Women Lawyers History and Individual Biographies - Revision history

Hinds: /* Excerpt from Feminist Lawyers */

2012-04-26T06:22:53Z

Excerpt from Feminist Lawyers

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	As indicated in the passage above, this is less a serious disagreement than a matter of interpretation of a history whose particulars are still being uncovered. I don’t think the discussion has been much forwarded by the associated debate over whether the nineteenth century women lawyers can properly be called “feminists.” My view is that a woman who became a lawyer in the nineteenth century was directly challenging male supremacy and putting herself on the line to overcome it. That made her, by definition, a feminist even if the word did not come into general usage until early in the next century. See Introductory Note, supra: Feminism and Women’s Rights: Nomenclature. Nancy Cott defines feminism, as above. She also argues against too broad categorization, and especially against the division of women into “social feminists” and other movement women interested only in their own rights. Nancy Cott, ''What's in a Name? The Limits of 'Social Feminism': Or, Expanding the Vocabulary of Women's History'', 76 J. AM. HIST. 809 (1989).		As indicated in the passage above, this is less a serious disagreement than a matter of interpretation of a history whose particulars are still being uncovered. I don’t think the discussion has been much forwarded by the associated debate over whether the nineteenth century women lawyers can properly be called “feminists.” My view is that a woman who became a lawyer in the nineteenth century was directly challenging male supremacy and putting herself on the line to overcome it. That made her, by definition, a feminist even if the word did not come into general usage until early in the next century. See Introductory Note, supra: Feminism and Women’s Rights: Nomenclature. Nancy Cott defines feminism, as above. She also argues against too broad categorization, and especially against the division of women into “social feminists” and other movement women interested only in their own rights. Nancy Cott, ''What's in a Name? The Limits of 'Social Feminism': Or, Expanding the Vocabulary of Women's History'', 76 J. AM. HIST. 809 (1989).

-	For additional information regarding the connection between women lawyers and the women's rights movement, see discussion under ''[http://wlh-wiki.law.stanford.edu/index.php/Women’s_History#.E2.80.9CFeminism.E2.80.9D_and_Women.E2.80.99s_Rights:_Nomenclature Women's History: Feminism]''	+	For additional information regarding the connection between women lawyers and the women's rights movement, see discussion under ''[http://wlh-wiki.law.stanford.edu/index.php/Women’s_History#.E2.80.9CFeminism.E2.80.9D_and_Women.E2.80.99s_Rights:_Nomenclature Women's History: 'Feminism' and Women's Rights: Nomenclature]''

	==Individual Women's Biographies==		==Individual Women's Biographies==

Hinds: /* Women Lawyers and the Women's Rights Movement */

2012-04-26T06:21:45Z

Women Lawyers and the Women's Rights Movement

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	As indicated in the passage above, this is less a serious disagreement than a matter of interpretation of a history whose particulars are still being uncovered. I don’t think the discussion has been much forwarded by the associated debate over whether the nineteenth century women lawyers can properly be called “feminists.” My view is that a woman who became a lawyer in the nineteenth century was directly challenging male supremacy and putting herself on the line to overcome it. That made her, by definition, a feminist even if the word did not come into general usage until early in the next century. See Introductory Note, supra: Feminism and Women’s Rights: Nomenclature. Nancy Cott defines feminism, as above. She also argues against too broad categorization, and especially against the division of women into “social feminists” and other movement women interested only in their own rights. Nancy Cott, ''What's in a Name? The Limits of 'Social Feminism': Or, Expanding the Vocabulary of Women's History'', 76 J. AM. HIST. 809 (1989).		As indicated in the passage above, this is less a serious disagreement than a matter of interpretation of a history whose particulars are still being uncovered. I don’t think the discussion has been much forwarded by the associated debate over whether the nineteenth century women lawyers can properly be called “feminists.” My view is that a woman who became a lawyer in the nineteenth century was directly challenging male supremacy and putting herself on the line to overcome it. That made her, by definition, a feminist even if the word did not come into general usage until early in the next century. See Introductory Note, supra: Feminism and Women’s Rights: Nomenclature. Nancy Cott defines feminism, as above. She also argues against too broad categorization, and especially against the division of women into “social feminists” and other movement women interested only in their own rights. Nancy Cott, ''What's in a Name? The Limits of 'Social Feminism': Or, Expanding the Vocabulary of Women's History'', 76 J. AM. HIST. 809 (1989).
		+
		+	For additional information regarding the connection between women lawyers and the women's rights movement, see discussion under ''[http://wlh-wiki.law.stanford.edu/index.php/Women’s_History#.E2.80.9CFeminism.E2.80.9D_and_Women.E2.80.99s_Rights:_Nomenclature Women's History: Feminism]''

