five or six others have been in the school at different times. The first woman to grad uate was Mrs. Ada H. Kepley, of Effingham, Ill., who took her degree in June, 1870, hav ing previously studied in her husband's office. She was not admitted to the bar at that time, the adverse decision in Mrs. Bradwell's case (which will be referred to later on) barring the way against her; but in 1881 she was given her license, and has practised to some extent, having good success with all that she has attempted. Her most active efforts have been given to temperance work. Miss Alice D. Merrill, of Chicago, was the next woman to graduate, in 1878, but of her I can learn nothing. Neither do I hear from Miss Phebe M. Bartlett, also of Chicago, who graduated in 1880. Miss Bessie Bradwell, of the same city, graduated in 1882, being chosen orator of her class for the commencement exercises, and was admitted to the bar. This young lady is one of a legal family. To quote from an article in a Western paper : — "Through ex-Judge James B. Bradwell, the family of which he is head achieved legal distinction. Through Myra, his wife, it at tained legal celebrity." Mrs. Bradwell stud ied law under her husband's instruction, and in August, 1869, she passed the examination for the Chicago Bar, but admission was re fused her on the ground of sex.1 On a writ of error, the case was taken up to the U. S. Supreme Court, where, however, she was again unsuccessful,2 though Chief-Justice Chase dissented from the opinion against her. Later on, in March, 1882, the Legislature of Illinois passed a law forbidding the exclusion of any person "from any occupation, profes sion, or employment (except military), on account of sex." But meanwhile Mrs. Brad well had established on a solid foundation the well-known paper, " The Chicago Legal News," and had no time for law practice, and she has never been admitted to the bar, except by courtesy as an honorary 1 Bradwell v. The State, 55 Ill. 535. 3 Bradwell v. The State, 16 Wall. 130.
member. The two children of Judge and Mrs. Bradwell, a son and a daughter, are both lawyers; and the daughter has also married a lawyer, Frank A. Helmer, Esq. Mrs. Helmer is not in active practice, but aids her husband in his business, and has also compiled, unassisted, the last ten volumes of Bradwell's Appellate Court Reports. Another legal editor, Mrs. Catharine V. Waite, comes next in the list of graduates from the Union College of Law, in 1886 Mrs. Waite writes me that she read law at different times with her husband, ex-Judge C. B. Waite. In 1885 she entered the law school, graduated, and was admitted to the bar in 1886. She has practised little, but immediately upon graduation she established the " Chicago Law Times," a quarterly maga zine of great interest and merit, which she has edited and published ever since. She has five children, one of her daughters being a physician of unusual ability; and as is the case with Mrs. Bradwell, her family relations are of the closest and pleasantest. But the women attorneys of Illinois are by no means all middle-aged nor all mar ried. In the same class with Mrs. Waite, there was another woman, Miss Catharine G. Waugh, of Rockford, Ill., who was at that time about twenty-two or twenty-three years of age. She is one of the brightest and ablest of the young women of the profession in the West, though she modestly disclaims any such merit. She studied a year in a law office, and the following year in the Law School, was admitted to the bar in 1886, and has been steadily in practice at Rockford since. She does all varieties of work, foreclosing mortgages, obtaining divorces, drafting wills, collecting claims, settling es tates, and occasionally appearing in probate and justice courts, but seldom doing any thing in criminal law. She was for a year or two professor of commercial law in the business college of her city. She is entitled to write the title A.M. as well as LLB. after her name.
