Law leather was the name for a specific kind and grade of
sheepskin leather used for
bookbinding
Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book of codex format from an ordered stack of ''signatures'', sheets of paper folded together into sections that are bound, along one edge, with a thick needle and strong thread. Cheaper, b ...
. As its name indicates, it was used for binding
statute
A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs the legal entities of a city, state, or country by way of consent. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. Statutes are rules made by le ...
books and other official
documents. Many state statutes specified "law leather" bindings. An 1871
Ohio state resolution, for example, provided that
:WHEREAS, The first volume of the annual report of the commissioner of railroads and telegraphs, for 1870, now being printed, contains the constitutional provisions, general laws and special charters governing the railroad companies of Ohio, together with much other valuable information worthy of careful preservation ; and,
:WHEREAS, Six hundred copies of the second volume of said report, containing railroad and telegraph statistics, recommendations of the commissioner, etc., are now provided by law to be bound in cloth, and leather binding is no more expensive, and is much more durable than said cloth binding ; therefore,
:Resolved by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, That the supervisor of public printing, be authorized to have the full edition of said first volume bound in good law leather and suitably lettered on the back.
In the 1880s, the
Philadelphia publisher Blakiston offered many of its medical text in a choice of "
cloth", "medical sheep", and "law leather" bindings.
Advertisement
in Allingham, William (1882), ''Fistula, Hemorrhoids, Painful Ulcer, Stricture, Prolapsus and Other Diseases of the Rectum,'', p. 43: ad for Woodman and Tidy's ''Medical Jurisprudence'' specifies "Price, Cloth, $7.50; Medical Sheep, $8.50; Law Leather, $8.50." These prices are roughly equivalent to $160, $180, and $180 respectively in year-2007 dollars.
References
{{Leather
Leather
Leathermaking
Bookbinding