	==Individual Women's Biographies==		==Individual Women's Biographies==

Hinds: /* Individual Women's Biographies */

2012-04-26T06:06:05Z

Individual Women's Biographies

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	===Belva Lockwood===		===Belva Lockwood===
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		+	For more information, see ''[http://wlh.law.stanford.edu/biography_search/biopage/?woman_lawyer_id=10580 Belva Lockwood]'' at the Women's Legal History website.

	Jill Norgen, BELVA LOCKWOOD: THE WOMAN WHO WOULD BE PRESIDENT (2007) is a definitive work. It relates Lockwood’s effort to join the Court of Claims where she was refused admission, because “immemorial usages… forbid such a far-reaching change.” ''In re Belva A. Lockwood'' (Ct. of Cl. May 11, 1874), reprinted in 21 CENTRAL L.J. 254 (1874). Next she went to the United States Supreme Court, thinking she would become a member of that Bar, and then bring an original action against the Court of Claims, but her petition was denied without opinion. Belva Lockwood, ''My Efforts to Become a Lawyer'', LIPPINCOTT’S MONTHLY MAG. (Feb. 1888), reprinted in 1 WOMEN IN AMERICAN LAW 259 (Marlene Stein Wortman ed., 1985). Finally she obtained passage of a bill making women eligible to join the bar of all federal courts. Act of Feb. 15, 1879, ch. 81, 20 Stat. 292. The main proponent of the bill was the pro-suffrage Senator from California, Aaron Sargent, whose wife, Ellen Clark Sargent, was an early suffrage leader in the state. 3 HWS, 108-10, at n.6. Lockwood became the first woman to take advantage of the bill and joined the Supreme Court Bar. Clara Foltz interacted with Lockwood in 1884 when Lockwood ran for President (told in Chapter Two), in 1890 when they both attended the Woman’s National Liberal Union Convention (told in Chapters Six and Seven), and in 1893 at the World’s Fair (told in Chapter Five).		Jill Norgen, BELVA LOCKWOOD: THE WOMAN WHO WOULD BE PRESIDENT (2007) is a definitive work. It relates Lockwood’s effort to join the Court of Claims where she was refused admission, because “immemorial usages… forbid such a far-reaching change.” ''In re Belva A. Lockwood'' (Ct. of Cl. May 11, 1874), reprinted in 21 CENTRAL L.J. 254 (1874). Next she went to the United States Supreme Court, thinking she would become a member of that Bar, and then bring an original action against the Court of Claims, but her petition was denied without opinion. Belva Lockwood, ''My Efforts to Become a Lawyer'', LIPPINCOTT’S MONTHLY MAG. (Feb. 1888), reprinted in 1 WOMEN IN AMERICAN LAW 259 (Marlene Stein Wortman ed., 1985). Finally she obtained passage of a bill making women eligible to join the bar of all federal courts. Act of Feb. 15, 1879, ch. 81, 20 Stat. 292. The main proponent of the bill was the pro-suffrage Senator from California, Aaron Sargent, whose wife, Ellen Clark Sargent, was an early suffrage leader in the state. 3 HWS, 108-10, at n.6. Lockwood became the first woman to take advantage of the bill and joined the Supreme Court Bar. Clara Foltz interacted with Lockwood in 1884 when Lockwood ran for President (told in Chapter Two), in 1890 when they both attended the Woman’s National Liberal Union Convention (told in Chapters Six and Seven), and in 1893 at the World’s Fair (told in Chapter Five).
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	===Arabella (Belle) Mansfield===		===Arabella (Belle) Mansfield===
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		+	For more information, see ''[http://wlh.law.stanford.edu/biography_search/biopage/?woman_lawyer_id=10606 Arabella (Belle) Mansfield]'' at the Women's Legal History website.

