Life in Wisconsin: 1871-1880 Archives

Jul

2026

“I am studying law.”

Lavinia Goodell, March 7, 1872

After moving to Janesville in the fall of 1871 to take care of her aging parents, Lavinia Goodell spent the first few months organizing the household and settling into her new home, but by the start of the new year, she was ready for new challenges. In early March she wrote to her cousin, Sarah Thomas:

Since you have told me so much – I will tell you what I am doing. I am studying law. Have been at it about six weeks. Like it ever so much. Have been thro’ “Warren’s Law Studies” and two vols. of Blackstone, and am in the third. I am studying with Mr. Jackson, who is one of the pillars of the Congregational Church, and a good woman’s rights man.

The “Mr. Jackson” Lavinia referred to was A.A. Jackson.

Jackson was born in Oneida County, New York in 1831 and moved to Janesville in 1855. Jackson practiced law in partnership with a number of other attorneys – and in August of 1872 formed a partnership with Pliny Norcross, who would play an important role in Lavinia’s legal career – but when he took Lavinia on as a law student he was a sole practitioner. As he did throughout her life, Lavinia’s father, William Goodell, played an important role in helping her undertake her new studies. Lavinia told her cousin that, “My parents are satisfied with the idea (indeed, Father arranged the business for me), and nobody seems shocked.”

Continue reading →

Apr

2026

“I run for City Atty. on Temperance ticket today.”

Lavinia Goodell, April 6, 1875

In April of 1875, 45 years before women won the right to vote, Lavinia Goodell ran for Janesville City Attorney on the Temperance, or Anti-License, ticket. It is unknown when she made the decision to run. Her diary entry for election day reported, “I run for City Atty. on Temperance ticket today. Don’t know how many votes I got, but N got elected, which I suppose will make him amiable.” The “N” in question was Pliny Norcross, Lavinia’s sometime legal mentor/sometime adversary. The following day, Lavinia reported that she had received about 60 votes, a very respectable showing from Janesville’s all male voting contingent.

The April 17, 1875 issue of the Woman’s Journal reported favorably on Lavinia’s efforts:

The 1875 election was Lavinia Goodell’s only bid for public office, but for the remaining five years of her life she worked tirelessly to help women gain the right to vote.

Feb

2026

“Petition denied.”

One hundred fifty years ago, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued one of its most famous – and infamous – decisions. The afternoon edition of the Tuesday, February 15, 1876 Wisconsin State Journal contained a list of the opinions the court had handed down earlier that day. Two of those opinions were written by Chief Justice Edward Ryan. The first was a routine matter: the denial of a writ of mandamus. The second was the denial of Lavinia Goodell’s motion to become the first woman admitted to the bar of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Although the opinion was authored by Chief Justice Ryan, the other two justices agreed that Wisconsin statutes permitted only men to practice law. In all likelihood, the justices viewed this case as a run-of-the-mill application of the principles of statutory interpretation. Little did they know that their ruling would set in motion a course of events that would forever change the practice of law in Wisconsin.

February 15, 1876 Wisconsin State Journal

Lavinia learned of the decision the following day and made the terse notation in her diary, “Am refused admittance to Sup. Ct.”

Lavinia had lost this battle and was bitterly disappointed, but she was by no means defeated, and her persistence led, thirteen months later, to a change in the law that specifically stated that no person in Wisconsin may be denied a license to practice law on account of sex. Generations of women lawyers have benefitted from her firm stance against the exclusion of women from the legal profession.

Continue reading →

Jan

2026

Where is the line to be drawn between “you may do this” and “you must not do that”?

Henry Ward Beecher, March 1876

One hundred fifty years ago, Henry Ward Beecher was one of the most famous men in the United States. The Brooklyn, New York Congregationalist preacher was a lifelong proponent of equal rights for women. He was also a personal friend of Lavinia Goodell, Wisconsin’s first woman lawyer. (Read more about Lavinia’s relationship with Beecher here.) So it was not surprising that when the Wisconsin Supreme Court refused to allow Lavinia to practice before it due to her gender, Beecher wrote a strong rebuke in his weekly paper, The Christian Union.

He wrote:

Has woman the right to earn her own living in her own way? Reduced to its practical shape this is the question which the Wisconsin Supreme Court has decided in the negative in refusing to admit Miss Lavinia Goodell to practice at its bar. The old common law, it seems is to blame for this; at least their “honors” fall back upon it in the absence of an express statute authorizing the gentler sex to enter the legal profession.
Continue reading →

Sep

2025

“Whoever heard of a woman so rich as to be possessor of both a mind and heart?”

Lavinia Goodell, 1870s

The William Goodell family papers housed in the Special Collections and Archives of Berea College in Berea, Kentucky contain a draft of a short story written by Lavinia Goodell titled “A Partner With Capital.”

The story is undated, but following Lavinia’s signature at the end is the notation “Janesville, Wis,” which would mean it was written between late 1871 and late 1879. An educated guess would place it in the early 1870s, before Lavinia began her legal studies, since once she embarked on that path she had little time for other frivolous undertakings, and a 28-page short story could not have been dashed off in short order.

Continue reading →

May

2025

“What a splendid woman Charlotte Bronte was!”

Lavinia Goodell, March 18, 1863

Lavinia Goodell lived 150 years ago, but some topics being discussed in today’s press would be familiar to her. A case in point is a recent New York times article about a poetry anthology titled “Book of Rhymes” that was written by the author Charlotte Bronte when she was 13 years old.

Bronte wrote the poems on tiny scraps of paper and stitched them together. The little volume sold for $1.25 million in 2022 and has recently been published by the Bronte Parsonage Museum in England and made available to the public for the first time.

Continue reading →

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.”

Continue reading →

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.”

Continue reading →