George Woodward Wickersham served as U.S. attorney general from 1909 to 1913 under President William Howard Taft. Wickersham's tenure was marked by several important antitrust prosecutions and numerous settlements with major corporations over monopolistic activities. Late in life, Wickersham was named by President Herbert Hoover to conduct the first national investigation of the U.S. criminal justice system. The group, which has come to be known as the Wickersham Commission, was charged with studying the effects of prohibition on law enforcement. However, its final report went far beyond this issue and revealed troubling facts about police methods that violated the constitutional rights of suspects.

Wickersham was born on September 19, 1858 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He attended Lehigh University and then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania. Before he graduated in 1880, Wickersham had already been admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania. This was not unusual at the time, for most attorneys apprenticed...