	Mansfield was from Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, the town where Foltz had her abbreviated girlhood and only formal schooling. Teresa Federer, ''Belle A. Mansfield: Opening the Way for Others'', at WLH Website, is an excellent paper setting the scene in Mt. Pleasant, and mapping out Mansfield’s effort to become a lawyer. Though Margaret Brent in Maryland is sometimes said to be the first woman lawyer, Mansfield was the first through regular study and bar admission. Federer describes at 27-28, her arguments for admission in the face of a statute that restricted bar membership to white males. In his opinion, the District Judge said that whenever any “restrictive words did a manifest injustice to individuals, the court was justified in construing statutes as extending to others not expressly included in them.” Transcript of Record, Book H at 54-55 (held in District Court in Henry County, Iowa, during the June Term, 2nd Day, Tuesday, June 15, 1869). ''Jordan Bradwell'' has an excellent section on Mansfield. Ada M. Bittenbender, ''Woman in Law'', ''in'' WOMAN’S WORK IN AMERICA (Annie Nathan Meyer ed., 1891) has story of Mansfield’s acceptance in face of express words of the statute. She quotes Mansfield as saying that an expansive reading should be given the phrase “white male persons” whenever injustice would result. ''See also'', INEZ HAYES IRWIN, ANGELS AND AMAZONS: A HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 172 (1933).		Mansfield was from Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, the town where Foltz had her abbreviated girlhood and only formal schooling. Teresa Federer, ''Belle A. Mansfield: Opening the Way for Others'', at WLH Website, is an excellent paper setting the scene in Mt. Pleasant, and mapping out Mansfield’s effort to become a lawyer. Though Margaret Brent in Maryland is sometimes said to be the first woman lawyer, Mansfield was the first through regular study and bar admission. Federer describes at 27-28, her arguments for admission in the face of a statute that restricted bar membership to white males. In his opinion, the District Judge said that whenever any “restrictive words did a manifest injustice to individuals, the court was justified in construing statutes as extending to others not expressly included in them.” Transcript of Record, Book H at 54-55 (held in District Court in Henry County, Iowa, during the June Term, 2nd Day, Tuesday, June 15, 1869). ''Jordan Bradwell'' has an excellent section on Mansfield. Ada M. Bittenbender, ''Woman in Law'', ''in'' WOMAN’S WORK IN AMERICA (Annie Nathan Meyer ed., 1891) has story of Mansfield’s acceptance in face of express words of the statute. She quotes Mansfield as saying that an expansive reading should be given the phrase “white male persons” whenever injustice would result. ''See also'', INEZ HAYES IRWIN, ANGELS AND AMAZONS: A HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 172 (1933).
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	===Marilla Ricker===		===Marilla Ricker===
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		+	For more information, see ''[http://wlh.law.stanford.edu/biography_search/biopage/?woman_lawyer_id=10824 Marilla Ricker]'' at the Women's Legal History website.

	Marilla Ricker was an apprentice to Belva Lockwood in Washington D.C. and joined the Bar there in 1882. She went on to be a U.S. Commissioner and Examiner in Chancery, a quasi judicial position. NORGREN, BELVA LOCKWOOD, at 91-92. Ricker also became in 1884 the first woman lawyer in New Hampshire where she practiced part of the year. Ricker was also the first woman Notary Public in the Federal system. On her efforts to achieve this position, see Dorothy Thomas, 3 NOTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN (Marilla Ricker entry); Mrs. Marilla Ricker in A WOMAN OF THE CENTURY; Marilla M. Ricker, 1 LAW STUDENT’S HELPER 304 (1893), available at WLH Website; ''Lee Ann Richey, Reading Between the Lines: Marilla Ricker in the Struggle for Women's Rights'' (2002), at WLH Website; WOMEN WITHOUT SUPERSTITION: NO GODS—NO MASTERS; THE COLLECTED WRITING OF WOMEN FREETHINKERS OF THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES (Annie Laurie Gaylor ed., 1997) (Ricker entry). This is the first book collecting the writings of women activists who were also leaders in free thought. Excellent short biographies precede the selected writings of fifty women, including famous ones like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Sanger, and less well known ones today like Matilda Gage and Voltairine de Cleyre, both of whom were at the Woman’s National Liberal Union convention in 1890, which Foltz also attended. See Chapter Six. Ricker is the only lawyer in the book.		Marilla Ricker was an apprentice to Belva Lockwood in Washington D.C. and joined the Bar there in 1882. She went on to be a U.S. Commissioner and Examiner in Chancery, a quasi judicial position. NORGREN, BELVA LOCKWOOD, at 91-92. Ricker also became in 1884 the first woman lawyer in New Hampshire where she practiced part of the year. Ricker was also the first woman Notary Public in the Federal system. On her efforts to achieve this position, see Dorothy Thomas, 3 NOTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN (Marilla Ricker entry); Mrs. Marilla Ricker in A WOMAN OF THE CENTURY; Marilla M. Ricker, 1 LAW STUDENT’S HELPER 304 (1893), available at WLH Website; ''Lee Ann Richey, Reading Between the Lines: Marilla Ricker in the Struggle for Women's Rights'' (2002), at WLH Website; WOMEN WITHOUT SUPERSTITION: NO GODS—NO MASTERS; THE COLLECTED WRITING OF WOMEN FREETHINKERS OF THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES (Annie Laurie Gaylor ed., 1997) (Ricker entry). This is the first book collecting the writings of women activists who were also leaders in free thought. Excellent short biographies precede the selected writings of fifty women, including famous ones like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Sanger, and less well known ones today like Matilda Gage and Voltairine de Cleyre, both of whom were at the Woman’s National Liberal Union convention in 1890, which Foltz also attended. See Chapter Six. Ricker is the only lawyer in the book.
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	===Lelia Robinson===		===Lelia Robinson===
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		+	For more information, see ''[http://wlh.law.stanford.edu/biography_search/biopage/?woman_lawyer_id=10833 Lelia Robinson]'' at the Women's Legal History website.

