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'My Efforts to Become a Lawyer"
Article in which Lockwood discusses her early life and her career as a lawyer, with a focus on the discrimination she faced as a woman.
Lockwood, Belva Ann, 1830-1917
1888-02
15 pages
reformatted digital
Belva Ann Lockwood Papers, SCPC-DG-098
Belva Ann Lockwood Papers, SCPC-DG-098 --http://archives.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/resources/scpc-dg-098
Lockwood-0068
_tion of the young men.
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222 My) EFFORTS TO BECOME A LAWYER.
Meanwhile I had started a school at Union League Hall, and had
added to my business the renting of four other halls, which were filled
nightly with Temperance Orders, Posts of the Grand Army, and other
Orders. “A strange business for a woman,” the neighbors said. I did.
not care for these comments, but the work was distasteful to me, often
keeping me up late at night, and placing me constantly in contact with
people with whom I bad no affiliation. All my leisure hours were em-
ployed in study. And now, possessing myself of an old copy of the
Four Books of Blackstone’s Commentaries, I gave myself daily tasks
until I had read and re-read them through. In the midst of these
labors I committed the indiscretion so common to.the women of this
country, and, after fifteen years and more of widowhood, married the
Rev. Ezekiel Lockwood, on the 11th of March, 1868.
But this marriage did not cure my mania for the law. The school
was given up, and during the following year I read Kent’s Commen-
taries, occupying all the spare moments in the midst of my domestic
work. In the autumn of 1869, on the opening of the Columbian
College Law Class, I attended with my husband, by invitation of its
President, Dr. Samson, the opening lecture of the course, delivered by
him. I also went to the second lecture, and before the third presented
myself for matriculation in the class and offered to pay the entrance-
fee, This was refused, and I was thereupon informed that the question
of my admission would be submitted to the faculty, One week, two
weeks, elapsed, when one day I received a letter running thus:
. “CoLUMBIAN CoLLEGE, Oct. 7, 1869.
“Mrs. Betva A. Lock woop: ye
“MapaM,—The Faculty of Columbian College have considered
your request to be admitted to the Law Department of this institu-
tion, and, after due consultation, have considered that such admission’
would not be expedient, as it would be likely to distract the atten-
“ Respectfully,
“Gro. W. Samson, Pres,”
I was much chagrined by this slap in the face, and the inference to
be drawn from it, that my rights and privileges were not to be con-
sidered a moment whenever they came in conflict with those of the
opposite sex. My husband counselled that T should keep silence about’
it, as his relations with Dr. Samson, as ministers and co-laborers in .
the same church, had hitherto been friendly, But the truth would
out. The newspaper men got hold of it, as newspaper men will,
and came to me and demanded to see the letter, declaring that the
action of Dr. Samson was a matter of public interest. My husband
protested ; but I read them the letter, retaining the original, which I
still have.
Next year the National University Law School was opened, and,
ostensibly as a part of its plan to admit women to membership on the
game terms as young men, I was invited, with other ladies, to attend
the classes, and gladly accepted. At its first session, fifteen ladies ma-
Lockwood-0068_08
reformatted digital
Belva Ann Lockwood Papers, SCPC-DG-098 --http://archives.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/resources/scpc-dg-098
Lockwood-0068_08