Lavinia wins her 1st court trials! “‘How’s that for a high?’–as the boys say.”
August 4, 1874, marks an important day in Wisconsin, and arguably American, legal history. It’s the day Lavinia Goodell, Wisconsin’s first woman lawyer tried her first two court cases, back-to-back, in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. Because Lavinia was a disciplined diarist and a prolific letter writer, and because her papers are preserved at Berea College, we have her first-hand account, and know her innermost thoughts, about this event.
![Pages from Lavinia Goodell's Dairy, August 4th and 5th 1874](http://www.laviniagoodell.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Lavinia-diary-pages-Aug-4-and-5-1874-640x466.jpg)