VERY RARE! Offered is an original Antique ~1880s Studio Portrait Photo on a stiff card featuring William R. Day (1849-1923), who was a United States Diplomat and Supreme Court Associate Justice. Day boldly signed at the lower part of the card beneath the photo in black ink. Signed photos of Day are not common!
Fully authenticated and encapsulated by PSA/DNA.
Photographer: Eug. Pirou, 5 Bard St, Paris
Card Size: 5.25" x 7.25". This Studio Portrait Photo on Card was a style of photograph which was widely used for photographic portraiture after 1870. It consisted of a thin photograph mounted on a card.
Card Condition: EX+, with minor surface wear and hand marking on verso. Excellently preserved!
Background Info: William Rufus Day (April 17, 1849 – July 9, 1923) was an American diplomat and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1903 to 1922. Prior to his service on the Supreme Court, Day served as United States Secretary of State during the administration of President William McKinley. He also served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the United States Circuit Courts for the Sixth Circuit.
William Rufus Day was born on April 17, 1849, in Ravenna, Ohio, one of the children of Emily (née Spaulding) and Judge Luther Day of the Ohio Supreme Court. His maternal grandfather Rufus P. Spalding was also a judge of the Ohio Supreme Court. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Michigan in 1870, spent a year studying law with attorney and Judge George F. Robinson, and then a year at the University of Michigan Law School. He was admitted to the bar on July 5, 1872, and settled in Canton, Ohio, where he began practicing law in partnership with William A. Lynch. For twenty-five years, Day worked as a criminal defense and corporate lawyer in the growing industrial town while participating in Republican politics.
During these years, Day became a good friend of William
McKinley. Day became McKinley's legal and political adviser during McKinley's
candidacies for the Congress, the Governorship of Ohio, and the Presidency of
the United States. After he won the Presidency, McKinley appointed Day to be
Assistant Secretary of State under Secretary of State John Sherman. Sherman was
considered to be ineffective because of declining health and failing memory,
and in 1898, President McKinley replaced Sherman with Day.
Five months later, Day vacated his cabinet position to helm
the United States Peace Commission formed to negotiate an end to the
Spanish–American War with Spain. After the Spanish–American War was declared,
Day had argued that the Spanish colonies, other than Cuba, should be returned
to Spain, contrary to McKinley's decision that the United States should take
over from Spain control of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Day,
however, negotiated peace with Spain on McKinley's harsher terms. Day was worried
the terms McKinley was insisting on would be "humiliating" to Spain,
and for that reason Spain would not agree to them. Ultimately Spain did submit
to McKinley's "painfully harsh" terms. His final diplomatic effort
was to lead the United States Peace Commission to Paris and sign the treaty
ending the war.
Day retired from the court on November 13, 1922, and briefly served as an Umpire of the Mixed Claims Commission to Adjudicate War Claims against Germany. He died on July 9, 1923.
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