1862-1948
Lawyer, Reformer, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

New York Lawyer.

Charles Evans Hughes was the son of a minister from Glens Falls, New York. After graduating from Brown University he received a law degree from Columbia in 1884, and for the next twenty-two years practiced law in New York City, except for two years (1891-1893) spent as a law professor at Cornell University. Even when he practiced law, though, Hughes also taught, either the law or the Bible. To prepare themselves for the bar exam many young New York City law school graduates attended the evening drill sessions Hughes conducted at Columbia; and at both Cornell and the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church he offered a Sunday class on the Old Testament prophets. (When Hughes's workload overwhelmed him he turned the class over to John D. Rockefeller Jr.) As president of the Baptist Social Union...