Abigail Adams hoped that her husband would protect women’s interests since no women had the opportunity to serve as legislators or lawyers. Women began to have more educational opportunities in the 19th Century and to demand equal rights. Myra Bradwell in 1869 could not become a lawyer because she was married. Arabella Mansfield became the first woman lawyer instead. An award in her name honors women lawyers. Women these days not only argue in front of but are members of the United States Supreme Court.
Abigail Adams urged her husband to “remember the ladies” while creating policy as the fight for independence battled on. John Adams had earlier fought for the rights of colonists as a lawyer. As women’s education grew in the 19th Century, some women said, “I can do that!”
Myra Bradwell
Myra Bradwell passed the Illinois bar exam in 1869. She met the usual requirements of “good character.” Illinois refused her request for a law license because she was a married woman.
A married woman did not have the same contract rights as men and unmarried women. Her husband was legally in charge. This would cause problems with attorney-client relationships.
Bradwell argued that the Fourteenth Amendment (ratified in 1868) gave her the right to practice law. She was a citizen. The right to practice law was a “privilege” of state citizenship.
The Supreme Court provided a more restrictive meaning to the Privileges or Immunities Clause. Three justices rejected that argument. They argued the state was correct because women had a “paramount destiny and mission … to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother.”
A state could determine that being a lawyer was not the proper role for women. Only one justice would have protected her right to become a lawyer.
After the state changed its policy, Bradwell became a lawyer many years later. She never practiced law. Myra Bradwell, however, was one of the first legal journalists.
Belle Aurelia Babb’s Early Years
Belle Aurelia Babb was born on May 23, 1846, on a family farm in Burlington, Iowa.
She was the second child of Mary Moyer and Miles Babb. Her father went to California, along with thousands of others, hearing the siren’s song of the California Gold Rush. He became a mining superintendent but died in a mine cave-in shortly thereafter. Belle was only six years old.
Her mother now led the family alone, providing Belle with a strong female role model. Belle obtained a good education as women in the mid-19th Century started to accept it as their right.
She graduated in 1866 at the top of her class at Wesleyan University in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. She began to use the name “Arabella” in college. Arabella had family bragging rights. Her brother graduated second in her class the same year. Her brother was her lifelong friend.
Legal Education
Wesleyan University was the state’s first coeducational institution of higher learning.
The Civil War provided more opportunities for women students and teachers. Arabella became one of the first women college professors in the United States, teaching at Simpson College.
She returned to Mount Pleasant and married John Mansfield, her college sweetheart and a professor at her alma mater. Arabella went to study as an apprentice at her brother’s law office. A legal apprenticeship, not going to law school, was the normal practice at that time.
First Woman Lawyer
Iowa legislation gave “white male persons” of good character the right to become lawyers.
Arabella was ready to take the bar exam in 1869. Nonetheless, like Myra Bradwell, state law appeared to block her path. The law only noted that “white male persons” had the right to be lawyers. Sympathetic bar examiners, supporters of women’s rights, let her take the test.
She received high marks. The committee said, “She has given the very best rebuke possible to the imputation that ladies cannot qualify for the practice of law.”
Arabella went to court to defend her right to be a lawyer. This time, a federal judge ruled in the woman’s favor. An Iowa law recognized that “male” was used generically. “All men are created equal” would mean that “all people are created equal.”
Arabella officially became a lawyer. Iowa, in 1870, changed its law to explicitly make it clear that both women and non-whites could be lawyers.
The Rest of the Story
Arabella did not practice law. She continued to teach and learn.
Arabella obtained a master’s and a law degree. She ultimately taught at Indiana Asbury University (later DePauw University), becoming the dean of the school of art and music.
She supported women’s suffrage. She worked with Susan B. Anthony and chaired the Iowa Women’s Suffrage Convention in 1870. Arabella lived to see women in Iowa obtain partial suffrage rights. Iowa gave women the right to vote for ballot measures in 1894.
Arabella continued to teach at Asbury University until her death on Aug. 2, 1911. She would not live to see the “Susan B. Anthony” amendment that protects women’s suffrage.
Arabella Babb Mansfield Award
The Women Lawyers’ Club started in 1899 with eighteen lawyers.
It became the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) in 1919. They represent over 500,000 women lawyers today. NAWL’s highest award is named in honor of the first woman lawyer in the United States. The awards honor the “lifetime professional achievement, positive influence, and valuable contribution to women in the law and in society.”
Past winners included Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, two of the four women now serving as justices of the United States Supreme Court. Abigail Adams would be pleased.