Edmund M. Morgan, Jr., was born on November 11, 1878, in Mineral Ridge, Ohio. After graduating from Ohio public schools, he attended Harvard University. He received the Bachelor of Arts in 1902, the Master of Arts in 1903 and a Bachelor of Laws in 1905. He later completed another Masters degree at Yale (1919).

Morgan left Yale for Harvard in 1925, serving as Royall Professor of Law until he reached mandatory retirement age in 1950. During the summers, he taught at Columbia, North Carolina, Kansas, Colorado, Texas, Washington, Stanford, and Southern California. In 1936-37 and 1942-45, he was Acting Dean of the Harvard Law School. Upon his retirement, he joined the faculty of the Vanderbilt University Law School and was named Rand Professor of Law in 1951. He taught at Vanderbilt until approximately 1962.

The papers of Edmund M. Morgan, Jr., date from approximately 1906 to 1964 and document his lengthy and distinguished career as an attorney, a legal scholar, a teacher, and a public servant. The bulk of the collection dates from the 1940s and 1950s. Extensive correspondence, Morgan's own writings, and papers related to his professional activities provide insight into his scholarship and record his part in such important proceedings as the simplification of the federal rules for civil procedure and the modernization of the code of military justice. Other materials reflect his role in the development of rules for civil procedure in Puerto Rico and Israel. An extensive file of course materials documents Morgan's approach to teaching the law.