Friday Firsts: Victoria Woodhull and Belva Lockwood, First Women to Run for President

“I cannot vote, but I can be voted for.”

— Belva Lockwood, National Women’s Equal Rights party candidate for president in 1884

Belva Lockwood may have been the fist woman to see her name printed on ballots (in nine states) in a presidential race, but she was not the first woman to run and campaign for the highest office in the land. That distinction goes to Victoria Woodhull, who ran on the Equal Rights Party ticket in 1872, twelve years before Ms. Lockwood. However, the Woodhull campaign was never officially recognized. She was a controversial candidate for many reasons including those captured here:

“She was under the constitutionally mandated age of 35. She did not receive any electoral votes and the popular votes were unrecorded. Women themselves could not legally vote until 1920. Her association with causes considered unseemly (such as free love and Communism) and with the black intellectual Frederick Douglass made her extremely controversial and unpopular. Historians tend to prefer to give the honor of “first” to the more “acceptable” Belva Lockwood.”

— Rhapsody in Book Weblog, March 16, 2009

Both of these women are remarkable figures from our nation’s history. They achieved many notable firsts for women in the law and should be remembered — among other accomplishments — for the following:

Victoria Woodhull, Library of Congress

Victoria Woodhull

  • Woodhull and her sister were the first female brokers on Wall Street.

  • Woodhull was the first woman to address a Congressional Committee. On January 11, 1871, Woodhull declared to the House Judiciary Committee that women had already won the right to vote under the recently enacted 14th and 15th amendments a bold statement that cemented her leadership role among suffragists.

  • Woodhull was the first woman to run for President. She promoted women’s suffrage, regulation of monopolies, nationalization of railroads, an eight-hour workday, direct taxation, abolition of the death penalty and welfare for the poor.

Belva Lockwood, Library of of Congress

Belva Lockwood

  • Lockwood was the first woman member of the U.S. Supreme Court Bar, admitted in 1879.

  • Lockwood was the first woman lawyer to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing Kaiser v. Stickney and later United States v. Cherokee Nation.

  • Lockwood was the first legitimate female candidate for President, earning roughly 4,000 votes.

Read Ms. Lockwood’s essay, My Efforts to Become a Lawyer, here.

Friday Firsts: Arabella "Belle" Mansfield - first woman admitted to the bar in the U.S.

This post was written by Jessica King, an extraordinary intern at the Harris County Law Library.

Arabella “Belle” Mansfield. Courtesy of Iowa Department of Human Rights.

In 1869, Arabella Mansfield became the first woman admitted to the Bar in the United States. Her achievement is an important first in the history of women in law, and she is often called the first woman lawyer in the United States.*

Early Life and Education

She was born in Iowa on August 23, 1946, and named Arabella Aurelia Babb, although for much of her life she was also known as “Belle.” When Arabella was six years old, her father died in an accident in the California Gold Rush, and she returned to Iowa with her mother and older brother, Washington Irving Babb.

Arabella later attended college at Iowa Wesleyan University. She graduated in 1866, the same year as her older brother Washington Irving Babb, whose studies had been interrupted by his enlistment during the Civil War. Arabella was the valedictorian and her brother was the salutatorian.

Page showing Arabella and her brother’s senior class listed in the Iowa Wesleyan Academic Catalog of 1865-66. Courtesy of Iowa Wesleyan University

 Her brother went into a career in law and became a partner in the new firm Ambler & Babb. Arabella read law as an apprentice in her brother’s office, and kept up her study after marrying John Mansfield, another Iowa Wesleyan graduate.

Passing the Bar

The law excluding Arabella Mansfield from admission to the bar was Iowa Code of 1851, Section 1610. Source: the Iowa Legislature Archives

Arabella Mansfield passed the bar on June 15, 1869. She had to argue her case to be admitted to the bar association, since the law on the books described “any white male citizen” as eligible to be a lawyer. Belle convinced a judge that there was nothing in that law forbidding a woman to be a lawyer. She won the right to be a woman lawyer. She also won the admiration of her bar examiners, quoted below:

 Your committee takes unusual pleasure in recommending the admission of Mrs. Mansfield, not only because she is the first lady who has applied for this authority in the state, but because in her examination she has given the very best rebuke possible to the imputation that ladies cannot qualify for the practice of law.

ABA Journal Gallery - 13 Pioneering Women in American Law

The next year, in March, 1870, the law was revised to remove the words “white male.”

Career and Legacy

Arabella Mansfield never practiced law, but enjoyed a successful career in academia, on the faculty of Iowa Wesleyan and DePauw University, as well as lecturing extensively. She was involved in many causes, including women’s suffrage. In her lifetime, she was recognized with honorary membership in the National League of Women Lawyers and honorary membership to the Delta Chi fraternity (for male law students) at DePauw. After her death in 1911, her legacy continues to inspire modern generations. The National Association of Women Lawyers named an award in her honor. She paved the way for many other women lawyers that followed.

Sources and Further Reading:

*Note: Margaret Brent, who appeared before the court in the American colonies during the 1600s, has also been called America’s first woman lawyer. Read more about Margaret Brent’s life and achievements on In Custodia Legis from the Law Library of Congress.

Latest & Greatest – The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together

By Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell

Published by American Bar Association. Section of Law Practice Management.

KF 320 .A9 K 46 2018

Photo Credit: Helen Hartman

Using the tools discussed in their book, The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, authors Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell created a guide for making the most out of collaboration tools and this future of legal technology. Collaboration tools and technologies by their very terms refer to means and methods, in this case electronic, which allow people to work together in a joint or common effort. The authors separate these tools into two types: those used inside the office and those used outside the office. The tasks and/or processes are the same, but there are distinctions between the two because of the obvious fact that the people who are communicating outside the office are not necessarily in the same physical location.

Moving beyond the basic discussion of the use of collaboration generally, the authors get into some specifics related to collaborating on documents, e.g. creating a document online and working simultaneously on a document, and working together on cases, transactions, and projects using such means as scheduling tools, conference calls, and real-time meetings.

The next part of the book focuses on commonly used collaboration platforms, including email, SharePoint, Adobe Acrobat, and Slack. Specialized collaboration platforms also merit some discussion by the authors. These include some practice management programs and knowledge management software. The authors conclude with recommended choices for some law practice scenarios, such as solo lawyers, government law departments, and legal services organizations.

Written by an information technology lawyer and a technology consultant and former litigator, The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together is a must-read for lawyers, legal professionals, and anyone who wants to discover the vast array of collaboration technologies available and how they can be implemented. You can find it here at the Law Library in our Legal Tech Collection.