by Caroline Gabsewics
Staff Writer
Author and publisher of women’s history Doris Weatherford, spoke about the evolution of women’s rights at the Jacksonville Women Lawyers Association (JWLA) monthly meeting on March 7.
March is Women’s History Month.
“Women’s history is like all history. It sees peaks and valleys,” said Weatherford. “As our nation developed, so did women’s rights.”
Weatherford spoke to about 40 women about how women fought to be admitted to the Bar and to be in front of court.
After the Civil War, there were some major changes, she said, and women’s rights couldn’t be ignored anymore.
“The war was so bad, they needed women’s abilities to organize societies that aided soldiers and provided them with military supplies,” she said. “Many non-legal and social restrictions fell as a result of that.”
Weatherford spoke about many women who attended law school and passed the Bar exam for their respective state, but they were never admitted. It wasn’t until 1871 when the first woman was admitted to a Bar and that was in Missouri. The first woman was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1892, and she was from Jacksonville.
Weatherford told a story about Myra Bradwell who started a newspaper, “Chicago Legal News” with her husband after the Civil War. She began learning a lot about law and later took the Illinois Bar Exam in 1869.
“Even though the judges said she earned it to be admitted to the Illinois Bar, they denied her right to be admitted to the Bar because she was a married woman,” she said. “Married women couldn’t sign contracts so they denied her admission.”
Bradwell continued her fight, and in 1890 the Illinois Supreme Court reconsidered, and admitted her to the Illinois Bar in 1892. Bradwell passed away two years after she was admitted.
“Nothing comes about by itself,” said Weatherford. “Rights don’t just fall from the heavens, they come from people who fight for their rights.”