“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
Continue Reading “I am bound to get in if I climb up the roof and go down the chimney.”
“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.
May 6, 1871 Woman’s Journal
Lavinia queried how much of a woman’s time would be spent in
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“A woman does not become unwomanly by entering fields in which man has heretofore been the principal worker.”
Lavinia Goodell, April 1871
Lavinia Goodell was a lifelong proponent of woman’s suffrage. Although American women did not win the right to the ballot until forty years after her death, during her lifetime Lavinia wrote many articles promoting suffrage. In April 1871, a few months before she left her job at Harper’s Bazar and moved to Wisconsin, Lavinia wrote the first
Continue Reading “A woman does not become unwomanly by entering fields in which man has heretofore been the principal worker.”
“The love of the aged is glorious.”
Lavinia Goodell, 1860
Lavinia Goodell was an astute observer, and she enjoyed writing about peoples’ relationships. In the summer of 1860, twenty-one year old Lavinia wrote a short story titled “Old Lovers” for her father’s newspaper, the Principia. The narrator of the story, a young woman, meets an elderly couple in the ladies’ sitting room of the train station in the “little village of C” in western New York. (“C” perhaps
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“Baby’s rights was the watchword.”
Maria Goodell Frost, speaking of her sister Lavinia as an infant
On May 2, 1839, Rhoda Lavinia Goodell was born in Utica, New York.
A previous post recounted her father’s letter informing his father-in-law about the birth. Lavinia’s sister, Maria, who was twelve years old at the time, reminisced about the event in her unpublished biography of Lavinia:
Thursday, the 2nd day of May 1839 was ushered into the household a being who seemed
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“If we are true to our own higher nature, we cannot fail.”
Lavinia Goodell, 1858
Graduation season is just around the corner. In 1858, Lavinia Goodell graduated from the Brooklyn Heights Seminary, a school for girls.
Lavinia wrote a graduation essay, which was read by a male professor at the commencement ceremony. Maria Goodell Frost included a rough draft of the essay in her unpublished biography of her sister. At age nineteen, Lavinia was still developing as a writer,
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“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
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“Folks don’t write Sundays.”
Lavinia Goodell to her father, early 1840s
According to the unpublished biography of Lavinia Goodell written by her older sister, Maria Goodell Frost, Lavinia’s first experience attending church was in Whitesboro, New York. The minister was Rev. Beriah Green.
Beriah Green
Green was born in Connecticut in 1795. He became the pastor of a Congregational church in the early 1820s. By the 1830s he became acquainted with William Lloyd Garrison and became a staunch abolitionist,
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“She shall be worth ten thousand dollars to you, Brother Goodell.”
Attorney Alvan Stewart to William Goodell, 1842
One of the first lawyers Lavinia Goodell ever met was Alvan Stewart.
Alvan Stewart, Esq.
Born in 1790 in New York State, Stewart had the reputation of a brilliant lawyer. Alvan Stewart moved to Utica in 1832, and the Goodell family was living in Utica at the time of Lavinia’s birth in 1839. In addition to his law practice, Stewart was
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“The future for women law graduates is bright”
Emily Kempin-Spyri, first woman law graduate in Switzerland, 1888
Arabella Mansfield is often cited as the first woman lawyer in the United States, gaining admission to the bar in 1869 (although she never practiced). By the time Lavinia Goodell was admitted to practice law in Wisconsin in 1874, she joined a small coterie of a dozen or so other American women. A previous post featured Lidia Poët, Italy’s first woman
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“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.
Dr. Laura Ross Wolcott
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
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“The position of lawyer was an office exercisable only by males.”
Court of Appeals of Turin, Italy in ordering the disbarment of Lidia Poët, Italy’s first woman lawyer, in 1883
When Lavinia Goodell was denied the right to appear before the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1876, the Chief Justice wrote that by appearing in court a woman would “unsex” herself and commit “treason against nature.” Lidia Poët, Italy’s first woman lawyer, was subjected to very similar sentiments by an
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“Lydia Maria Child has a good letter to the editor.”
Clarissa Goodell to Lavinia Goodell, March 3, 1866
Best known for her Thanksgiving poem “Over the river and through the woods,” Lydia Maria (pronounced Mar – eye – ah, the same pronunciation as Lavinia Goodell’s sister Maria Goodell Frost’s name) Child was an influential nineteenth century woman author. She was also an ardent abolitionist who was well known to Lavinia Goodell and her family. (In an 1861 letter, Child
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“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.
Sarah Smiley
Ms. Smiley was born in Maine in 1830. She initially wanted to become a teacher but after
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“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.
Dr. Lyman Whiting
In addition to his church obligations, Dr. Whiting
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“There is going to be a big time here in N.Y. when the 15th Amendment has become a law.”
Lavinia Goodell, March 6, 1870
The 15th Amendment, which provides, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” was ratified in early 1870. Lavinia Goodell had grown up in a staunchly abolitionist family and
Continue Reading “There is going to be a big time here in N.Y. when the 15th Amendment has become a law.”