Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 02.pdf/42

 Women Lawyers in the United States. her name was omitted from the list furnished me by the Dean. She practised three years in San Francisco with good success, but she proved to be specially adapted to plat form work, and gradually drifted out of law and into politics, as so many lawyers of the other sex do. She was an active advocate and speaker in the various Greenback cam paigns, as delegate to conventions and in

regular canvassing tours. This party in California nominated her in 1882 for attor ney-general of the State, and she ran far ahead of her ticket. During the past few years her time has been devoted to the cause of the Knights of Labor, and she has written a work entitled "Protective Tariff De lusion," which has been favorably criticised. Since preparing this article, a young lady called at my office and introduced herself to me as Miss Alice Par ker, of the San Fran cisco Bar. She studied there in a judge's of MARY fice, and was admitted on examination over a year ago, since which time she has devoted herself to practice, having all the business she could attend to. She is a Massachusetts woman, however, and has returned to her home in Lowell, with the intention of pursu ing her profession in this State, probably in Boston. In 1884 Mrs. Mary A. Leonard was ad mitted to the bar in Seattle, Wash., and subsequently removing to Portland, Ore., was admitted to the bar there in 1885, after a law had been passed providing for the admission of women. She practised

27

about a year, and then retired on account of ill-health. The East was slower than the West to recognize women as lawyers. The strug gles of Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood, of Wash ington, to obtain admission to the bar, are too generally known to need repetition here. Suffice it to say that she began to study law in 1870, graduated in 1873 from the Law School of the National Univer sity in Washington as it existed at that time, was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the Dis trict in 1873, to the United States Court of Claims and the United States Supreme Court in 1879, after securing the passage of an Act of Congress provid ing for the admission of women to this the highest court in the country. (Since that time Mrs. Bittenbender and Mrs. De Force Gordon have also been admitted to the bar of the United States Supreme HALL. Court.) Mrs. Lockwood has been in gen eral practice since her admission, with a specially large business before the Court of Claims. She writes me that she has never had any difficulty in securing plenty of good paying work, has succeeded fairly well throughout her whole course, and has made a good living. The Law School of the National Univer sity, as it now exists, has never admitted women, as I am informed by its Dean; nor has that of Georgetown College. But the Howard University, also of Washington, makes no distinction of sex, race, or color in