Happy International Women's Day!
Arabella Mansfield: “Quiet Determination and Dedication”
Arabella Mansfield (1846 - 1911) was the first woman in the United States to earn admission to the state bar of Iowa, making her the first female lawyer in the country. In honor of International Women’s Day, read on to learn more from the firm’s Maggie Fraser about the life of this trailblazing lawyer, professor, and activist!
One hundred and fifty-four years ago, Arabella Mansfield became the first female lawyer in the United States.
Born on her family farm in Burlington, Iowa in 1846, Mansfield would go on to achieve several milestones - in addition to being the first female lawyer in both Iowa and the U.S., she was among the first female college professors and administrators, and served as the president and chair of the Iowa women’s suffrage convention.
With the country on the brink of civil war in 1862, many colleges began admitting more women to study and teach. Mansfield was one of those women, and graduated as valedictorian from Iowa Wesleyan University in 1866. She then began her career as an educator at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, teaching political science, history, and English.
"There was a quiet determination and dedication in every event of the life of Belle A. Mansfield,” wrote Dr. Louis A. Haselmayer in the Spring 1869 Women’s Lawyer Journal, traits evidenced in abundance by Mansfield’s journey to become the country’s first female lawyer.
Her older brother Washington ran a law office in Mount Pleasant, where Mansfield studied for two years to prepare for the bar exam. Though she achieved high scores when she took the exam in 1869, Iowa law restricted admission to the bar to white men over the age of 21. However, Mansfield successfully challenged state laws and won a ruling that lifted restrictions against women practicing law in Iowa. In the same year she passed the bar and changed state law, Mansfield was sworn in as the country’s first female lawyer.
Despite her admission to the bar, Mansfield never practiced law. Instead, she continued with her career in academia and devoted herself to the women’s suffrage movement. She remained a professor at Iowa Wesleyan University, where she eventually earned a master’s degree and an undergraduate law degree. In the 1890s she taught at Indiana’s DePauw University, where she was named the dean of the college’s art and music schools in 1893. The same year, she joined the National League of Women Lawyers.
Her work with the suffrage movement began in 1869 when she joined the executive committee of the National Women’s Suffrage Association, working alongside famed activist Susan B. Anthony. Mansfield then served her own state’s suffrage movement as president, chair, and secretary of the Iowa Women’s Suffrage Convention in 1870. She campaigned tirelessly for voting rights, and for equal access to educational and professional opportunities.
Though she did not live to see the fruit of the suffrage movement’s collective efforts (Mansfield died in 1911, while the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote in 1920), her legacy lived on: in 1980, she was inducted into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame, and in 2002 the Iowa Organization of Female Attorneys created an annual award in her name. In the end, Manfield’s “quiet determination and dedication” to her various pursuits earned her an enduring place in U.S. history.
Sources: Wikipedia, womenhistoryblog.com, law.jrank.org, humanrights.iowa.gov, archives.gov