding appointed him as Secretary of State in 1920. Hughes continued to serve as Secretary through the Coolidge administration. In 1930, Herbert Hoover nominated Hughes for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (succeeding former President Taft), a position he held until retiring in 1941. Hughes died in Osterville, Massachusetts in 1948.