The Annotated Bobblehead Justice David J. Brewer

Click the red boxes to view the annotations.

David J. Brewer, 1890-1910

David Brewer studied law under his uncle David Field, a distinguished lawyer who wrote The Field Code, reforming procedure in U.S. federal courts. Brewer eventually opened a law office in Kansas in 1859. He served as a Kansas Supreme Court Justice and a judge for the Eighth Judicial Circuit, before becoming an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Some of Brewer's decisions on the Kansas Supreme Court indicated an interest in improving the legal status of women. One ruling gave women the right to serve as county superintendents of public instruction, despite the fact that women could not vote. In another, he defined a woman's interest in the family homestead, and clarified a woman's right to money she had prior to marriage and money she earned while married. Brewer's bobblehead position at a washtub represents his opinion in Muller v. Oregon,, which upheld an Oregon law that limited how many hours women could work.

Due to the death of his daughter, Brewer did not have any role in the consideration or decision of Plessy v. Ferguson, which established the "separate but equal" doctrine.