Life in Wisconsin: 1871-1880 Archives - Page 3 of 17

Jun

2023

“The middle aged, grey headed individual who now addresses you is an honorable member of the Wisconsin bar.”

Lavinia Goodell, June 18, 1874

On the evening of Wednesday, June 17, 1874, after successfully passing a rigorous examination administered by three elder statesmen, Lavinia Goodell made history by being sworn in as Wisconsin’s first woman lawyer. The following day she wrote a long letter to her cousin Sarah Thomas. Lavinia’s own words recount the excitement of the event far better than any summary could do:

My Dear Girl,

The middle aged, grey headed individual who now addresses you is an honorable member of the Wisconsin bar. I was admitted last night, and am still in the first enthusiastic glow of happiness produced thereby.

I was in agony of impatient suspense all day Tuesday and Wednesday. Spent the time at the office, so as to get the latest intelligence from court, and devoted myself to reviewing.

Wednesday about 5 p.m. Mr. ___ came down from court saying that the prospect looked dubious. One case was finished, but they were rushing another one and he did not know when they would get time to attend to us. But he said that the young man from Beloit had come, and perhaps I had better go up and see him, and see if we could get the judge to approve a time.
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Jun

2023

“I am bound to get in if I climb up the roof and go down the chimney.”

Lavinia Goodell, June 8, 1874

During the first two weeks of June 1874, Lavinia Goodell’s mind was consumed with plans to take the bar examination so that she could be admitted to practice law in Wisconsin. It was not clear until an hour prior to the examination on June 17 whether she would actually be allowed to sit for it. In a June 8 letter to her cousin Sarah Thomas, Lavinia wrote:

Have passed through some mental excitement since I wrote you last. I write you in my last letter Tuesday that I had made an attempt to have an application made for my admittance, but the man from whom I expected aid failed me. Wednesday morning when I went downtown, I was informed that the reason was because some of the lawyers, who were on intimate terms with the judge, had told him that the judge had intended to refuse me, on account of my sex, so he thought he would wait and consult me, as perhaps I would prefer to back out, and so avoid the “mitten.” (To “get the mitten” was to be rejected.)

I was very much stirred up by this piece of news and informed him that I would be admitted to the bar of Wisconsin, if I lived a few years longer, and that if Judge Conger refused me I would make him sorry for it before I had done with him, together with some other plucky and strong minded remarks, indicative of an intensely martial state of mind.
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May

2023

“Ignorance is always dangerous.”

Lavinia Goodell, May 1871

In the second installment of her series of Woman’s Journal articles rebutting commonly touted reasons why women should not vote (read the about the first installment here), Lavinia Goodell focused on the claim that voting would disrupt the tranquility of the home and take women away from their traditional duties. Rubbish! declared Lavinia.

Lavinia queried how much of a woman’s time would be spent in voting and what important duties would she be neglecting while doing so? She pointed out that no one seemed bothered that men, too, had to step away from their jobs to vote. “The mechanic, in voting, does not neglect his workshop, the merchant his counting room, nor the farmer his fields. Neither would woman forsake the kitchen and the nursery. The duties of a husband and father in providing for his family are as numerous as those of the wife and mother in her position as housekeeper. Yet experience teaches that the exercise of his duties as a citizen do not interfere with them. Neither would woman’s interfere with her home duties.”

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Apr

2023

“Your time could not have been improved to better advantage than by reading law.”

Lavinia Goodell, September 1875

In late summer 1875, a little over a year after she was admitted to practice law in Wisconsin, Lavinia Goodell penned an article that appeared in the September 4, 1975 Woman’s Journal titled “Shall Women Study Law?” Her conclusion was a resounding “yes.”

Lavinia’s article answered six questions about the feasibility of women studying law. The first was “Had I better study? Will it pay?” Lavinia encouraged everyone having a taste for legal study and the time to devote to it to by all means study. She said, “Should you never practice, or even never complete a full course of reading, … the information thus obtained will be invaluable to you and the mental discipline is worth solid gold.”

Second, in response to the question, “What previous education is necessary?” she replied, “The more the better.” While she said a collegiate course was desirable for someone who was young and could spare the time, it was not indispensable. She held the same view of Latin study. On the other hand, she deemed “a thorough mathematical course and good knowledge of history” necessary and touted the benefits of being well read in literature, taking a metaphysical course, and studying logic and languages.

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Mar

2023

“Dined with Dr. Wolcott”

Lavinia Goodell, October 17, 1879

Lavinia Goodell was acquainted with many pioneering women of her day, including Dr. Laura Ross Wolcott, Wisconsin’s first woman physician.

