Life in Wisconsin: 1871-1880 Archives

Dec

2024

I felt “set up” by my success

Lavinia Goodell, December 1874

In December 1874, six months after her admission to practice law, Lavinia Goodell kept busy not only running her law office but also speaking to temperance groups. Several days before Christmas, Lavinia wrote to her sister saying that the previous week she had accepted an invitation to lecture at Whitewater, Wisconsin. She said, “I was considerably alarmed at the prospect but concluded to accept. I shall have to learn to speak if I am going to make much of a lawyer.” She wrote her lecture out because she did not trust herself to make impromptu remarks. The title of her talk was “The Relation of Government to the Liquor Traffic.” She took the train from Janesville to Whitewater and several Whitewater temperance ladies met her at the depot. She said, “I had a crowded audience, and an attentive one, which applauded me generously. Didn’t feel as much scared as I expected to, and got along very well.”

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Oct

2024

“Married women today are not the abject slaves they were fifty years ago”

Lavinia Goodell, October 1879

In the fall of 1879, Lavinia Goodell wrote an article for the Woman’s Journal titled “How it Looked to a Lawyer Half a Century Ago.” In it, she lauded the progress women had made during her lifetime (Lavinia was born in 1839) in gaining more rights.

Lavinia noted that in 1837, Timothy Walker, a professor at the Law Department of Cincinnati College delivered a course of lectures on American Law that were published in book form in 1837. Walker commented, “With regard to political rights, females form a positive exception to the general doctrine of equality. They cannot vote, nor hold office. We require them to contribute their share in the ay of taxes, or the support of government, but allow them no void in its direction.” Walker said if males were treated in this fashion, it “would be the exact definition of political slavery.” But he said, “probably the most refined and enlightened [women] would be the last to desire a change which would involve them in the turmoil of politics.”

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Sep

2024

“It is real fun to be a lawyer.”

Lavinia Goodell, August 21, 1874

The early days of Lavinia Goodell’s legal practice were busy ones. After being admitted to practice law on June 17, 1874, she was eager to get to work and was willing to take on any clients who wanted to hire her. Lavinia’s diary entries and letters make clear that she was throwing herself into her practice with great enthusiasm and she truly enjoyed being a lawyer.

In August 1874 she tried her first cases to the court after being retained by Jefferson County temperance women to prosecute saloon keepers dealers who violated the law by selling liquor on Sundays. She won those cases. (Read more here.) She proudly wrote to her sister, “I am not afraid of the liquor men. I only wish I had plenty of such cases and could win them all. . . . Run away from them and they will run after you, but give them chase and they will run the other way.”

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Mar

2024

“Little by little, but all the time, we are gaining essential rights.”

Woman’s Journal, March 1877

March 8 is Women’s History Day. By happy coincidence, March 8 is also the anniversary of the day that Wisconsin’s governor signed into law legislation drafted by Lavinia Goodell allowing women to practice law in the state.

After Lavinia’s petition to be allowed to practice before the Wisconsin Supreme Court was denied in early 1876 (read more about that here), Lavinia drafted legislation that permitted people of both genders to practice law. Her Janesville colleague John Cassoday , who was speaker of the assembly, introduced the bill for her. In early 1877, Lavinia took the train to Madison where Cassoday introduced her to legislators, although the meetings apparently got off to an inauspicious start. On February 6, Lavinia noted in her diary, “Spent a stupid afternoon in Cassoday’s room waiting for men to come to me and finally had go to them.”

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Feb

2024

“There is no substantial reason why women should be denied the privilege of the ballot”

Lavinia Goodell, February 1874

February 1874 was a busy month for Lavinia Goodell. She studied law for hours nearly every day, in anticipation of taking a bar exam that would enable her to officially become a lawyer and begin practicing. She attended Ladies Temperance Union meetings and drafted a petition calling for the repeal of liquor sales in the State of Wisconsin, which she sent to Assemblyman Noah Comstock.

On Monday, February 16, 1874, Lavinia noted in her diary that the day’s mail had brought the Woman’s Journal “with my piece in it.”

The piece in question was titled “Eminent Legal Protests Against the Wrongs of Women,” and, as with so many of Lavinia’s writings, it advocated for women having full equality with men, both in terms of property rights and by having access to the ballot.

Lavinia was spurred to write the piece after reading an article about Aaron Burr in the January 7, 1874 edition of the New York Weekly Evening Post. The Post article had mentioned Burr’s brother-in-law, Tapping Reeve, who “was the first eminent lawyer in this country who dared to arraign the common law of England for the severity and refined cruelty in cutting off the natural rights of married women, and placing their property as well as their persons at the mercy of their husbands.”

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Jan

2024

“I should like to be admitted next summer.”

Lavinia Goodell, December 1873

In January of 1874, exactly 150 years ago, Lavinia Goodell was in the final stages of her law studies and was beginning to plan how and when she would be admitted to practice law. Shortly before Christmas 1873, she wrote to her sister Maria, “I am studying Greenleaf’s evidence. It is very interesting, and I wish I hadn’t anything else to do but just go ahead on my law. I should like to be admitted next summer, but don’t know how it will be.”

Lavinia Goodell’s letter to her sister, December 18, 1873

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Dec

2023

“He paid me $5.00 – my first fee here.”

Lavinia Goodell, December 17, 1879

As 1879 drew to a close, Lavinia Goodell found herself depressed and in ill-health. Her move to Madison (read more here) had not gone as planned. On Wednesday, December 17 Lavinia wrote a 12-page letter to her cousin Sarah Thomas in which she poured out her frustrations.

Lavinia did have one piece of good news. She had won her first case in Madison. “One ray of sunlight has broken in upon my darkness. I won my case in justice court; beat Carpenter (a well known attorney and law professor) all to flinders – if I do say it ‘as hadn’t ought to.'”

Lavinia went on:

I sent you a “Democrat” (a daily Madison newspaper) with some account of it. The Journal didn’t condescend to notice it. I am glad if I seemed bright & witty, tho’ I didn’t feel so. Anyway everybody in the room seemed favorably impressed. There were a whole squad of young law students there, pupils of Carpenter, … and they were delighted to see me give it to the old fellow & just laughed & applauded. It must have been rather galling to him, especially as he is opposed to women lawyers, & has spoken disparagingly of my abilities. So much the worse for him now! If I am inferior & yet can beat him, where is he? Maybe he will be careful what he says for a while now.
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Nov

2023

“I have been the bluest and lonesomest dog you ever saw.”

Lavinia Goodell, November 20, 1879

November 1879 was not a happy time for Lavinia Goodell. After eight years in Janesville, Wisconsin, she rather abruptly made the decision to move to Madison, Wisconsin’s capitol city, and set up her law practice there. She arrived in Madison by train on Saturday, November 15. On the 20th she wrote a long letter to her cousin Sarah Thomas in which she laid bare her unhappiness and frustrations:

I have been the bluest and lonesomest dog you ever saw since I have been here; am feeling a little better today. Last week I was very busy packing off, which was melancholy business. I sent the sofas & best rocker, parlor chairs & carpet, stand & bedding to Maria, rocker, stove, dining chairs & office furniture for myself & sold everything else…. Came up here sat. afternoon, bag & baggage. Left freight at the depot & came to Miss Bright’s with trunk & carpet bag.

In October, Lavinia had spent several days in Madison participating in a women’s convention and spent time with the “Misses Bright,” who lived on Carroll Street, at the intersection of Johnson, not far from the capitol. Eliza and Winifred Bright were two elderly unmarried sisters who had for a time run a school for young ladies. By the time Lavinia met the Brights, they were running a boarding house.

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