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Mission
Michigan's role as America's industrial heartland
has assured that the United States District Court for the
Eastern District of Michigan would be the crucible in which
important legal principles would be tested and applied. The
need to understand that history of the law and its application
in the industrial heartland has led to the formation of the
Historical Society for the Eastern District of Michigan.
As judges, lawyers and other citizens worked
to apply and adapt the Constitution and the laws to the industrialization
and urbanization of the United States, they gave fresh meaning
to the principles on which the American Republic was founded.
The emergence of lumbering and railroading followed by the
production of railroad cars and engines and then the manufacture
of automobiles tested the relevance of the law to the new
industrial age.
Located on four of the Great Lakes and the
Detroit, St. Clair and St. Mary's Rivers, Michigan also developed
as a major shipping center resulting in key admiralty decisions
by the Court. With the rise of the trade union movement, the
Eastern District played a vital role in the evolution of law
governing the right of workers to organize themselves into
unions. In the turbulent decade of the 1960s the Eastern District's
docket became an especially important focal point for the
effort to protect the civil rights and civil liberties of
Americans.
Today, the Eastern District of Michigan is
one of the largest federal courts in the country. While anticipating
the twenty-first century, the Court, through the Historical
Society, also seeks to nurture an awareness of its past.
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