document_title: Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States

question_text: who is the youngest person on the supreme court

question_tokens: who is the youngest person on the supreme court

text: Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States

text: Geographic background[edit]

text: For most of the existence of the Court, geographic diversity was a key concern of presidents in choosing justices to appoint.[2] This was prompted in part by the early practice of Supreme Court justices also "riding circuit"—individually hearing cases in different regions of the country. In 1789, the United States was divided into judicial circuits, and from that time until 1891, Supreme Court justices also acted as judges within those individual circuits.[7] George Washington was careful to make appointments "with no two justices serving at the same time hailing from the same state".[8] Abraham Lincoln broke with this tradition during the Civil War,[7] and "by the late 1880s presidents disregarded it with increasing frequency".[9]

text: Although the importance of regionalism declined, it still arose from time to time. For example, in appointing Benjamin Cardozo in 1929, President Hoover was as concerned about the controversy over having three New York justices on the Court as he was about having two Jewish justices.[10] David M. O'Brien notes that "[f]rom the appointment of John Rutledge from South Carolina in 1789 until the retirement of Hugo Black [from Alabama] in 1971, with the exception of the Reconstruction decade of 1866–1876, there was always a southerner on the bench. Until 1867, the sixth seat was reserved as the 'southern seat'. Until Cardozo's appointment in 1932, the third seat was reserved for New Englanders."[11] The westward expansion of the U.S. led to concerns that the western states should be represented on the Court as well, which purportedly prompted William Howard Taft to make his 1910 appointment of Willis Van Devanter of Wyoming.[12]

text: Geographic balance was sought in the 1970s, when Nixon attempted to employ a "Southern strategy", hoping to secure support from Southern states by nominating judges from the region.[1] Nixon unsuccessfully nominated Southerners Clement Haynsworth of South Carolina and G. Harrold Carswell of Georgia, before finally succeeding with the nomination of Harry Blackmun of Minnesota.[13] The issue of regional diversity was again raised with the 2010 retirement of John Paul Stevens, who had been appointed from the midwestern Seventh Circuit, leaving the Court with all but one Justice having been appointed from states on the East Coast.[14]

text: As of 2017[update], the Court has a majority from the Northeastern United States, with six justices coming from states to the north and east of Washington, D.C. including four justices born or raised in New York City. The remaining three justices come from Georgia, California and Colorado; the most recent justice from the Midwest being John Paul Stevens of Illinois who retired in 2010. Contemporary Justices may be associated with multiple states. Many nominees are appointed while serving in states or districts other than their hometown or home state. Chief Justice John Roberts, for example, was born in New York, but moved to Indiana at the age of five, where he grew up. After law school, Roberts worked in Washington, D.C. while living in Maryland. Thus, three states may claim his domicile.

text: Despite the efforts to achieve geographic balance, only seven justices[a] have ever hailed from states admitted after or during the Civil War. Nineteen states have never produced a Supreme Court Justice; in chronological order of admission to the Union these are:

text:
Delaware (original state)
Rhode Island (original state)
Vermont (admitted in 1791)
Arkansas (admitted in 1836)
Florida (admitted in 1845)
Wisconsin (admitted in 1848)
Oregon (admitted in 1859)
West Virginia (admitted in 1863)[b]
Nevada (admitted in 1864)
Nebraska (admitted in 1867)
North Dakota (admitted in 1889)
South Dakota (admitted in 1889)
Montana (admitted in 1889)
Washington (admitted in 1889)
Idaho (admitted in 1890)
Oklahoma (admitted in 1907)
New Mexico (admitted in 1912)
Alaska (admitted in 1959) and
Hawaii (admitted in 1959)

tag: ol

text: In contrast, some states have been over-represented, partly because there were fewer states from which early justices could be appointed. New York has produced fifteen justices, Ohio ten, Massachusetts nine, Virginia eight, six each from Pennsylvania and Tennessee, and five from Kentucky, Maryland, and New Jersey.[13] A handful of justices were born outside the United States, mostly from among the earliest justices on the Court. These included James Wilson, born in Fife, Scotland; James Iredell, born in Lewes, England; and William Paterson, born in County Antrim, Ireland. Justice David Josiah Brewer was born farthest from the U.S., in Smyrna, in the Ottoman Empire, (now İzmir, Turkey). George Sutherland was born in Buckinghamshire, England. The last foreign-born Justice, and the only one of these for whom English was a second language, was Felix Frankfurter, born in Vienna, Austria.[15] The Constitution imposes no citizenship requirement on federal judges.

text: Ethnicity[edit]

text: All Supreme Court justices were white and of European heritage until the appointment of Thurgood Marshall, the first African American Justice, in 1967. Since then, only two other non-white Justices have been appointed, Marshall's African-American successor, Clarence Thomas in 1991, and Sonia Sotomayor in 2009.

text: Foreign birth[edit]

text: There have been six foreign-born justices in the Court's history: James Wilson (1789-1798), born in Caskardy, Scotland; James Iredell (1790-1799), born in Lewes, England; William Paterson (1793-1806), born in County Antrim, Ireland; David Brewer (1889-1910), born to American missionary parents in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire (now İzmir, Turkey);[16] George Sutherland (1922-1939), born in Buckinghamshire, England; and Felix Frankfurter (1939-1962), born in Vienna, Austria.[17]

text: White justices[edit]

text: The vast majority of white justices have been of Northern European, Northwestern European, or Germanic Protestant descent. Up until the 1980s, only six justices of "central, eastern, or southern European derivation" had been appointed, and even among these six justices, five of them "were of Germanic background, which includes Austrian, German-Bohemian, and Swiss origins (John Catron, Samuel F. Miller, Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, and Warren Burger)" while only one justice was of non-Germanic, Southern European descent (Benjamin N. Cardozo, of Iberian descent).[18] Cardozo, appointed to the Court in 1932, was the first justice known to have non-Germanic or non-Anglo-Saxon ancestry and the first justice of Southern European descent.[citation needed]. Both of Justice Cardozo's parents descended from Sephardic Jews from the Iberian Peninsula who fled to Holland during the Spanish Inquisition then to London, before arriving in New York prior to the American Revolution.[19][page needed] Justice Antonin Scalia, who served from 1986-2016, and Justice Samuel Alito, who has served since 2006, are the first justices of Italian descent to be appointed to the Supreme Court.[citation needed] Justice Scalia's father and both maternal grandparents as well as both of Justice Alito's parents were born in Italy.[20][21][22] Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born to a father who immigrated from Russia at age 13 and a mother who was born four months after her parents immigrated from Poland.[23]

text: African American justices[edit]

text: No African-American candidate was given serious consideration for appointment to the Supreme Court until the election of John F. Kennedy, who weighed the possibility of appointing William H. Hastie of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.[24] Hastie had been the first African-American elevated to a Court of Appeals when Harry S. Truman had so appointed him in 1949, and by the time of the Kennedy Administration, it was widely anticipated that Hastie might be appointed to the Supreme Court.[25] That Kennedy gave serious consideration to making this appointment "represented the first time in American history that an African American was an actual contender for the high court".[24]

text: The first African American appointed to the Court was Thurgood Marshall, appointed by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967. The second was Clarence Thomas, appointed by George H. W. Bush to succeed Marshall in 1991.

text: Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court following the retirement of Justice Tom C. Clark, saying that this was "the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place." Marshall was confirmed as an Associate Justice by a Senate vote of 69–11 on August 31, 1967.[26] Johnson confidently predicted to one biographer, Doris Kearns Goodwin, that a lot of black baby boys would be named "Thurgood" in honor of this choice (in fact, Kearns's research of birth records in New York and Boston indicates that Johnson's prophecy did not come true).[27]

text: Bush initially wanted to nominate Thomas to replace William Brennan, who stepped down in 1990, but he then decided that Thomas had not yet had enough experience as a judge after only months on the federal bench.[28] Bush therefore nominated New Hampshire Supreme Court judge David Souter (who is not African American) instead.[28] The selection of Thomas to instead replace Marshall preserved the existing racial composition of the court.

text: Hispanic and Latino justices[edit]

text: The words "Latino" and "Hispanic" are sometimes given distinct meanings, with "Latino" referring to persons of Latin American descent, and "Hispanic" referring to persons having an ancestry, language or culture traceable to Spain or to the Iberian Peninsula as a whole, as well as to persons of Latin American descent, and the term "Lusitanic" usually refers to persons having an ancestry, language or culture traceable to Portugal specifically.

text: Sonia Sotomayor—nominated by President Barack Obama on May 26, 2009, and sworn in on August 8—is the first Supreme Court Justice of Latin American descent. Born in New York City of Puerto Rican parents, she has been known to refer to herself as a "Nuyorican". Sotomayor is also generally regarded as the first Hispanic justice, although some sources claim that this distinction belongs to former Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo.

