It's the first Monday in October, which is the traditional starting date for a new session of the Supreme Court of the United States.

The Constitution creates a Supreme Court, but is vague about the details. The Judiciary Act of 1789 addressed the specifics, creating the federal court system—a series of district courts, with larger circuit courts above them, and the Supreme Court at the top. The Supreme Court Justices were originally expected to "ride circuit," to travel throughout their assigned region of the country and hear circuit court cases in the larger cities; it wasn't until after the Civil War that circuit court judges were appointed to do that work, and the Justices could devote all of their professional time to the Supreme Court.

The Justices first met in 1790, but purely for organizational purposes; no cases had yet had time to make their up through the lower courts. The Court issued its first rulings in 1791.

The Court had relatively little prestige in its early years. It wasn't until the early 19th century, under Chief Justice John Marshall, that the Court began to assert its own importance. In the 1803 case Marbury v. Madison, the Court declared that it had the right to declare acts of Congress to be unconstitutional and that it was the ultimate arbiter on Constitutional law. Joel Richard Paul's biography of Marshall, Without Precedent (e-book | e-audio | print), looks at how Marshall shaped the role and the importance of the Court.

The size of the Supreme Court is not defined in the Consitution, and in the Court's early years, it was often changed. The Judiciary Act created the Court with six Justices, and the number climbed as high as ten before it was lowered to nine in 1869, where it has stayed ever since.

President Franklin Roosevelt attempted to expand the Court in 1937, suggesting that it should grow to as many of fifteen members by appointing a new Justice for each current Justice who didn't retire at the age of 70. Roosevelt's stated reason was to reduce the workload on the Court's oldest members, but it was generally understood that he was attempting to pack the Court with justices who would be more sympathetic to his New Deal programs, several of which had been declared unconstitutional by the Court. Roosevelt's plan failed in Congress; he considered trying again but abandoned the idea when the Court began ruling in favor of his programs. In Supreme Power (e-book | e-audio | print), Jeff Shesol tells the story of Roosevelt's court-packing plan.

Traditionally, the inner workings of the Supreme Court have been a mystery, but in recent decades, some journalists have managed to report on what goes on by interviewing former Justices and law clerks. The 1979 book The Brethren (e-book | print), by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, was one of the first behind-the-scenes looks, reporting on the Court of the early 1970s under Chief Justice Warrne Burger. Almost thirty years later, Jeffrey Toobin provided a similar look in The Nine (e-book | e-audio | print | audio).

While Justices are rarely as frank when they're on the record, some recent Justices have written memoirs about their years on the court. John Paul Stevens writes about the Five Chiefs (e-book | print | audio) under whom he served; Antonin Scalia offers his forceful opinions in Scalia Speaks (e-book | e-audio | print); and Sandra Day O'Connor combines memoir with anecdotes from the Court's history in Out of Order (e-book | e-audio | print | audio). For a look from a slightly less exalted level, In Chambers (e-book) collects essays about serving as a law clerk for the Court.

Jeffrey Rosen's The Supreme Court (e-audio | print | audio) is a history of the Court, built around the major rivalries that have shaped its direction. Peter Irons presents a Great Courses class on The History of the Supreme Court (e-audio | audio | DVD).

Also This Week

October 3, 1908

Johnny Burke was born. From the 1930s through the 1950s, Burke was a prolific and popular lyricist. Most of his best-known songs were written with composer Jimmy Van Heusen, including "Swinging on a Star," "Imagination," and "Moonlight Becomes You." He also wrote the lyrics for "Misty," which had originally been an instrumental piece by pianist Erroll Garner. More than 40 songs are featured on Burke's installment in the Great Lyricists series.

October 6, 1917

Fannie Lou Hamer was born. Hamer was a civil rights activist and a founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, founded in 1964 to protest the whites-only policy of the Mississippi Democratic Party. Hamer led an MFDP delegation to the 1964 Democratic National Convention, demanding to be seated as the state's official delegation. Hamer refused an offer of two non-voting seats for the MFDP, saying "we didn't come all this way for no two seats when all of us is tired." Earnest N. Bracey's Fannie Lou Hamer (e-book) is a thorough biography.

October 4, 1927

Work began on the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, a giant carving of the heads of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt in South Dakota. The project was conceived by South Dakota's state historian, Doane Robinson, as a way to increase tourism. The sculpture was designed by Gutzon Borglum, who led a team of more than 400 workers. The heads took fourteen years to carve, and Borglum died a few months before they were completed. The American Experience documentary series includes a film about Mount Rushmore.

October 2, 1929

Tanaquil Le Clercq was born. The dancer was an early muse of choreographer George Balanchine. She began dancing with Balanchine at the age of 15, at a polio charity benefit; he danced as the personification of polio, and Le Clercq played a victim of the disease. That proved cruelly ironic when Le Clercq's career was ended by polio at the age of 27. She was paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of her life, but eventually regained the use of her upper body, and spent many years teaching dance. Le Clercq's life and career are the subject of the documentary Afternoon of a Faun (streaming | DVD).