17 Facts About Zechariah Chafee

Zechariah Chafee was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and graduated from Brown University, where he was a member of Alpha Delta Phi, in 1907.

Zechariah Chafee was influenced by the theories of sociological Jurisprudence presented by Roscoe Pound and others at Harvard.

Zechariah Chafee met Harold J Laski, a political scientist and the later Chairman of the British Labour Party, who became a lifelong friend.

Zechariah Chafee joined Harvard Law School as an assistant professor at Harvard Law School in 1916, and was promoted to full professor in 1919.

Zechariah Chafee was appointed Langdell Professor of Law in 1938 and university professor in 1950.

Zechariah Chafee was an authority on equity, interpleader, negotiable instruments, and unfair business competition.

Zechariah Chafee became an expert on congressional apportionment and helped apportion seats in the United States House of Representatives based on the 1930,1940 and 1950 censuses.

Zechariah Chafee defended himself eloquently before a special committee in the Harvard Club of Boston and was allowed to remain at the law school.

From 1929 to 1931, Zechariah Chafee was a consultant to the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement for which he co-authored a report on lawlessness in law enforcement in 1931.

Zechariah Chafee received the following honorary degrees: Doctor of Law from St John's University, in 1936, Brown University in 1937, and the University of Chicago in 1953; Doctor of Civil Law from Boston University in 1941; and Doctor of Letters from Colby College in 1944.

Zechariah Chafee revised and reissued this work in 1941 as Free Speech in the United States, which became a leading treatise on First Amendment law.

Zechariah Chafee's scholarship on civil liberties was a major influence on Oliver Wendell Holmes's and Louis Brandeis's post-World War I jurisprudence, which first established the First Amendment as a significant source of civil liberties.

Zechariah Chafee was, from 1943 from 1947, vice-chairman of the Commission on the Freedom of the Press.

Zechariah Chafee became an advocate for international human rights through his work as a representative on the United Nations Subcommission on Freedom of Information and the Press in 1947 through 1951.

Zechariah Chafee was a United States delegate to the 1948 United Nations Conference on Freedom of Information and the Press.

Zechariah Chafee was the scion of a notable Rhode Island family that traced its Rhode Island lineage back to Roger Williams.

Zechariah Chafee died in Boston, Massachusetts, on February 8,1957, after suffering a heart attack a few days earlier.