text: It has been claimed that "only since the George H. W. Bush administration have Hispanic candidates received serious consideration from presidents in the selection process",[29] and that Emilio M. Garza (considered for the vacancy eventually given to Clarence Thomas[30]) was the first Hispanic judge for whom such an appointment was contemplated.[31] Subsequently, Bill Clinton was reported by several sources to have considered José A. Cabranes for a Supreme Court nomination on both occasions when a Court vacancy opened during the Clinton presidency.[32][33] The possibility of a Hispanic Justice returned during the George W. Bush Presidency, with various reports suggesting that Emilio Garza,[34] Alberto Gonzales,[35] and Consuelo M. Callahan[36] were under consideration for the vacancy left by the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor. O'Connor's seat eventually went to Samuel Alito, however. Speculation about a Hispanic nomination arose again after the election of Barack Obama.[37] In 2009, Obama appointed Sonia Sotomayor, a woman of Puerto Rican descent, to be the first unequivocally Hispanic Justice.[38] Both the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials and the Hispanic National Bar Association count Sotomayor as the first Hispanic justice.[39][40]

text: Some historians contend that Cardozo—a Sephardic Jew believed to be of distant Portuguese descent[41]—should also be counted as the first Hispanic Justice.[1] Schmidhauser wrote in 1979 that "[a]mong the large ethnic groupings of European origin which have never been represented upon the Supreme Court are the Italians, Southern Slavs, and Hispanic Americans."[18] The National Hispanic Center for Advanced Studies and Policy Analysis wrote in 1982 that the Supreme Court "has never had an Hispanic Justice",[42] and the Hispanic American Almanac similarly reported in 1996 that "no Hispanic has yet sat on the U.S. Supreme Court".[43] However, Segal and Spaeth state: "Though it is often claimed that no Hispanics have served on the Court, it is not clear why Benjamin Cardozo, a Sephardic Jew of Spanish heritage, should not count." They identify a number of other sources that present conflicting views as to Cardozo's ethnicity, with one simply labeling him "Iberian." In 2007, the Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History also listed Cardozo as "the first Hispanic named to the Supreme Court of the United States."[44]

text: The nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, widely described in media accounts as the first Hispanic nominee, drew more attention to the question of Cardozo's ethnicity.[39][40][45][46] Cardozo biographer Andrew Kaufman questioned the usage of the term "hispanic" during Cardozo's lifetime, commenting: "Well, I think he regarded himself as Sephardic Jew whose ancestors came from the Iberian Peninsula."[39] However, "no one has ever firmly established that the family's roots were, in fact, in Portugal".[47] It has also been asserted that Cardozo himself "confessed in 1937 that his family preserved neither the Spanish language nor Iberian cultural traditions".[48] By contrast, Cardozo made his own translations of authoritative legal works written in French and German.[49]

text: Ethnic groups that have never been represented[edit]

text: Many ethnic groups have never been represented on the Court. There has never been a Justice with any Asian, Native American, or Pacific Islander heritage, and no person having such a heritage was publicly considered for an appointment until the 21st century. Legal scholar Viet D. Dinh, of Vietnamese descent, was named as a potential George W. Bush nominee.[50] During the presidency of Barack Obama, potential nominees have included Harold Hongju Koh, of Korean descent, and former Idaho attorney general Larry Echo Hawk, a member of the Pawnee tribe.[51]

text: Public opinion on ethnic diversity[edit]

text: Public opinion about ethnic diversity on the court "varies widely depending on the poll question's wording".[6] For example, in two polls taken in 1991, one resulted in half of respondents agreeing that it was "important that there always be at least one black person" on the Court while the other had only 20% agreeing with that sentiment, and with 77% agreeing that "race should never be a factor in choosing Supreme Court justices".[6] It is claimed that the Presidents who have appointed Justices to the Supreme Court in recent years have taken race and religion into account, causing it to be unrepresentative of the U.S. population in general.

text: Gender[edit]

text: Of the 113 justices, 109 (96.5%) have been men. All Supreme Court justices were males until 1981, when Ronald Reagan fulfilled his 1980 campaign promise to place a woman on the Court,[52] which he did with the appointment of Sandra Day O'Connor. O'Connor was later joined on the Court by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, appointed by Bill Clinton in 1993. After O'Connor retired in 2006, Ginsburg would be joined by Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, who were successfully appointed to the Court in 2009 and 2010, respectively, by Barack Obama.[53] The only other woman to be nominated to the Court was Harriet Miers, whose nomination to succeed O'Connor by George W. Bush was withdrawn under fire.

text: Substantial public sentiment in support of appointment of a woman to the Supreme Court has been expressed since at least as early as 1930, when an editorial in the Christian Science Monitor encouraged Herbert Hoover to consider Ohio justice Florence E. Allen or assistant attorney general Mabel Walker Willebrandt.[54] Franklin Delano Roosevelt later appointed Allen to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit—making her "one of the highest ranking female jurists in the world at that time".[55] However, neither Roosevelt nor his successors over the following two decades gave strong consideration to female candidates for the Court. Harry Truman considered such an appointment, but was dissuaded by concerns raised by justices then serving that a woman on the Court "would inhibit their conference deliberations", which were marked by informality.[55]

text: President Richard Nixon named Mildred Lillie, then serving on the Second District Court of Appeal of California, as a potential nominee to fill one of two vacancies on the Court in 1971.[52] However, Lillie was quickly deemed unqualified by the American Bar Association, and no formal proceedings were ever set with respect to her potential nomination. Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist were then successfully nominated to fill those vacancies.

text:
[hide]Name
State
Birth
Death
Year
appointed
Left
office
Appointed by
Reason for
termination

O'Connor, Sandra DaySandra Day O'Connor
AZ
1930
living
1981
2006
Reagan
retirement

Ginsburg, Ruth BaderRuth Bader Ginsburg
NY
1933
living
1993
incumbent
Clinton
—

Sotomayor, SoniaSonia Sotomayor
NY
1954
living
2009
incumbent
Obama
—

Kagan, ElenaElena Kagan
NY
1960
living
2010
incumbent
Obama
—

text: Public opinion on gender diversity[edit]

text: In 1991, a poll found that 53% of Americans felt it "important that there always be at least one woman" on the Court.[6] However, when O'Connor stepped down from the court, leaving Justice Ginsburg as the lone remaining woman, only one in seven persons polled found it "essential that a woman be nominated to replace" O'Connor.[6]

text: Marital status and sexual orientation[edit]

text: Marital status[edit]

text: All but a handful of Supreme Court justices have been married. Frank Murphy, Benjamin Cardozo, and James McReynolds were all lifelong bachelors.[56] In addition, retired justice David Souter and current justice Elena Kagan have never been married.[57][58] William O. Douglas was the first Justice to divorce while on the Court, and also had the most marriages of any Justice, with four.[56] Justice John Paul Stevens divorced his first wife in 1979, marrying his second wife later that year. Sonia Sotomayor was the first female justice to be appointed as an unmarried woman, having divorced in 1983, long before her nomination in 2009.[56][58]

text: Several justices have become widowers while on the bench. The 1792 death of Elizabeth Rutledge, wife of Justice John Rutledge, contributed to the mental health problems that led to the rejection of his recess appointment.[59] Roger B. Taney survived his wife, Anne, by twenty years. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. resolutely continued working on the Court for several years after the death of his wife.[60] William Rehnquist was a widower for the last fourteen years of his service on the Court, his wife Natalie having died on October 17, 1991 after suffering from ovarian cancer.[61] With the death of Martin D. Ginsburg in June 2010, Ruth Bader Ginsburg became the first woman to be widowed while serving on the Court.[62]

text: Sexual orientation[edit]

text: With regards to sexual orientation, no Supreme Court justice has identified himself or herself as anything other than heterosexual, and no incontrovertible evidence of a justice having any other sexual orientation has ever been uncovered. However, the personal lives of several justices and nominees have attracted speculation.

