a biography of the day-myra bradwell (1st woman to practice law in US)

[niyad]

Myra Bradwell
Legal Pioneer




Dates: February 12, 1831 - February 14, 1894

Occupation: lawyer, publisher, reformer, teacher

Known for: pioneer woman lawyer, first woman in U.S. to practice law, subject of Bradwell v. Illinois Supreme Court decision, author of legislation for women's rights; first woman member of the Illinois Bar Association; first woman member of the Illinois Press Association
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Myra Bradwell began to read law with her husband; no law school of the time would have admitted women. She conceived of her marriage as a partnership, and used her growing legal knowledge to help her husband, taking care of the couple's four children and household while also helping at James' law office. In 1861, James was elected as a Cook County judge.
When the Civil War began, Myra Bradwell became active in support efforts. She joined the Sanitary Commission and, with Mary Livermore, was involved in organizing a successful fund-raising fair in Chicago, to provide supplies and other support for the Commission's work. Mary Livermore and others she met in this work were active in the woman suffrage movement.
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In 1869, Bradwell took and passed with high honors the Illinois bar exam. Expecting to be admitted quietly to the bar, because Arabella Mansfield had been granted a license in Iowa (though Mansfield never actually practiced law), Bradwell was turned down. First the Illinois Supreme Court found that she was "disabled" as a married woman, since a married woman did not have separate legal existence from her husband and could not even sign legal contracts. Then, on a rehearing, the Supreme Court found that simply being a woman disqualified Bradwell.
Myra v. Bradwell Supreme Court Decision:

Myra Bradwell appealed the decision to the United States Supreme Court, on the grounds of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection provision. But in 1872, the court in Bradwell v. Illinois upheld the Illinois Supreme Court's decision to deny her admission to the bar, ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment did not require states to open the legal profession to women.

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http://womenshistory.about.com/od/laws/a/myra_bradwell.htm