	Lelia Robinson was the first woman lawyer in Massachusetts and the first to graduate from Boston University Law School, finishing fourth in her class. When she was turned down by the trial court for admission to the Bar, Robinson took her own case to a higher court, arguing that the Supreme Court in Bradwell had left it to each state to decide the qualifications of its lawyers. The Court refused her admission, suggesting that women’s bar admission would lead inexorably to suffrage. ''Lelia J. Robinson’s Case'', 131 Mass. 376 (1881) (discussed in Drachman, Sisters-in-Law, at 27-37). ''See'' Douglas Lamar Jones, ''Lelia J. Robinson’s Case and the Entry of Women into the Legal Profession in Massachusetts'', ''in'' THE HISTORY OF THE LAW IN MASSACHUSETTS: THE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT, 1692-1992, at 241-74 (Russell K. Osgood ed., 1992). Robinson’s letters to a correspondence club of women lawyers, the Equity Club, describing her early practice and her time in Washington Territory are both interesting and lively. Drachman, ''Women Lawyers'', at 63-67 (1887 letter on her early practice) 117-27 (western experience, biography with other sources at 257-62). Robinson published an account of her experience in ''Women Jurors'', 1 CHI. L. TIMES 22, a journal edited by a fellow woman lawyer, Catherine Waite of Chicago.		Lelia Robinson was the first woman lawyer in Massachusetts and the first to graduate from Boston University Law School, finishing fourth in her class. When she was turned down by the trial court for admission to the Bar, Robinson took her own case to a higher court, arguing that the Supreme Court in Bradwell had left it to each state to decide the qualifications of its lawyers. The Court refused her admission, suggesting that women’s bar admission would lead inexorably to suffrage. ''Lelia J. Robinson’s Case'', 131 Mass. 376 (1881) (discussed in Drachman, Sisters-in-Law, at 27-37). ''See'' Douglas Lamar Jones, ''Lelia J. Robinson’s Case and the Entry of Women into the Legal Profession in Massachusetts'', ''in'' THE HISTORY OF THE LAW IN MASSACHUSETTS: THE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT, 1692-1992, at 241-74 (Russell K. Osgood ed., 1992). Robinson’s letters to a correspondence club of women lawyers, the Equity Club, describing her early practice and her time in Washington Territory are both interesting and lively. Drachman, ''Women Lawyers'', at 63-67 (1887 letter on her early practice) 117-27 (western experience, biography with other sources at 257-62). Robinson published an account of her experience in ''Women Jurors'', 1 CHI. L. TIMES 22, a journal edited by a fellow woman lawyer, Catherine Waite of Chicago.

Hinds: /* Mary Greene */

2012-04-26T06:03:02Z

Mary Greene

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	===Mary Greene===		===Mary Greene===
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		+	For more information, see ''[http://wlh.law.stanford.edu/biography_search/biopage/?woman_lawyer_id=10348 Mary Greene]'' at the Women's Legal History website.