text: G. Harrold Carswell was unsuccessfully nominated by Richard Nixon in 1970, and was convicted in 1976 of battery for making an "unnatural and lascivious" advance to a male police officer working undercover in a Florida men's room.[63] Some therefore claim him as the only gay or bisexual person nominated to the Court thus far.[64][65] If so, it is unlikely that Nixon was aware of it; White House Counsel John Dean later wrote of Carswell that "[w]hile Richard Nixon was always looking for historical firsts, nominating a homosexual to the high court would not have been on his list".[65]

text: Speculation has been recorded about the sexual orientation of a few justices who were lifelong bachelors, but no unambiguous evidence exists that they were gay. Perhaps the greatest body of circumstantial evidence surrounds Frank Murphy, who was dogged by "[r]umors of homosexuality [...] all his adult life".[66]

text: For more than 40 years, Edward G. Kemp was Frank Murphy's devoted, trusted companion. Like Murphy, Kemp was a lifelong bachelor. From college until Murphy's death, the pair found creative ways to work and live together. [...] When Murphy appeared to have the better future in politics, Kemp stepped into a supportive, secondary role.[67]

text: As well as Murphy's close relationship with Kemp, Murphy's biographer, historian Sidney Fine, found in Murphy's personal papers a letter that "if the words mean what they say, refers to a homosexual encounter some years earlier between Murphy and the writer." However, the letter's veracity cannot be confirmed and a review of all the evidence led Fine to conclude that he "could not stick his neck out and say [Murphy] was gay".[68]

text: Speculation has also surrounded Benjamin Cardozo, whose celibacy suggests repressed homosexuality or asexuality. The fact that he was unmarried and was personally tutored by the writer Horatio Alger (alleged to have had sexual relations with boys) led some of Cardozo's biographers to insinuate that Cardozo was homosexual, but no real evidence exists to corroborate this possibility. Constitutional law scholar Jeffrey Rosen noted in a New York Times Book Review of Richard Polenberg's book on Cardozo:

text: Polenberg describes Cardozo's lifelong devotion to his older sister Nell, with whom he lived in New York until her death in 1929. When asked why he had never married, Cardozo replied, quietly and sadly, "I never could give Nellie the second place in my life." Polenberg suggests that friends may have stressed Cardozo's devotion to his sister to discourage rumors "that he was sexually dysfunctional, or had an unusually low sexual drive or was homosexual." But he produces no evidence to support any of these possibilities, except to note that friends, in describing Cardozo, used words like "beautiful", "exquisite", "sensitive" or "delicate."[69]

text: Andrew Kaufman, author of Cardozo, a biography published in 2000, notes that "Although one cannot be absolutely certain, it seems highly likely that Cardozo lived a celibate life".[70] Judge Learned Hand is quoted in the book as saying about Cardozo: "He [had] no trace of homosexuality anyway".[71]

text: More recently, when David Souter was nominated to the Court, "conservative groups expressed concern to the White House... that the president's bachelor nominee might conceivably be a homosexual".[72] Similar questions were raised regarding the sexual orientation of unmarried nominee Elena Kagan.[73] However, no evidence was ever produced regarding Souter's sexual orientation, and Kagan's apparent heterosexuality was attested by colleagues familiar with her dating history.[74]

text: Religion[edit]

text: When the Supreme Court was established in 1789, the first members came from among the ranks of the Founding Fathers and were almost uniformly Protestant. Of the 113 justices who have been appointed to the court, 91 have been from various Protestant denominations, 12 have been Catholics (one other justice, Sherman Minton, converted to Catholicism after leaving the Court). Another, Neil Gorsuch, was raised in the Catholic Church but later attended an Episcopalian church, though without specifying the denomination to which he felt he belonged.[75] Eight have been Jewish and one, David Davis, had no known religious affiliation. Three of the 17 chief justices have been Catholics, and one Jewish justice, Abe Fortas, was unsuccessfully nominated to be chief justice.

text: The table below shows the religious affiliation of each of the justices sitting as of April 2017[update]:

text:
Name
Religion
Appt. by
On the Court since

Roberts, JohnJohn Roberts (Chief Justice)
Roman Catholicism
G.W. Bush
2005

Kennedy, AnthonyAnthony Kennedy
Roman Catholicism
Reagan
1988

Thomas, ClarenceClarence Thomas
Roman Catholicism
G.H.W. Bush
1991

Ginsburg, Ruth BaderRuth Bader Ginsburg
Judaism
Clinton
1993

Breyer, StephenStephen Breyer
Judaism
Clinton
1994

Alito, SamuelSamuel Alito
Roman Catholicism
G.W. Bush
2006

Sotomayor, SoniaSonia Sotomayor
Roman Catholicism
Obama
2009

Kagan, ElenaElena Kagan
Judaism
Obama
2010

Gorsuch, NeilNeil Gorsuch
Raised Roman Catholic, attends Episcopalian Church[75]
Trump
2017

text: Protestant justices[edit]

text: Most Supreme Court justices have been Protestant Christians. These have included 33 Episcopalians, 18 Presbyterians, nine Unitarians, five Methodists, three Baptists, and lone representatives of various other denominations.[76] William Rehnquist was the Court's only Lutheran. Noah Swayne was a Quaker. Some 15 Protestant justices did not adhere to a particular denomination. Baptist denominations and other evangelical churches have been underrepresented on the Court, relative to the population of the United States. Conversely, mainline Protestant churches historically were overrepresented.[citation needed]

text: Following the retirement of John Paul Stevens in June 2010, the Court had an entirely non-Protestant composition for the first time in its history.[77][78] Although Neil Gorsuch, appointed in 2017, attends an Episcopalian church, he was raised Catholic and it is unclear if he considers himself a Catholic or a Protestant.[75]

text: Catholic justices[edit]

text: The first Catholic justice, Roger B. Taney, was appointed chief justice in 1836 by Andrew Jackson. The second, Edward Douglass White, was appointed as an associate justice in 1894, but also went on to become chief justice. Joseph McKenna was appointed in 1898, placing two Catholics on the Court until White's death in 1921. This period marked the beginning of an inconsistently observed "tradition" of having a "Catholic seat" on the court.[79]

text: Other Catholic justices included Pierce Butler (appointed 1923) and Frank Murphy (appointed 1940). Sherman Minton, appointed in 1949, was a Protestant during his time on the Court. To some, however, his wife's Catholic faith implied a "Catholic seat".[80] Minton joined his wife's church in 1961, five years after he retired from the Court.[81] Minton was succeeded by a Catholic, however, when President Eisenhower appointed William J. Brennan to that seat. Eisenhower sought a Catholic to appoint to the Court—in part because there had been no Catholic justice since Murphy's death in 1949, and in part because Eisenhower was directly lobbied by Cardinal Francis Spellman of the Archdiocese of New York to make such an appointment.[82] Brennan was then the lone Catholic justice until the appointment of Antonin Scalia in 1986, and Anthony Kennedy in 1988.

text: Like Sherman Minton, Clarence Thomas was not a Catholic at the time he was appointed to the Court. Thomas was raised Catholic and briefly attended Conception Seminary College, a Roman Catholic seminary,[83] but had joined the Protestant denomination of his wife after their marriage. At some point in the late 1990s, Thomas returned to Catholicism. In 2005, John Roberts became the third Catholic Chief Justice and the fourth Catholic on the Court. Shortly thereafter, Samuel Alito became the fifth on the Court, and the eleventh in the history of the Court. Alito's appointment gave the Court a Catholic majority for the first time in its history. Besides Thomas, at least one other Justice, James F. Byrnes, was raised as a Roman Catholic, but converted to a different branch of Christianity prior to serving on the Court.

text: In contrast to historical patterns, the Court has gone from having a "Catholic seat" to being what some have characterized as a "Catholic court." The reasons for that are subject to debate, and are a matter of intense public scrutiny.[84] That the majority of the Court is now Catholic, and that the appointment of Catholics has become accepted, represents a historical 'sea change.' It has fostered accusations that the court has become "a Catholic boys club" (particularly as the Catholics chosen tend to be politically conservative) and calls for non-Catholics to be nominated.[85]

text: In May 2009, President Barack Obama nominated a Catholic woman, Sonia Sotomayor, to replace retiring Justice David Souter.[86] Her confirmation raised the number of Catholics on the Court to six, compared to three non-Catholics (all Jewish). With Antonin Scalia's death in February 2016, the number of Catholic Justices went back to five. Neil Gorsuch, appointed in 2017, was raised Catholic but attends an Episcopalian church; it is unclear if he considers himself a Catholic or a Protestant.[75]

text: All of the Catholic justices have been members of the Roman (or Latin) rite within the Catholic Church.

text:
[hide]Name
State
Birth
Death
Year
appointed
Left
office
Appointed by
Reason for
termination

Taney, Roger BrookeRoger Brooke Taney
MD
1777
1864
1836
1864
Jackson
death

White, Edward DouglassEdward Douglass White
LA
1845
1921
1894
1921
Cleveland (associate)
Taft (chief)[87]
death

McKenna, JosephJoseph McKenna
CA
1843
1926
1898
1925
McKinley
retirement

Butler, PiercePierce Butler
MN
1866
1939
1923
1939
Harding
death

Murphy, FrankFrank Murphy
MI
1890
1949
1940
1949
F. Roosevelt
death

Minton, ShermanSherman Minton
IN
1890
1965
1949
1956
Truman
death[88]

Brennan, Jr., William JosephWilliam Joseph Brennan, Jr.
NJ
1906
1997
1956
1990
Eisenhower
death[88]

Scalia, Antonin GregoryAntonin Gregory Scalia
NJ
1936
2016
1986
2016
Reagan
death

Kennedy, Anthony McLeodAnthony McLeod Kennedy
CA
1936
living
1988
incumbent
Reagan
—

Thomas, ClarenceClarence Thomas
GA
1948
living
1991
incumbent
G. H. W. Bush
—

Roberts, Jr., John GloverJohn Glover Roberts, Jr.
MD
1955
living
2005
incumbent
G. W. Bush
—

