The Story of My Life

In 1894, disturbed by the blatant collusion between the courts and industry against labor during the Pullman Strike, Clarence S. Darrow (1857-1938) resigned from his lucrative job as chief counsel for the Chicago and North Western Railway to defend, without fee, Eugene V. Debs, president of the nascent American Railway Union. His bold action - the first of many - marked the beginning of one of the most extraordinary and influential legal careers in American history. In The Story of My Life he recounts, and reflects on, his more than fifty years as a corporate, labor, and criminal lawyer, including the most celebrated and notorious cases of his day: establishing the legal right of a union to strike in the Woodworkers' Conspiracy Case; exposing, on behalf of the United Mine Workers, the shocking conditions in the mines - and the widespread use of child labor; defending Leopold and Loeb for the Chicago "thrill" murder; defending a teacher's right to present the Darwinian theory of evolution in the famous "monkey" trial; fighting racial hatred in the Sweet anti-Negro and Scottsboro cases; and much more. Written in his disarming, conversational style, and full of refreshingly relevant views on capital punishment, civil liberties, and the judicial system, Darrow's autobiography is a fitting final summation of a remarkable life.

In 1894 Clarence S. Darrow (1857–1938) resigned from his lucrative job as chief counsel for the Chicago and North Western Railway to defend, without fee, Eugene V. Debs, president of the nascent American Railway Union. This bold action—the first of many—marked the beginning of one of the most extraordinary and influential legal careers in American history.