Meet Myra Colby Bradwell, trailblazing lawyer, publisher, political activist, and a working mom of four. In the mid-1850s, she studied law under her husband to help with his Chicago practice. Then in 1868, she founded Chicago Legal News, turning it into the most influential law journal in the Midwest. She kept it going when the journal’s offices were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire, and she highlighted issues affecting women with a column entitled "Law Relating to Women." She also helped write legislation giving married Illinois women more control over their property and earnings.
The masthead of Bradwell's legal newspaper.
But Bradwell didn’t simply want to assist or to write about what others were doing. She dreamed of practicing law herself. In 1869, she became the first woman to pass the Illinois bar exam, but she was still denied a law license on the grounds that the law did not permit married women to enter into legal contracts. She challenged the decision in court. The Illinois Supreme Court rejected her appeal, holding that “God designed the sexes to occupy different spheres of action."
Then the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against her, too. Justice Joseph P. Bradley wrote, "The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life... [T]he paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator." Only one justice dissented from the majority ruling.
Bradwell still didn’t give up. She and another woman who wanted to practice law, Alta Hulett, teamed up to help Illinois pass the nation’s first law guaranteeing women the right to work in any field except the military and elected office. Hulett took advantage of the 1872 law and began practicing.
Bradwell, now 41 and running a business, raising four children and pursuing countless causes, did not seek to become a practicing lawyer. She did, however, help other women pursue law licenses. She also came to the aid of Mary Lincoln after Robert Lincoln, concerned about her mental health, arranged to have his mother committed to an asylum in 1875. She publicly advocated for Mary Lincoln’s release, orchestrated pressure on Robert Lincoln, and arranged for the former first lady to live with family in Springfield.
A Myra Bradwell bust in the ALPLM collection.
Eventually, both the Illinois and United States Supreme Courts admitted Bradwell to the bar – and they did it retroactive to her original application in 1869. That makes her, technically, the first female lawyer in Illinois. Though she never practiced, Bradwell’s legislation, advocacy and court battles changed history, opening doors for generations of women to follow.