	Mary Greene was unusual among the early women lawyers in her dedication to scholarly writing, lecturing and teaching rather than to active practice. This may have been due in part to her rather frail health.		Mary Greene was unusual among the early women lawyers in her dedication to scholarly writing, lecturing and teaching rather than to active practice. This may have been due in part to her rather frail health.

Hinds: /* Lavinia Goodell */

2012-04-26T06:02:05Z

Lavinia Goodell

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	===Lavinia Goodell===		===Lavinia Goodell===
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		+	For more information, see ''[http://wlh.law.stanford.edu/biography_search/biopage/?woman_lawyer_id=10332 Lavinia Goodell]'' at the Women's Legal History website.

	For more information, see Babcock, ''First Woman'', at nn.161-64; Babcock, ''Women Defenders in the West''; Babcock, ''Feminist Lawyer''s (all Babcock articles are available at WLH Website); ''see also'', MORELLO, INVISIBLE BAR, at 22-27; Catherine B. Cleary, ''Lavinia Goodell: First Woman Lawyer in Wisconsin'', 74 WISC. MAG. HIST. 243 (1991) is the best basic source, using many of Goodell’s papers. ''Jordan, Bradwell'' also has a good section on Goodell. Three excellent student papers are on the WLH Website with many additional sources.		For more information, see Babcock, ''First Woman'', at nn.161-64; Babcock, ''Women Defenders in the West''; Babcock, ''Feminist Lawyer''s (all Babcock articles are available at WLH Website); ''see also'', MORELLO, INVISIBLE BAR, at 22-27; Catherine B. Cleary, ''Lavinia Goodell: First Woman Lawyer in Wisconsin'', 74 WISC. MAG. HIST. 243 (1991) is the best basic source, using many of Goodell’s papers. ''Jordan, Bradwell'' also has a good section on Goodell. Three excellent student papers are on the WLH Website with many additional sources.

Hinds: /* Myra Bradwell */

2012-04-26T06:01:01Z

Myra Bradwell

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	===Myra Bradwell===		===Myra Bradwell===
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		+	For more information, see ''[http://wlh.law.stanford.edu/biography_search/biopage/?woman_lawyer_id=10108 Myra Bradwell]'' at the Women's Legal History website.

	For more information, see Babcock, ''First Woman'', at nn.157-160; JANE M. FRIEDMAN, AMERICA'S FIRST WOMAN LAWYER: THE BIOGRAPHY OF MYRA BRADWELL (1993); Nancy T Gilliam, ''A Professional Pioneer: Myra Bradwell's Fight to Practice Law'', 5 L. & HIST. REV. 105 (1987); Dorothy Thomas, NOTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN (Bradwell entry); Jeanine Becker, ''Myra Colby Bradwell: Sisterhood, Strategy & Family'', (1997); E. Rae Woods, ''Myra Colby Bradwell: “A Living Example”'', (2006) at WLH website.		For more information, see Babcock, ''First Woman'', at nn.157-160; JANE M. FRIEDMAN, AMERICA'S FIRST WOMAN LAWYER: THE BIOGRAPHY OF MYRA BRADWELL (1993); Nancy T Gilliam, ''A Professional Pioneer: Myra Bradwell's Fight to Practice Law'', 5 L. & HIST. REV. 105 (1987); Dorothy Thomas, NOTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN (Bradwell entry); Jeanine Becker, ''Myra Colby Bradwell: Sisterhood, Strategy & Family'', (1997); E. Rae Woods, ''Myra Colby Bradwell: “A Living Example”'', (2006) at WLH website.