Alito, Samuel AnthonySamuel Anthony Alito
NJ
1950
living
2006
incumbent
G. W. Bush
—

Sotomayor, SoniaSonia Sotomayor
NY
1954
living
2009
incumbent
Obama
—

text: Jewish justices[edit]

text: In 1853, President Millard Fillmore offered to appoint Louisiana Senator Judah P. Benjamin to be the first Jewish justice, and the New York Times reported (on February 15, 1853) that "if the President nominates Benjamin, the Democrats are determined to confirm him". However, Benjamin declined the offer, and ultimately became Secretary of State for the Confederacy during the Civil War. The first Jewish nominee, Louis Brandeis, was appointed in 1916, after a tumultuous hearing process. The 1932 appointment of Benjamin Cardozo raised mild controversy for placing two Jewish justices on the Court at the same time, although the appointment was widely lauded based on Cardozo's qualifications, and the Senate was unanimous in confirming Cardozo.[89]

text: Cardozo was succeeded by another Jewish Justice, Felix Frankfurter, but Brandeis was succeeded by Protestant William O. Douglas. Negative reaction to the appointment of the early Jewish justices did not exclusively come from outside the Court. Justice James Clark McReynolds, a blatant anti-semite, refused to speak to Brandeis for three years following the latter's appointment and when Brandeis retired in 1939, did not sign the customary dedicatory letter sent to Court members on their retirement. During Benjamin Cardozo's swearing in ceremony McReynolds pointedly read a newspaper muttering "another one" and did not attend that of Felix Frankfurter, exclaiming "My God, another Jew on the Court!"[90]

text: Frankfurter was followed by Arthur Goldberg and Abe Fortas, each of whom filled what became known as the "Jewish Seat". After Fortas resigned in 1969, he was replaced by Protestant Harry Blackmun. No Jewish justices were nominated thereafter until Ronald Reagan nominated Douglas H. Ginsburg in 1987, to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Lewis F. Powell; however, this nomination was withdrawn, and the Court remained without any Jewish justices until 1993, when Ruth Bader Ginsburg (unrelated to Douglas Ginsburg) was appointed to replace Byron White. Ginsburg was followed in relatively quick succession by the appointment of Stephen Breyer, also Jewish, in 1994 to replace Harry Blackmun. In 2010, the confirmation of President Barack Obama's nomination of Elena Kagan to the Court ensured that three Jewish justices would serve simultaneously. Prior to this confirmation, conservative political commentator Pat Buchanan stated that, "If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats".[91] At the time of his remarks, 6.4 percent of justices had been Jewish in the history of the court.[91]

text:
[hide]Name
State
Birth
Death
Year
appointed
Left
office
Appointed by
Reason for
termination

Brandeis, LouisLouis Brandeis
KY
1856
1941
1916
1939
Wilson
death[88]

Cardozo, Benjamin N.Benjamin N. Cardozo
NY
1870
1938
1932
1938
Hoover
death

Frankfurter, FelixFelix Frankfurter
NY
1882
1965
1939
1962
F. Roosevelt
retirement

Goldberg, ArthurArthur Goldberg
IL
1908
1990
1962
1965
Kennedy
resigned to become
UN Ambassador

Fortas, AbeAbe Fortas
TN
1910
1982
1965
1969
L.B. Johnson
resignation

Ginsburg, Ruth BaderRuth Bader Ginsburg
NY
1933
living
1993
incumbent
Clinton
—

Breyer, StephenStephen Breyer
CA
1938
living
1994
incumbent
Clinton
—

Kagan, ElenaElena Kagan
NY
1960
living
2010
incumbent
Obama
—

text: The shift to a Catholic majority, and non-Protestant Court[edit]

text: At the time of Breyer's appointment in 1994, there were two Roman Catholic justices, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy, and two Jewish justices, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Clarence Thomas, who had been raised as a Roman Catholic but had attended an Episcopal church after his marriage, returned to Catholicism later in the 1990s. At this point, the four remaining Protestant justices—Rehnquist, Stevens, O'Connor, and Souter—remained a plurality on the Court, but for the first time in the history of the Court, Protestants were no longer an absolute majority.

text: The first Catholic plurality on the Court occurred in 2005, when Chief Justice Rehnquist was succeeded in office by Chief Justice John Roberts, who became the fourth sitting Catholic justice. On January 31, 2006, Samuel Alito became the fifth sitting Catholic justice, and on August 6, 2009, Sonia Sotomayor became the sixth. By contrast, there has been only one Catholic U.S. President, John F. Kennedy (unrelated to Justice Kennedy), and one Catholic U.S. Vice President, Joe Biden, and there has never been a Jewish U.S. President or Vice President.

text: At the beginning of 2010, Justice John Paul Stevens was the sole remaining Protestant on the Court.[86][92] In April 2010, Justice Stevens announced his retirement, effective as of the Court's 2010 summer recess. Upon Justice Stevens' retirement, which formally began on June 28, 2010, the Court lacked a Protestant member, marking the first time in its history that it was exclusively composed of Jewish and Catholic justices.[77] In January 2017, after seven years with no Protestant justices serving or nominated, President Donald Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch, an Episcopalian, to the Court.[93]

text: This development led to some comment. Law school professor Jeffrey Rosen wrote that "it's a fascinating truth that we've allowed religion to drop out of consideration on the Supreme Court, and right now, we have a Supreme Court that religiously at least, by no means looks like America".[94]

text: Religions that have never been represented[edit]

text: A number of sizable religious groups, each less than 2% of the U.S. population,[95] have had no members appointed as justices. These include Orthodox Christians, Mormons, Pentecostals, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs. George Sutherland has been described as a "lapsed Mormon"[96] because he was raised in the LDS Church, his parents having immigrated to the United States during Sutherland's infancy to join that church.[97] Sutherland's parents soon left the LDS Church and moved to Montana.[97] Sutherland himself also disaffiliated with the faith, but remained in Utah and graduated from Brigham Young Academy in 1881, the only non-Mormon in his class.[98] In 1975, Attorney General Edward H. Levi had listed Dallin H. Oaks, a Mormon who had clerked for Earl Warren and was then president of Brigham Young University, as a potential nominee for Gerald Ford. Ford "crossed Oaks's name off the list early on, noting in the margin that a member of the LDS Church might bring a 'confirmation fight'".[99]

text: No professing atheist has ever been appointed to the Court, although some justices have declined to engage in religious activity, or affiliate with a denomination. As an adult, Benjamin Cardozo no longer practiced his faith and identified himself as an agnostic, though he remained proud of his Jewish heritage.[100]

text: Age[edit]

text: Unlike the offices of President, U.S. Representative, and U.S. Senator, there is no minimum age for Supreme Court justices set forth in the United States Constitution. However, justices tend to be appointed after having made significant achievements in law or politics, which excludes many young potential candidates from consideration. At the same time, justices appointed at too advanced an age will likely have short tenures on the Court.

text: The youngest justice ever appointed was Joseph Story, 32 at the time of his appointment in 1812; the oldest was Charles Evans Hughes, who was 67 at the time of his appointment as Chief Justice in 1930. (Hughes had previously been appointed to the Court as an associate justice in 1910, at the age of 48, but had resigned in 1916 to run for president). Story went on to serve for 33 years, while Hughes served 11 years after his second appointment. The oldest justice at the time of his initial appointment was Horace Lurton, 65 at the time of his appointment in 1909. Lurton died after only four years on the Court. The oldest sitting justice to be elevated to Chief Justice was Hughes' successor, Harlan Fiske Stone, who was 68 at the time of his elevation in 1941. Stone died in 1946, only five years after his elevation. The oldest nominee to the court was South Carolina senator William Smith, nominated in 1837, then aged around 75 (it is known that he was born in 1762, but not the exact date). The Senate confirmed Smith's nomination by a vote of 23–18, but Smith declined to serve.[101]

text: Of the justices currently sitting, the youngest at time of appointment was Clarence Thomas, who was 43 years old at the time of his confirmation in 1991. As of the beginning of the 2016–17 term, Elena Kagan was the youngest justice sitting, at 56 years of age. The oldest person to have served on the Court was Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who stepped down two months shy of his 91st birthday.[102] John Paul Stevens, second only to Holmes,[102] left the court in June 2010, two months after turning 90.

text: The average age of the Court as a whole fluctuates over time with the departure of older justices and the appointment of younger people to fill their seats. The average age of the Court is 72 years, 2 months. Just prior to the death of Chief Justice Rehnquist in September 2005, the average age was 71. After Sonia Sotomayor was appointed in August 2009, the average age at which current justices were appointed was about 53 years old.

