Homer Stille Cummings served as U.S. attorney general from 1933 to 1939 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Cummings, a former mayor and Democratic Party leader, was also committed to prison reform. He is remembered for establishing the Alcatraz Island Prison in San Francisco Bay and for proposing Roosevelt's ill-fated plan to "pack" the U.S. Supreme Court with up to six new justices.

Cummings was born on April 30, 1870, in Chicago, Illinois. He received his undergraduate degree from Yale University in 1891 and his law degree from Yale in 1893. He remained in Connecticut following graduation and was admitted to the state bar the same year. Cummings entered private practice in Stamford, Connecticut, and this work formed the center of his professional life until 1933. During the years leading to his government service, Cummings became a prominent litigator. He was a member of the New York bar and was admitted to practice before...