Admin: /* Myra Bradwell */

2012-04-13T18:14:57Z

Myra Bradwell

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	==Individual Women's Biographies==		==Individual Women's Biographies==

-	===~~<a href="http://www.wlh.law.stanford.edu">~~Myra Bradwell~~</a>~~===	+	===Myra Bradwell===
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Admin: /* Myra Bradwell */

2012-04-13T18:13:05Z

Myra Bradwell

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	==Individual Women's Biographies==		==Individual Women's Biographies==

-	===Myra Bradwell===	+	===<a href="http://www.wlh.law.stanford.edu">Myra Bradwell</a>===
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Jalss: /* Myra Bradwell */

2010-12-28T17:08:42Z

Myra Bradwell

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-	For more information, see Babcock, ''First Woman'', at nn.~~l57~~-160; JANE M. FRIEDMAN, AMERICA'S FIRST WOMAN LAWYER: THE BIOGRAPHY OF MYRA BRADWELL (1993); Nancy T Gilliam, ''A Professional Pioneer: Myra Bradwell's Fight to Practice Law'', 5 L. & HIST. REV. 105 (1987); Dorothy Thomas, NOTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN (Bradwell entry); Jeanine Becker, ''Myra Colby Bradwell: Sisterhood, Strategy & Family'', (1997); E. Rae Woods, ''Myra Colby Bradwell: “A Living Example”'', (2006) at WLH website.	+	For more information, see Babcock, ''First Woman'', at nn.157-160; JANE M. FRIEDMAN, AMERICA'S FIRST WOMAN LAWYER: THE BIOGRAPHY OF MYRA BRADWELL (1993); Nancy T Gilliam, ''A Professional Pioneer: Myra Bradwell's Fight to Practice Law'', 5 L. & HIST. REV. 105 (1987); Dorothy Thomas, NOTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN (Bradwell entry); Jeanine Becker, ''Myra Colby Bradwell: Sisterhood, Strategy & Family'', (1997); E. Rae Woods, ''Myra Colby Bradwell: “A Living Example”'', (2006) at WLH website.

	Bradwell edited the Chicago Legal News, the most important legal publication west of the Mississippi. In many of the issues, she covered the activities of women lawyers. Bradwell and Foltz met on several occasions and Bradwell took credit for Foltz’s invitation to speak at the Congress of Jurisprudence and Law Reform. See Chapter Six and Note: Women at the World’s Fair. Bradwell herself was responsible for many of the gains of women in Illinois. For instance, she and others, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, lobbied through a bill giving married women the right to their own earnings in 1869. They also secured passage of legislation assuring women an interest in their husbands' estates. School board suffrage for women and a bill allowing women to be notaries public were also among her accomplishments. Chi. Legal News, Feb. 24, 1894. Ellen Carol DuBois has an excellent essay covering the Bradwell case and the other efforts of suffragists to use the post-war Constitutional Amendments to establish their own legal rights in ''Taking the Law into Our Own Hands, Bradwell, Minor and Suffrage Militance in the 1870s'', WOMAN SUFFRAGE & WOMEN’S RIGHTS, 114 (1998).		Bradwell edited the Chicago Legal News, the most important legal publication west of the Mississippi. In many of the issues, she covered the activities of women lawyers. Bradwell and Foltz met on several occasions and Bradwell took credit for Foltz’s invitation to speak at the Congress of Jurisprudence and Law Reform. See Chapter Six and Note: Women at the World’s Fair. Bradwell herself was responsible for many of the gains of women in Illinois. For instance, she and others, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, lobbied through a bill giving married women the right to their own earnings in 1869. They also secured passage of legislation assuring women an interest in their husbands' estates. School board suffrage for women and a bill allowing women to be notaries public were also among her accomplishments. Chi. Legal News, Feb. 24, 1894. Ellen Carol DuBois has an excellent essay covering the Bradwell case and the other efforts of suffragists to use the post-war Constitutional Amendments to establish their own legal rights in ''Taking the Law into Our Own Hands, Bradwell, Minor and Suffrage Militance in the 1870s'', WOMAN SUFFRAGE & WOMEN’S RIGHTS, 114 (1998).

