Rebels at the Bar: The Fascinating, Forgotten Stories of America's First Women Lawyers JillNorgren. New York: New York University Press, 2013.

Abstract

Rebels at Bar: The Fascinating, Forgotten Stories of America's First Women Lawyers Jill Norgren. New York: New York University Press, 2013.In late nineteenth century, women who wanted practice law found that, first, they had change it. Pioneers like Lavinia Goodell, Belva A. Lockwood, and Catherine Waugh McCullouch thus faced their most difficult trials before ever setting foot in a courtroom. In Rebels at Bar: The Fascinating, Forgotten Stories of America's First Women Lawyers, historian Jill Norgren recounts personal and professional hurdles faced by eight groundbreaking women who studied and practiced law in post-Civil War Through a series of interlocking biographical narratives, Norgren introduces reader a plucky, determined cohort whose belief in themselves and in equal rights and abilities of women would not be deterred.Drawing from and expanding on historian Virginia Drachman's work on modern American sisters-inlaw ( Women Lawyers and Origins of Professional Identity in America: The Letters of Equity Club, 1887 1890 [1993]; Sisters In Law: Women Lawyers in Modern American History [1998]), Norgren presents the individual but interwoven stories of some of first female attorneys in United States (x). The tales told here concern themselves with specific women - all of lawyers featured are white, and they are all Christians, though they come from different walks of life and all corners of country. The author does not address struggles of African American women seeking entrance profession (Rebels in Law: Voices in History of Black Women Lawyers [2000]), nor does she attend tales of civilian women who challenged legal system during this era (Clearing Smoke-Filled Room: Women Jurors and Disruption of an Old-Boys' Network in Nineteenth-Century America. Yale Law Journal 108.7 [1999]). Nevertheless, Rebels presents an influential cadre of women who challenged convention during a pivotal moment in American history. From Myra Bradwell, who used her ambition, legal knowledge, and business savvy found and operate Chicago Legal News (she also petitioned for and won right retain her earnings, a coup in 1868), wily, stalwart Clara Foltz, who became first female deputy district attorney in California, years after teaching herself law in order to reclaim a sewing machine seized pay her husband's debts, all of these women blazed a trail (106). …