text: The longest period of time in which one group of justices has served together occurred from August 3, 1994, when Stephen Breyer was appointed to replace the retired Harry Blackmun, to September 3, 2005, the death of Rehnquist, totaling 11 years and 31 days. From 1789 until 1970, justices served an average of 14.9 years. Those who have stepped down since 1970 have served an average of 25.6 years. The retirement age had jumped from an average of 68 pre-1970 to 79 for justices retiring post-1970. Between 1789 and 1970 there was a vacancy on the Court once every 1.91 years. In the next 34 years since the two appointments in 1971, there was a vacancy on average only once every 3.75 years. The typical one-term president has had one appointment opportunity instead of two.[103]

text: Commentators have noted that advances in medical knowledge "have enormously increased the life expectancy of a mature person of an age likely to be considered for appointment to the Supreme Court".[104] Combined with the reduction in responsibilities carried out by modern justices as compared to the early justices, this results in much longer potential terms of service.[104] This has led to proposals such as imposing a mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court justices[105] and predetermined term limits.[106]

text: Educational background[edit]

text: Although the Constitution imposes no educational background requirements for federal judges, the work of the Court involves complex questions of law—ranging from constitutional law to administrative law to admiralty law—and consequently, a legal education has become a de facto prerequisite to appointment on the Supreme Court. Every person who has been nominated to the Court has been an attorney.[7]

text: Before the advent of modern law schools in the United States, justices, like most attorneys of the time, completed their legal studies by "reading law" (studying under and acting as an apprentice to more experienced attorneys) rather than attending a formal program. The first justice to be appointed who had attended an actual law school was Levi Woodbury, appointed to the Court in 1846. Woodbury had attended Tapping Reeve Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut, the most prestigious law school in the United States in that day, prior to his admission to the bar in 1812. However, Woodbury did not earn a law degree. Woodbury's successor on the Court, Benjamin Robbins Curtis, who received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1832, and was appointed to the Court in 1851, was the first Justice to bear such a credential.[107]

text: Associate Justice James F. Byrnes, whose short tenure lasted from June 1941 to October 1942, was the last justice without a law degree to be appointed; Stanley Forman Reed, who served on the Court from 1938 to 1957, was the last sitting justice from such a background. In total, of the 113 justices appointed to the Court, 48 have had law degrees, an additional 18 attended some law school but did not receive a degree, and 47 received their legal education without any law school attendance.[107] Two justices, Sherman Minton and Lewis F. Powell, Jr., earned a Master of Laws degree.[108]

text: The table below shows the college and law school from which each of the justices sitting as of April 2017[update] graduated:

text:
Name
Appt. by
College
Law school

John Roberts (Chief Justice)
G.W. Bush
Harvard
Harvard

Anthony Kennedy
Reagan
Stanford
Harvard

Clarence Thomas
G.H.W. Bush
Holy Cross
Yale

Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Clinton
Cornell
Columbia

Stephen Breyer
Clinton
Stanford
Harvard

Samuel Alito
G.W. Bush
Princeton
Yale

Sonia Sotomayor
Obama
Princeton
Yale

Elena Kagan
Obama
Princeton
Harvard

Neil Gorsuch
Trump
Columbia
Harvard

text: Professional background[edit]

text: Not only have all justices been attorneys, nearly two thirds had previously been judges.[7] As of 2017[update], eight of the nine sitting justices previously served as judges of the United States Courts of Appeals, while Justice Elena Kagan served as Solicitor General, the attorney responsible for representing the federal government in cases before the Court. Few justices have a background as criminal defense lawyers, and Thurgood Marshall is reportedly the last justice to have had a client in a death penalty case.[109]

text: Historically, justices have come from some tradition of public service; only George Shiras, Jr. had no such experience.[110] Relatively few justices have been appointed from among members of Congress. Six were members of the United States Senate at the time of their appointment,[111][112] while one was a sitting member of the House of Representatives.[113] Six more had previously served in the Senate. Three have been sitting governors.[111][114] Only one, William Howard Taft, had been President of the United States.[115] The last justice to have held elected office was Sandra Day O'Connor, who was elected twice to the Arizona State Senate after being appointed there by the governor.

text: Financial means[edit]

text: The financial position of the typical Supreme Court Justice has been described as "upper-middle to high social status: reared in nonrural but not necessarily urban environment, member of a civic-minded, politically active, economically comfortable family".[107] Charles A. Beard, in his An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, profiled those among the justices who were also drafters of the Constitution.

text: James Wilson, Beard notes, "developed a lucrative practice at Carlisle" before becoming "one of the directors of the Bank of North America on its incorporation in 1781".[116] A member of the Georgia Land Company, Wilson "held shares to the amount of at least one million acres".[117] John Blair was "one of the most respectable men in Virginia, both on account of his Family as well as fortune".[118] Another source notes that Blair "was a member of a prominent Virginia family. His father served on the Virginia Council and was for a time acting Royal governor. His granduncle, James Blair, was founder and first president of the College of William and Mary."[119] John Rutledge was elected Governor of South Carolina at a time when the Constitution of that state set, as a qualification for the office, ownership of "a settled plantation or freehold ... of the value of at least ten thousand pounds currency, clear of debt".[120] Oliver Ellsworth "rose rapidly to wealth and power in the bar of his native state" with "earnings... unrivalled in his own day and unexampled in the history of the colony", developing "a fortune which for the times and the country was quite uncommonly large".[121] Bushrod Washington was the nephew of George Washington, who was at the time of the younger Washington's appointment the immediate past President of the United States and one of the wealthiest men in the country.[122]

text: "About three-fifths of those named to the Supreme Court personally knew the President who nominated them".[82] There have been exceptions to the typical portrait of justices growing up middle class or wealthy. For example, the family of Sherman Minton went through a period of impoverishment during his childhood, resulting from the disability of his father due to a heat stroke.[123]

text: In 2008, seven of the nine sitting justices were millionaires, and the remaining two were close to that level of wealth.[124] Historian Howard Zinn, in his 1980 book A People's History of the United States, argues that the justices cannot be neutral in matters between rich and poor, as they are almost always from the upper class.[125] Chief Justice Roberts is the son of an executive with Bethlehem Steel; Justice Stevens was born into a wealthy Chicago family;[126] and Justices Kennedy and Breyer both had fathers who were successful attorneys. Justices Alito and Scalia both had educated (and education-minded) parents: Scalia's father was a highly educated college professor and Alito's father was a high school teacher before becoming "a long-time employee of the New Jersey state legislature".[127] Only Justices Thomas and Sotomayor have been regarded as coming from a lower-class background. One authority states that "Thomas grew up in poverty. The Pin Point community he lived in lacked a sewage system and paved roads. Its inhabitants dwelled in destitution and earned but a few cents each day performing manual labor".[128] The depth of Thomas' poverty has been disputed by suggestions of "ample evidence to suggest that Thomas enjoyed, by and large, a middle-class upbringing".[129]

text: Financial disclosures[edit]

text: Beginning in 1979, the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 required federal officials, including the justices, to file annual disclosures of their income and assets.[130] These disclosures provide a snapshot into the wealth of the justices, reported within broad ranges, from year to year since 1979. In the first such set of disclosures, only two justices were revealed to be millionaires: Potter Stewart[131] and Lewis F. Powell,[132] with Chief Justice Warren Burger coming in third with about $600,000 in holdings.[131] The least wealthy Justice was Thurgood Marshall.[131]

text: The 1982 report disclosed that newly appointed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was a millionaire, and the second-wealthiest Justice on the Court (after Powell).[133] The remaining justices listed assets in the range of tens of thousands to a few hundred-thousand, with the exception of Thurgood Marshall, who "reported no assets or investment income of more than $100".[133] The 1985 report had the justices in relatively the same positions,[134] while the 1992 report had O'Connor as the wealthiest member of the Court, with Stevens being the only other millionaire, most other justices reporting assets averaging around a half million dollars, and the two newest justices, Clarence Thomas and David Souter, reporting assets of at least $65,000.[135] (In 2011, however, it was revealed that Thomas had misstated his income going back to at least 1989.[136][137][138])

text: The 2007 report was the first to reflect the holdings of John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Disclosures for that year indicated that Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy were the only justices who were clearly not millionaires, although Thomas was reported to have signed a book deal worth over one million dollars.[139] Other justices reported holdings within the following ranges:[140][141]

text:
Justice
Lowest range
Highest range

John Roberts
$2,400,000
$6,200,000

John Paul Stevens
$1,100,000
$3,500,000

Anthony Kennedy
$365,000
$765,000

David Souter
?
?

