FRANKFURTER, FELIX
Felix Frankfurter served as a government attorney in the early nineteenth century and then taught law at Harvard Law School. In the 1920s
and 1930s, he supported a number of liberal
causes, including President FRANKLIN D. ROO-
SEVELT’s NEW DEAL. In 1939, he was appointed
to the U.S. Supreme Court as an associate jus-
tice. Throughout his twenty-three years on the
Court, he was known for consistently applying
the theory of judicial self-restraint.
Frankfurter was born November 15, 1882, in
Vienna. At the age of twelve, he emigrated from
Vienna to the United States with his parents and
four siblings. The Frankfurters, like many other
Jews in Vienna, had lived in Leopoldstadt, the
center of the Jewish Ghetto, where they faced an
undercurrent of hostility and a future of eco-
nomic uncertainty. Along with 18 million other
Europeans who immigrated to the United States
between 1890 and 1920, the family sought a
fresh start.
Upon his arrival in the Lower East Side of
Manhattan in 1894, Frankfurter could not speak
a word of English. Yet, twelve years later, after
earning his undergraduate degree from City
College, in New York, Frankfurter graduated
first in his class from Harvard Law School. Fol-
lowing a short stint with a private law firm on
Wall Street, where he represented corporate
interests, Frankfurter was appointed to serve for
the next four years as assistant U.S. attorney in
the Southern District of New York, prosecuting
white-collar criminals. In 1911, he was named
solicitor to the federal Bureau of Insular Affairs.
Frankfurter enjoyed working as an attorney
for the government much more than representing
corporations in private practice. He stressed that
“the American lawyer should regard himself as a
potential officer of his government and a defender
of its laws and Constitution.”He predicted that “if
the time should ever come when this tradition
ha[s] faded out and the members of the bar . . .
become merely the servants of business, the future
of our liberties would be gloomy indeed.”
In 1914, Frankfurter returned to his alma
mater Harvard Law School, as professor of law.
Frankfurter’s tenure as professor was marked by
his intellectual honesty and rigor. Teaching only
students of high academic standing, he tirelessly
explored the law’s complexities and reveled in its
nuances, helping his classes see both the gray
areas and the bright lines. He also took a per-
sonal interest in his students, helping many of
them obtain a clerkship with one of the United
States’ leading judges, including OLIVER WEN-