Laura Ross was born in Maine in 1826. She graduated from the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1856 and was the third woman in the U.S. to earn a medical degree. (Janesville, Wisconsin gained a woman physician in 1878 when Dr. Clara Normington set up practice there.) Dr. Ross moved to Milwaukee in 1857, but was denied admittance to the Medical Society of Milwaukee County because she was a woman. She went to Paris in 1867, and sat in on lectures at the Sorbonne and worked in a hospital. She returned to Milwaukee and was admitted to the Milwaukee County Medical Society in 1869, in part due to the support of an older physician, Erastus Wolcott, whom she married that same year.

1869 was a busy year for Dr. Wolcott since in addition to being admitted to the Medical Society and getting married, she helped organize a woman’s rights convention in Milwaukee (Lily Peckham, who was an aspiring lawyer and later became a minister also participated in the convention) and was a founder of the Wisconsin Woman’s Suffrage Association, serving as its president until 1882.

The Milwaukee newspaper the Semi-Weekly Wisconsin, described the 1869 convention as follows:

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Mar

2023

“The devil has come down in great wrath knowing that his time is short.”

Lavinia Goodell, February 29, 1872

In early 1872, media accounts – especially on the east coast – were abuzz with the scandalous story that a woman had been allowed to preach in a Brooklyn Presbyterian church. The brazen woman in question was Sarah Smiley, a Quaker.

Ms. Smiley was born in Maine in 1830. She initially wanted to become a teacher but after the Civil War went South to “relieve human suffering.” She later began speaking to audiences and eventually was invited to speak in liberal-minded churches. In January 1872 she became the first woman to ever speak in a Presbyterian church when Rev. Theodore Cuyler invited her to address his congregation in Brooklyn. Rev. Cuyler had lived with Quakers and had been invited to address a Friends revival meeting in Brooklyn, so in return he invited Ms. Smiley to speak from his pulpit on a Sunday evening.

By all accounts Ms. Smiley’s address was well received (she spoke about the vision of Jacob wrestling with an angel), and it is unlikely that either she or Rev. Cuyler could have anticipated the firestorm that soon followed. Two days after the event a scathing letter signed by Jon Edwards appeared in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Mr. Edwards accused Rev. Cuyler of “degrading the teachings of St. Paul.” He wrote:

This is no time to encourage even in the remotest way the pretensions of those graceless women who are engaged in the unholy work of turning society upside down, and whom I hear in our families and social gatherings, ridiculing St. Paul as an old Jewish bachelor, unworthy of respect.

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Feb

2023

“Heard Dr. Whiting on the women’s temperance movement.”

Lavinia Goodell, April 26, 1874

Lavinia Goodell and her parents were members of the Congregational Church in Janesville, Wisconsin, and she had a cordial relationship with the church’s pastors. While she became close friends with Rev. T.P. Sawin, who was the same age as Lavinia and arrived in 1876, she was also very fond of Sawin’s predecessor, Dr. Lyman Whiting.

In addition to his church obligations, Dr. Whiting and his wife actively supported Janesville’s temperance crusade. In late April 1874, Lavinia’s diary entry notes that she had gone to hear Dr. Whiting speak about temperance.

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Feb

2023

“Went to inquire about Lily Peckham.”

Lavinia Goodell, June 3, 1874

In the weeks leading up to Lavinia Goodell’s admission to practice law in Rock County, Wisconsin circuit court, she had begun to despair whether she would ever get the opportunity to take the bar examination. The lawyer who was supposed to move her admission seemed to be dragging his feet, and no one knew whether the judge would allow a woman to take the exam. (Read more about all that here.) In her efforts to get the chance to be examined, Lavinia mustered all the ammunition she could. Her June 3, 1874 diary entry noted that she first went to see a Mrs. Newman (according to the 1876 Janesville city directory, Mrs. Newman was possibly a Janesville dentist’s wife) and then wrote to the Milwaukee County circuit court clerk to “inquire about Lily Peckham,” a young woman who, according to some accounts, had briefly practiced law in Milwaukee prior to dying in 1871 at age 28.

Elizabeth (Lily) Peckham’s grave, Forest Home Cemetery, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

We do not have the Milwaukee clerk’s response, but there is no record that Lily Peckham ever asked the Milwaukee court to admit her to practice law. In fact, finding any information about Peckham is a challenge. The problem starts with her name. While her birth name was Elizabeth, contemporary sources alternately referred to her as Lily, Lilly, Lillie, Lila, Lilia, and Lillian. Through a great deal of persistence and a little luck (a helpful hint to all historical researchers: always try multiple spellings of names), we have been able to piece together parts of Peckham’s biography. She was clearly an intelligent and able young woman who accomplished a great deal in her short life – although it is unclear whether she ever practiced law.

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