Clarence Thomas
$150,000
$410,000

Ruth Bader Ginsburg
$5,000,000
$25,000,000

Stephen Breyer
$4,900,000
$16,800,000

Samuel Alito
$770,000
$2,000,000

Neil Gorsuch
$3,200,000
$7,300,000

text: The financial disclosures indicate that many of the justices have substantial stock holdings.[139] This, in turn, has affected the business of the Court, as these holdings have led justices to recuse themselves from cases, occasionally with substantial impact. For example, in 2008, the recusal of John Roberts in one case, and Samuel Alito in another, resulted in each ending in a 4–4 split, which does not create a binding precedent.[142] The Court was unable to decide another case in 2008 because four of the nine justices had conflicts, three arising from stock ownership in affected companies.[143]


document_title: Pottery of ancient Greece

question_text: an early vase named for the graveyard in athens where it was found

root

text: Pottery of ancient Greece

text: Rediscovery and scholarship[edit]

text: Interest in Greek art lagged behind the revival of classical scholarship during the Renaissance and revived in the academic circle round Nicholas Poussin in Rome in the 1630s. Though modest collections of vases recovered from ancient tombs in Italy were made in the 15th and 16th centuries these were regarded as Etruscan. It is possible that Lorenzo de Medici bought several Attic vases directly from Greece;[3] however the connection between them and the examples excavated in central Italy was not made until much later. Winckelmann's Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums of 1764 first refuted the Etruscan origin of what we now know to be Greek pottery[4] yet Sir William Hamilton's two collections, one lost at sea the other now in the British Museum, were still published as "Etruscan vases"; it would take until 1837 with Stackelberg's Gräber der Hellenen to conclusively end the controversy.[5]

tag: p

text: Much of the early study of Greek vases took the form of production of albums of the images they depict, however neither D'Hancarville's nor Tischbein's folios record the shapes or attempt to supply a date and are therefore unreliable as an archaeological record. Serious attempts at scholary study made steady progress over the 19th century starting with the founding of the Instituto di Corrispondenza in Rome in 1828 (later the German Archaeological Institute), followed by Eduard Gerhard's pioneering study Auserlesene Griechische Vasenbilder (1840 to 1858), the establishment of the journal Archaeologische Zeitung in 1843 and the Ecole d'Athens 1846. It was Gerhard who first outlined the chronology we now use, namely: Orientalizing (Geometric, Archaic), Black Figure, Red Figure, Polychromatic (Hellenistic).

text: Finally it was Otto Jahn's 1854 catalogue Vasensammlung of the Pinakothek, Munich, that set the standard for the scientific description of Greek pottery, recording the shapes and inscriptions with a previously unseen fastidousness. Jahn's study was the standard textbook on the history and chronology of Greek pottery for many years, yet in common with Gerhard he dated the introduction of the red figure technique to a century later than was in fact the case. This error was corrected when the Aρχαιολογικη 'Εταιρεια undertook the excavation of the Acropolis in 1885 and discovered the so-called "Persian debris" of red figure pots destroyed by Persian invaders in 480 BC. With a more soundly established chronology it was possible for Adolf Furtwängler and his students in the 1880s and 90s to date the strata of his archaeological digs by the nature of the pottery found within them, a method of seriation Flinders Petrie was later to apply to unpainted Egyptian pottery.

text: Where the 19th century was a period of discovery and the laying out of first principles, the 20th century has been one of consolidation and intellectual industry. Efforts to record and publish the totality of public collections of vases began with the creation of the Corpus vasorum antiquorum under Edmond Pottier and the Beazley archive of John Beazley.

text: Beazley and others following him have also studied fragments of Greek pottery in institutional collections, and have attributed many painted pieces to individual artists. Scholars have called these fragments disjecta membra (Latin for "scattered parts") and in a number of instances have been able to identify fragments now in different collections that belong to the same vase.[6]

text: Uses and types[edit]

text: The names we use for Greek vase shapes are often a matter of convention rather than historical fact, a few do illustrate their own use or are labeled with their original names, others are the result of early archaeologists attempt to reconcile the physical object with a known name from Greek literature – not always successfully. To understand the relationship between form and function Greek pottery may be divided in four broad categories, given here with common types:[2][7]

text:
storage and transport vessels, including the amphora, pithos, pelike, hydria, pyxis,
mixing vessels, mainly for symposia or male drinking parties, including the krater, and dinos,
jugs and cups, several types of kylix also just called cups, kantharos, phiale, skyphos, oinochoe and loutrophoros,
vases for oils, perfumes and cosmetics, including the large lekythos, and the small aryballos and alabastron.

tag: ul

text: Some vase shapes were especially associated with rituals, others with athletics and the gymnasium.[8] Within each category the forms are roughly the same in scale and whether open or closed, where there is uncertainty we can make good proximate guesses of what use a piece would have served. Some have a purely ritual function, for example white ground lekythoi contained the oil used as funerary offerings and appear to have been made solely with that object in mind. Many examples have a concealed second cup inside them to give the impression of being full of oil, as such they would have served no other useful gain.

text: There was an international market for Greek pottery since the 8th century BC, which Athens and Corinth dominated down to the end of the 4th century BC.[9] An idea of the extent of this trade can be gleaned from plotting the find maps of these vases outside of Greece, though this could not account for gifts or immigration. Only the existence of a second hand market could account for the number of panathenaics found in Etruscan tombs. South Italian wares came to dominate the export trade in the Western Mediterranean as Athens declined in political importance during the Hellenistic period.

text: Clay[edit]

text: The process of making a pot and firing it is fairly simple. The first thing a potter needs is clay. Attica's high-iron clay gave its pots an orange color.[10]

text: Manufacture[edit]

text:
External video

 Making Greek Vases, produced by the J. Paul Getty Museum hosted at Smarthistory[11]

 Exekias, Attic black figure amphora with Ajax and Achilles playing a game

 Mixing Vessel with Odysseus Escaping from the Cyclops' Cave all hosted at Smarthistory[11]

tag: table

text: Levigation[edit]

text: When clay is first dug out of the ground it is full of rocks and shells and other useless items that need to be removed. To do this the potter mixes the clay with water and lets all the impurities sink to the bottom. This is called levigation or elutriation. This process can be done many times. The more times this is done, the smoother clay becomes.

text: Wheel[edit]

text: The clay is then kneaded by the potter and placed on a wheel. Once the clay is on the wheel the potter can shape it into any of the many shapes shown below, or anything else he desires. Wheel made pottery dates back to roughly 2500 BC where before the coil method of building the walls of the pot was employed. Most Greek vases were wheel-made, though as with the Rhyton mould-made pieces (so-called "plastic" pieces) are also found and decorative elements either hand formed or by mould were added to thrown pots. More complex pieces were made in parts then assembled when it was leather hard by means of joining with a slip, where the potter returned to the wheel for the final shaping, or turning. Sometimes, a young man helped turn the wheel.[12][13]

text: Slip[edit]

text: The pots were usually made in sections such as the body and feet and spout. Even the body, if it were larger than 20 centimeters, might be made in separate sections and glued together later with a thin watery clay called slip. After the pot is made then the potter paints it with a very pure black slip made from a specially prepared clay [14] using brushes made from a single hair.[15] It was thus slipped and then incised ready for the kiln.

text: Firing[edit]

text: Previously it was believed that Greek pottery, unlike today's pottery, was only fired once, but that firing had three stages. New studies instead provide material evidence that the pottery was made with two or more separate firings [16] in which the pottery is subjected to multiple firing stages. The most commonly described sequence of firing stages is one in which the pottery is stacked inside the kiln the potter heats the kiln up to around 800 °C with all the vents on the sides open to let air in. This turns the pottery and the paint red all over. Once the kiln reaches 800 °C the vents are closed and the temperature is raised to 950 °C and then allowed to drop back to 900 °C. This turns the pottery and the paint all black. The potter then starts the third and final phase by opening the vents and allowing the kiln to cool all the way down. This last phase leaves the slip black but turns the pottery back to red. This happens because when the clay is given air it turns red, but when the black slip is heated to 950 °C it no longer allows air in. Thus, the slipped area stays black while the bare areas stay red. While the description of a single firing with three stages may seem economical and efficient, it is equally possible that each of these stages was confined to separate firings.

text: The striking black slip with a metallic sheen, so characteristic of Greek pottery, was a fine suspension (colloidal fraction) of an illitic clay with very low calcium oxide content which was rich in iron oxides and hydroxides, differentiating from that used for the body of the vase in terms of the calcium content, the exact mineral composition and the particle size. This clay suspension was most probably collected in situ from illitic clay beds and was then processed through levigation. To aid in the levigation step, it is likely that the Attic black slip was treated with deflocculants as indicated by trace levels of contaminants to the clay, such as Zn associated with vitriol.[14] This clay suspension was thickened by concentration to a paste and was used for the decoration of the surface of the vase. The paint was applied on the areas intended to become black after firing.

