Barred from the Bar: A History of Women and the Legal Profession (Women Then-Women Now) - Softcover

Garza, Hedda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0531157954 ISBN 13: 9780531157954

Publisher: Franklin Watts, 1996

Synopsis

A history of women's struggle for legal rights discusses efforts to become practicing lawyers, gaining the right to hold property, and the appointment of the first women to the Supreme Court

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

Garza (African Americans and Jewish Americans, 1995, etc.) presents a thorough and well-researched history of pioneering women lawyers and their struggle for the right to practice law, in this entry in the Women Then--Women Now series. The book opens by recounting how, in 1873, Myra Bradwell's application for a lawyer's license in Illinois was turned down. Her case was appealed to the US Supreme Court and turned down again, on the basis that women should be only wives and mothers. In 1951, when future Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor graduated from Stanford third in her class, she could not find a job as a lawyer. More recently, Robert Shapiro's comment about opposing counsel Marcia Clark in the Simpson trial was, reportedly, ``Great legs!'' Garza makes clear that African-American and Hispanic women have had to overcome even greater hurdles in the legal profession; this discussion sometimes diffuses the focus of the book. Throughout, a moderate tone lends credibility to Garza's thesis: Despite great adversity and ridicule, women are succeeding in their fight to overcome the roadblocks in the legal profession. Garza's book is hopeful and inspirational, certain to lead some YAs to consider a future in law. (b&w photos, notes, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 14+) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 10 Up?Full of anecdotal detail, this well-researched and well-documented chronicle makes it clear that most of women's gains, not only in law and other fields but also in the very exercise of political power, have been recent. The first chapter describes the political condition of women up through the mid-19th century, when the suffrage and anti-slavery movements began to flourish and feed one another. The author then weaves these threads through her account of a few remarkable women from that time to the present whose determination has slowly rolled back legal and social impediments to equality. An entire chapter focuses on the double discrimination experienced by women of color. There are stories of inspiration and tales that amuse?such as that of Esther McQuigg Morris, who in 1870 jailed her husband when he disrupted her Wyoming court to complain of her becoming the first woman judge in the U.S. Though the final two chapters bog down at times, the narrative is generally well organized and engaging. Average-quality black-and-white photographs appear throughout. The book will appeal to students drawn to law as a career as well as to women's-studies buffs.?Claudia Morrow, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Franklin Watts
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0531157954
• ISBN 13: 9780531157954
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1