Justice Joseph Mead Bailey
First Dean of Chicago College of Law
Did you know Justice Bailey, portrayed in a bronze bust seen here and in the library, founded Chicago College of Law with only 18 students in 1888?
The bust was presented at law school graduation ceremonies in June, 1899 at Steinway Music Hall, the year before Chicago College of Law and Kent College of Law merged to form Chicago-Kent.
Dean Thomas Moran thanked alumni and friends for their generous gift, then celebrated the accomplishment of Justice Bailey as the school’s founder, noting that “graduates now number upward of eighteen hundred.”
Born in New York in 1833, Justice Bailey graduated from the University of Rochester in 1854 and was admitted to practice in 1855. The following year he moved to Freeport, Illinois. Bailey was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, was later elected Circuit Judge, then later still was elected to the Illinois Supreme Court.
Bailey served as Chief Justice for several terms of the Court in 1892-93, and remained on the Court until his death in October, 1895. In memorializing Bailey, the Illinois State Bar Association noted that he was not only an able lawyer, but a gentleman of “fine literary attainments” whose school “has more law students in attendance than any other law college in the state.”
Chicago-Kent will kick off its 125th anniversary celebration at a gala on Saturday night at Union Station. The bust has been moved around over the years, but Bailey now looks at us from his stand near the library’s elevator. The bronze has grown dark over time, although Bailey’s nose still shines from the days when students rubbed it for luck before taking an exam.
Sculptor Johannes Gelert was born in Denmark in 1852, came to America in 1887, and became a U.S. citizen in 1892. Gelert was a three-time gold medal winner and is responsible for a number of notable sculptures, including a bust of Beethoven that was stolen from Lincoln Park in the 1970s, and a controversial Haymarket Memorial which celebrated the actions of police during the Haymarket riot. The statue was placed in Haymarket Square in 1889, but was later moved to a more secure location after it was defaced by vandals and targeted with bomb attacks during the Vietnam War.
Keith Ann Stiverson
Director of the Library