text: The black color effect was achieved by means of changing the amount of oxygen present during firing. This was done in a process known as three-phase firing and was likely accomplished with multiple firings of the pottery. First, the kiln was heated to around 920–950 °C, with all vents open bringing oxygen into the firing chamber and turning both pot and slip a reddish-brown (oxidising conditions) due to the formation of hematite (Fe2O3) in both the paint and the clay body. Then the vent was closed and green wood introduced, creating carbon monoxide which turns the red hematite to black magnetite (Fe3O4); at this stage the temperature decreases due to incomplete combustion. In a final reoxidizing phase (at about 800–850 °C) the kiln was opened and oxygen reintroduced causing the unslipped reserved clay to go back to orange-red. In the previous phase, chemical composition of the slipped surface had been altered, so it could no longer be oxidized and remained black. The technique which is mostly known as the "iron reduction technique" was decoded with the contribution of scholars, ceramists and scientists since the mid 18th century onwards to the end of 20th century, i.e. Comte de Caylus (1752), Durand-Greville (1891), Binns and Fraser (1925), Schumann (1942), Winter (1959), Bimson (1956), Noble (1960, 1965), Hofmann (1962), Oberlies (1968), Pavicevic (1974), Aloupi (1993), Walton (2009), Walton (2014).[17]

text: Vase painting[edit]

text: The most familiar aspect of ancient Greek pottery is painted vessels of fine quality. These were not the everyday pottery used by most people but were sufficiently cheap to be accessible to a wide range of the population.

text: Few examples of ancient Greek painting have survived so modern scholars have to trace the development of ancient Greek art partly through ancient Greek vase-painting, which survives in large quantities and is also, with Ancient Greek literature, the best guide we have to the customary life and mind of the ancient Greeks.

text: Development of pottery painting[edit]

text: Bronze Age[edit]

text: Fine painting on Greek pottery goes back to the Minoan pottery and Mycenaean pottery of the Bronze Age, some later examples of which show the ambitious figurative painting that was to become highly developed and typical. After many centuries dominated by styles of geometric decoration, becoming increasingly complex, figurative elements returned in force in the 8th century. From the late 7th century to about 300 BC evolving styles of figure-led painting were at their peak of production and quality and were widely exported.

text: During the Greek Dark Age, spanning the 11th to 8th centuries BC, the prevalent early style was that of the protogeometric art, predominantly utilizing circular and wavy decorative patterns. This was succeeded in mainland Greece, the Aegean, Anatolia, and Italy by the style of pottery known as geometric art, which employed neat rows of geometric shapes.[18]

text: The period of Archaic Greece, beginning in the 8th century BC and lasting until the late 5th century BC, saw the birth of Orientalizing period, led largely by ancient Corinth, where the previous stick-figures of the geometric pottery become fleshed out amid motifs that replaced the geometric patterns.[9]

text: Protogeometric styles[edit]

text: Vases of the protogeometrical period (c. 1050–900 BC) represent the return of craft production after the collapse of the Mycenaean Palace culture and the ensuing Greek dark ages. It is one of the few modes of artistic expression besides jewelry in this period since the sculpture, monumental architecture and mural painting of this era are unknown to us. By 1050 BC life in the Greek peninsula seems to have become sufficiently settled to allow a marked improvement in the production of earthenware. The style is confined to the rendering of circles, triangles, wavy lines and arcs, but placed with evident consideration and notable dexterity, probably aided by compass' and multiple brushes.[19] The site of Lefkandi is one of our most important sources of ceramics from this period where a cache of grave goods has been found giving evidence of a distinctive Euboian protogeometric style which lasted into the early 8th century.[20]

text: Geometric style[edit]

text: Geometric art flourished in the 9th and 8th centuries BC. It was characterized by new motifs, breaking with the representation of the Minoan and Mycenaean periods: meanders, triangles and other geometrical decoration (hence the name of the style) as distinct from the predominantly circular figures of the previous style. However, our chronology for this new art form comes from exported wares found in datable contexts overseas.

text: With the early geometrical style (approximately 900–850 BC) one finds only abstract motifs, in what is called the "Black Dipylon" style, which is characterized by an extensive use of black varnish, with the Middle Geometrical (approx. 850–770 BC), figurative decoration makes its appearance: they are initially identical bands of animals such as horses, stags, goats, geese, etc. which alternate with the geometrical bands. In parallel, the decoration becomes complicated and becomes increasingly ornate; the painter feels reluctant to leave empty spaces and fills them with meanders or swastikas. This phase is named horror vacui (fear of the empty) and will not cease until the end of geometrical period.

text: In the middle of the century there begin to appear human figures, the best known representations of which are those of the vases found in Dipylon, one of the cemeteries of Athens. The fragments of these large funerary vases show mainly processions of chariots or warriors or of the funerary scenes: πρόθεσις / prothesis (exposure and lamentation of dead) or ἐκφορά / ekphora (transport of the coffin to the cemetery). The bodies are represented in a geometrical way except for the calves, which are rather protuberant. In the case of soldiers, a shield in form of a diabolo, called “dipylon shield” because of its characteristic drawing, covers the central part of the body. The legs and the necks of the horses, the wheels of the chariots are represented one beside the other without perspective. The hand of this painter, so called in the absence of signature, is the Dipylon Master, could be identified on several pieces, in particular monumental amphorae.[22]

text: At the end of the period there appear representations of mythology, probably at the moment when Homer codifies the traditions of Trojan cycle in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Here however the interpretation constitutes a risk for the modern observer: a confrontation between two warriors can be a Homeric duel or simple combat; a failed boat can represent the shipwreck of Odysseus or any hapless sailor.

text: Lastly, are the local schools that appear in Greece. Production of vases was largely the prerogative of Athens – it is well attested that as in the proto-geometrical period, in Corinth, Boeotia, Argos, Crete and Cyclades, the painters and potters were satisfied to follow the Attic style. From about the 8th century BC on, they created their own styles, Argos specializing in the figurative scenes, Crete remaining attached to a more strict abstraction.[23]

text: Orientalizing style[edit]

text: The orientalizing style was the product of cultural ferment in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean of the 8th and 7th centuries BC. Fostered by trade links with the city-states of Asia Minor, the artifacts of the East influenced a highly stylized yet recognizable representational art. Ivories, pottery and metalwork from the Neo-Hittite principalities of northern Syria and Phoenicia found their way to Greece, as did goods from Anatolian Urartu and Phrygia, yet there was little contact with the cultural centers of Egypt or Assyria. The new idiom developed initially in Corinth (as Proto-Corinthian) and later in Athens between 725 BC and 625 BC (as Proto-Attic).[24]

text: It was characterized by an expanded vocabulary of motifs: sphinx, griffin, lions, etc., as well as a repertory of non-mythological animals arranged in friezes across the belly of the vase. In these friezes, painters also began to apply lotuses or palmettes. Depictions of humans were relatively rare. Those that have been found are figures in silhouette with some incised detail, perhaps the origin of the incised silhouette figures of the black-figure period. There is sufficient detail on these figures to allow scholars to discern a number of different artists' hands. Geometrical features remained in the style called proto-Corinthian that embraced these orientalizing experiments, yet which coexisted with a conservative sub-geometric style.

text: The ceramics of Corinth were exported all over Greece, and their technique arrived in Athens, prompting the development of a less markedly Eastern idiom there. During this time described as Proto-Attic, the orientalizing motifs appear but the features remain not very realistic. The painters show a preference for the typical scenes of the Geometrical Period, like processions of chariots. However, they adopt the principle of line drawing to replace the silhouette. In the middle of 7th century BC, there appears the black and white style: black figures on a white zone, accompanied by polychromy to render the color of the flesh or clothing. Clay used in Athens was much more orange than that of Corinth, and so did not lend itself as easily to the representation of flesh. Attic Orientalising Painters include the Analatos Painter, the Mesogeia Painter and the Polyphemos Painter.

text: Crete, and especially the islands of the Cyclades, are characterized by their attraction to the vases known as “plastic”, i.e. those whose paunch or collar is moulded in the shape of head of an animal or a man. At Aegina, the most popular form of the plastic vase is the head of the griffin. The Melanesian amphoras, manufactured at Paros, exhibit little knowledge of Corinthian developments. They present a marked taste for the epic composition and a horror vacui, which is expressed in an abundance of swastikas and meanders.

text: Finally one can identify the last major style of the period, that of Wild Goat Style, allotted traditionally to Rhodes because of an important discovery within the necropolis of Kameiros. In fact, it is widespread over all of Asia Minor, with centers of production at Miletos and Chios. Two forms prevail oenochoes, which copied bronze models, and dishes, with or without feet. The decoration is organized in superimposed registers in which stylized animals, in particular of feral goats (from whence the name) pursue each other in friezes. Many decorative motifs (floral triangles, swastikas, etc.) fill the empty spaces.

text: Attic vase painting[edit]

text: The subject is dominated mostly by Attic vase painting. Attic production was the first to resume after the Greek Dark Age and influenced the rest of Greece, especially Boeotia, Corinth, the Cyclades (in particular Naxos) and the Ionian colonies in the east Aegean.[25] Production of vases was largely the prerogative of Athens – it is well attested that in Corinth, Boeotia, Argos, Crete and Cyclades, the painters and potters were satisfied to follow the Attic style.