Jalss: /* Myra Bradwell */

2010-12-28T17:08:11Z

Myra Bradwell

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	Bradwell’s Supreme Court case in which her counsel argued that the newly minted privileges and immunities clause of the 14th Amendment (passed in 1868, the year before she sued) prevented state interference with the individual’s right to pursue any vocation or calling is a landmark in women’s legal history. ''In re Bradwell'', 55 Ill. 535 (1869), the lower court opinion, focused on the disabilities of marriage which forbid women to make or be held to contracts and generally to conduct business on their own. Drachman, at 16-18 (describing Bradwell’s case in the lower and Supreme Court). Gwen Hoerr Jordan, ''“Horror of a Woman:” Myra Bradwell, the 14th Amendment and the Gendered Origins of Sociological Jurisprudence'', 42 Akron L.Rev. 1201 (2009) [hereafter ''Jordan, Bradwell''] has an impressive, freshly written account of Bradwell’s biography and her legal arguments in her case. Of special interest is Jordan’s analysis of Bradwell’s arguments on the state level, where she relied on equal protection as well as the privileges and immunities clause which became the center of the SCOTUS argument. ''See also'', ''Jordan, Bradwell'' for the far-ranging arguments that she made in the lower Illinois courts.		Bradwell’s Supreme Court case in which her counsel argued that the newly minted privileges and immunities clause of the 14th Amendment (passed in 1868, the year before she sued) prevented state interference with the individual’s right to pursue any vocation or calling is a landmark in women’s legal history. ''In re Bradwell'', 55 Ill. 535 (1869), the lower court opinion, focused on the disabilities of marriage which forbid women to make or be held to contracts and generally to conduct business on their own. Drachman, at 16-18 (describing Bradwell’s case in the lower and Supreme Court). Gwen Hoerr Jordan, ''“Horror of a Woman:” Myra Bradwell, the 14th Amendment and the Gendered Origins of Sociological Jurisprudence'', 42 Akron L.Rev. 1201 (2009) [hereafter ''Jordan, Bradwell''] has an impressive, freshly written account of Bradwell’s biography and her legal arguments in her case. Of special interest is Jordan’s analysis of Bradwell’s arguments on the state level, where she relied on equal protection as well as the privileges and immunities clause which became the center of the SCOTUS argument. ''See also'', ''Jordan, Bradwell'' for the far-ranging arguments that she made in the lower Illinois courts.

-	The U.S. Supreme Court held that the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment did not include a federal right to pursue a vocation. ''Bradwell v. Illinois'', 83 U.S. 130 (1873). The rejection of a federal right meant that women must battle state-by-state (and territory-by-territory) to be lawyers. The story of women at the Bar really starts with Bradwell; because of her case, there are hundreds maybe thousands, of vivid particular stories of women wanting to be lawyers, with their displays of nerve and courage, personality and character, idealism and eccentricity. See Babcock, ''Feminist Lawyers,'' at WLH Website. Other possible starting places for the story of women lawyers are 1640 when Margaret Brent was a magistrate and trial lawyer in Maryland and 1869, the year Arabella Mansfield was admitted to the Iowa Bar. See MORELLO, THE INVISIBLE BAR, at 4-14, for a discussion of contenders for possible “first woman lawyer.”	+	The U.S. Supreme Court held that the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment did not include a federal right to pursue a vocation. ''Bradwell v. Illinois'', 83 U.S. 130 (1873). The rejection of a federal right meant that women must battle state-by-state (and territory-by-territory) to be lawyers. The story of women at the Bar really starts with Bradwell; because of her case, there are hundreds maybe thousands, of vivid particular stories of women wanting to be lawyers, with their displays of nerve and courage, personality and character, idealism and eccentricity. ''See'' Babcock, ''Feminist Lawyers,'' at WLH Website. Other possible starting places for the story of women lawyers are 1640 when Margaret Brent was a magistrate and trial lawyer in Maryland and 1869, the year Arabella Mansfield was admitted to the Iowa Bar. See MORELLO, THE INVISIBLE BAR, at 4-14, for a discussion of contenders for possible “first woman lawyer.”

	Though the Supreme Court’s opinion in Bradwell was dry and short, and followed the same reasoning as the Slaughterhouse cases, 77 U.S. 273 (1869) denying the federal suit of butchers who protested a state monopoly, its effect on the women’s rights movement went beyond the right of women to be lawyers. Justice Bradley’s concurring opinion expressing the concern that “the harmony” of “the family institution” was threatened by “the idea of a woman adopting a distinct and independent career” was the main popular message of the Supreme Court case, cited against women who wished to do any work outside of the home.		Though the Supreme Court’s opinion in Bradwell was dry and short, and followed the same reasoning as the Slaughterhouse cases, 77 U.S. 273 (1869) denying the federal suit of butchers who protested a state monopoly, its effect on the women’s rights movement went beyond the right of women to be lawyers. Justice Bradley’s concurring opinion expressing the concern that “the harmony” of “the family institution” was threatened by “the idea of a woman adopting a distinct and independent career” was the main popular message of the Supreme Court case, cited against women who wished to do any work outside of the home.