May 23
MS. ATTORNEY DAY
Believe it or not, women weren’t always allowed to become attorneys in the United States. The gavel was pounded for the first time when Belle Aurelia Babb was born on this day in 1846.
It took some 23 years, but Belle, who later changed her name to Arabella Mansfield, became the first woman admitted to the legal profession in the U.S. A teacher at Ohio Wesleyan college, Mansfield took the bar exam and passed. The legal beagles who tested her gave Arabella a passing grade saying, “...she gave the very best rebuke possible to the imputation that ladies cannot qualify for the practice of law.”
Ms. Mansfield took her law degree and put it away somewhere. You see, she never did practice law. Instead she became one of the first female college professors and administrators in the U.S. as the dean of the schools of art and music at DePauw University. She also helped found the Iowa Woman Suffrage Society.
Just knowing that she could become an attorney was enough for Ms. Mansfield. Women attorneys throughout the U.S. - all rise.
Those were the days...
Those Were the Days, the Today in History service from 440 International
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