text: By the end of the Archaic period the styles of black-figure pottery, red-figure pottery and the white ground technique had become fully established and would continue in use during the era of Classical Greece, from the early 5th to late 4th centuries BC. Corinth was eclipsed by Athenian trends since Athens was the progenitor of both the red-figure and white ground styles.[9]

text: Black figure[edit]

text: Black-figure is the most commonly imagined when one thinks about Greek pottery. It was a popular style in ancient Greece for many years. The black-figure period coincides approximately with the era designated by Winckelmann as the middle to late Archaic, from c. 620 to 480 BC. The technique of incising silhouetted figures with enlivening detail which we now call the black-figure method was, as we saw, a Corinthian invention of the 7th century[26] and spread from there to other city states and regions including Sparta,[27] Boeotia,[28] Euboea,[29] the east Greek islands[30] and Athens.

text: The Corinthian fabric, extensively studied by Humfry Payne[31] and Darrell Amyx,[32] can be traced though the parallel treatment of animal and human figures. The animal motifs have greater prominence on the vase and show the greatest experimentation in the early phase of Corinthian black-figure. As Corinthian artists gained in confidence in their rendering of the human figure the animal frieze declined in size relative to the human scene during the middle to late phase. By the mid-6th century BC, the quality of Corinthian ware had fallen away significantly to the extent that some Corinthian potters would disguise their pots with a red slip in imitation of superior Athenian ware.

text: At Athens researchers have found the earliest known examples of vase painters signing their work, the first being a dinos by Sophilos (illus. below, BM c. 580), this perhaps indicative of their increasing ambition as artists in producing the monumental work demanded as grave markers, as for example with Kleitias's François Vase. Many scholars consider the finest work in the style to belong Exekias and the Amasis Painter, who are noted for their feeling for composition and narrative.

text: Circa 520 BC the red-figure technique was developed and was gradually introduced in the form of the bilingual vase by the Andokides Painter, Oltos and Psiax.[33] Red-figure quickly eclipsed black-figure, yet in the unique form of the Panathanaic Amphora, black-figure continued to be utilised well into the 4th century BC.

text: Red figure[edit]

text: The innovation of the red-figure technique was an Athenian invention of the late 6th century. It was quite the opposite of black-figure which had a red background. The ability to render detail by direct painting rather than incision offered new expressive possibilities to artists such as three-quarter profiles, greater anatomical detail and the representation of perspective.

text: The first generation of red-figure painters worked in both red- and black-figure as well as other methods including Six's technique and white-ground; the latter was developed at the same time as red-figure. However, within twenty years, experimentation had given way to specialization as seen in the vases of the Pioneer Group, whose figural work was exclusively in red-figure, though they retained the use of black-figure for some early floral ornamentation. The shared values and goals of The Pioneers such as Euphronios and Euthymides signal that they were something approaching a self-conscious movement, though they left behind no testament other than their own work. John Boardman said of the research on their work that "the reconstruction of their careers, common purpose, even rivalries, can be taken as an archaeological triumph"[34]

text: The next generation of late Archaic vase painters (c. 500 to 480 BC) brought an increasing naturalism to the style as seen in the gradual change of the profile eye. This phase also sees the specialization of painters into pot and cup painters, with the Berlin and Kleophrades Painters notable in the former category and Douris and Onesimos in the latter.

text: By the early to high classical era of red-figure painting (c. 480–425 BC), a number of distinct schools had evolved. The mannerists associated with the workshop of Myson and exemplified by the Pan Painter hold to the archaic features of stiff drapery and awkward poses and combine that with exaggerated gestures. By contrast, the school of the Berlin Painter in the form of the Achilles Painter and his peers (who may have been the Berlin Painter’s pupils) favoured a naturalistic pose usually of a single figure against a solid black background or of restrained white-ground lekythoi. Polygnotos and the Kleophon Painter can be included in the school of the Niobid Painter, as their work indicates something of the influence of the Parthenon sculptures both in theme (e.g., Polygnotos’s centauromachy, Brussels, Musées Royaux A. & Hist., A 134) and in feeling for composition.

text: Toward the end of the century, the "Rich" style of Attic sculpture as seen in the Nike Balustrade is reflected in contemporary vase painting with an ever-greater attention to incidental detail, such as hair and jewellery. The Meidias Painter is usually most closely identified with this style.

text: Vase production in Athens stopped around 330–320 BC possibly due to Alexander the Great's control of the city, and had been in slow decline over the 4th century along with the political fortunes of Athens itself. However, vase production continued in the 4th and 3rd centuries in the Greek colonies of southern Italy where five regional styles may be distinguished. These are the Apulian, Lucanian, Sicilian, Campanian and Paestan. Red-figure work flourished there with the distinctive addition of polychromatic painting and in the case of the Black Sea colony of Panticapeum the gilded work of the Kerch Style. Several noteworthy artists' work comes down to us including the Darius Painter and the Underworld Painter, both active in the late 4th century, whose crowded polychromatic scenes often essay a complexity of emotion not attempted by earlier painters. Their work represents a late mannerist phase to the achievement of Greek vase painting.

text: White ground technique[edit]

text: The white-ground technique was developed at the end of the 6th century BC. Unlike the better-known black-figure and red-figure techniques, its coloration was not achieved through the application and firing of slips but through the use of paints and gilding on a surface of white clay. It allowed for a higher level of polychromy than the other techniques, although the vases end up less visually striking. The technique gained great importance during the 5th and 4th centuries, especially in the form of small lekythoi that became typical grave offerings. Important representatives include its inventor, the Achilles Painter, as well as Psiax, the Pistoxenos Painter, and the Thanatos Painter.

text: Relief and plastic vases[edit]

text: Relief and plastic vases became particularly popular in the 4th century BC and continued being manufactured in the Hellenistic period. They were inspired by the so-called "rich style" developed mainly in Attica after 420 BC. The main features were the multi-figured compositions with use of added colours (pink/reddish, blue, green, gold)and an emphasis on female mythological figures. Theatre and performing constituted yet one more source of inspiration.

text: Delphi Archaeological Museum has some particularly good examples of this style, including a vase with Aphrodite and Eros. The base is round, cylindrical, and its handle vertical, with bands, covered with black colour. The female figure (Aphrodite) is depicted seated, wearing an himation. Next to her stands a male figure, naked and winged. Both figures wear wreaths made of leaves and their hair preserve traces of golden paint. The features of their faces are stylized. The vase has a white ground and maintains in several parts the traces of bluish, greenish and reddish paint. It dates to the 4th century BC.

text: In the same room is kept a small lekythos with a plastic decoration, depicting a winged dancer. The figure wears a Persian head cover and an oriental dress, indicating that already in that period oriental dancers, possibly slaves, had become quite fashionable. The figure is also covered with a white colour. The total height of the vase is 18 centimeters and it dates to the 4th century BC.

text: Hellenistic period[edit]

text: The Hellenistic period, ushered in by the conquests of Alexander the Great, saw the virtual disappearance of black and red-figure pottery yet also the emergence of new styles such as West Slope Ware in the east, the Centuripe Ware in Sicily, and the Gnathia vases to the west.[35] Outside of mainland Greece other regional Greek traditions developed, such as those in Magna Graecia with the various styles in South Italy, including Apulian, Lucanian, Paestan, Campanian, and Sicilian.[9]

text: Inscriptions[edit]

text: Inscriptions on Greek pottery are of two kinds; the incised (the earliest of which are contemporary with the beginnings of the Greek alphabet in the 8th century BC), and the painted, which only begin to appear a century later. Both forms are relatively common on painted vases until the Hellenistic period when the practice of inscribing pots seems to die out. They are by far most frequently found on Attic pottery.

text: A number of sub-classes of inscription can be distinguished. Potters and painters occasionally signed their works with epoiesen and egraphsen respectively. Trademarks are found from the start of the 6th century on Corinthian pieces; these may have belonged to an exporting merchant rather than the pottery workfield and this remains a matter of conjecture.) Patrons' names are also sometimes recorded, as are the names of characters and objects depicted. At times we may find a snatch of dialogue to accompany a scene, as in ‘Dysniketos’s horse has won’, announces a herald on a Panathenaic amphora (BM, B 144). More puzzling, however, are the kalos and kalee inscriptions, which might have formed part of courtship ritual in Athenian high society, yet are found on a wide variety of vases not necessarily associated with a social setting. Finally there are abecedaria and nonsense inscriptions, though these are largely confined to black-figure pots.[36]

text: Figurines[edit]

text: Greek terracotta figurines were another important type of pottery, initially mostly religious, but increasingly representing purely decorative subjects. Earlier figurines were usually votive offerings at temples.

text: Metal[edit]

text: Several clay vases owed their inspiration to metal forms, which have not survived as much as clay due to being melted down. The alabastron's name suggests alabaster, stone.[37] The Derveni Krater, from near Thessaloniki, is a large bronze volute krater from about 320 BC, weighing 40 kilograms, and finely decorated with a 32-centimetre-tall frieze of figures in relief representing Dionysus surrounded by Ariadne and her procession of satyrs and maenads.

text: Glass[edit]

text: Glass was also used, such as in Hellenistic glass.