Rebels at the Bar by Jill Norgren

Author:Jill Norgren
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 2013-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

7

Not Everyone Is Bold

Mary Hall and Catharine Waugh McCulloch in Conversation

Petticoats instead of breeches. … Brains and mentality are [often] measured by the formation of the wearing apparel. This will not do for an enlightened and a leading state like our own. We must admit feminine lawyers if they apply for admission.

—“The Advance of Women,” Chicago Legal News, 1879

THE COURTROOM SUITED Foltz, Lockwood, and Goodell, but not every female, or male, lawyer sought the light and fight of trial work. The back office appealed to many attorneys, including Mary Hall, who believed that public opinion would be against a woman trying cases in court.

Hall, the first woman attorney in Connecticut, was one of seven children born to Louisa and Gustavus Hall of Marlborough, a town less than twenty miles from the state capital of Hartford. Her birth, on August 16, 1843, occurred at the beginning of the dramatic transformation in women’s civic life. The public agitation for women’s rights at Seneca Falls in 1848, and other conventions, included demands for access to education and to the professions. Hall benefited from that agitation by receiving an education that included a rigorous seminary degree. From there, her professional aspirations led to a landmark state judicial decision holding that qualified women lawyers were entitled to equal opportunity under the laws of Connecticut.

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